Page 57 of Zero Pucks Given
I whirled to face my friend. “Sharon!”
“I’m sorry! Kyle and I tell each other everything.”
“Everything,” Kyle agreed, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
“I don’t know why you’re smiling,” I told him. “Sharon tellsmeeverything, too. Including that thing you tried to do in bed the other night, you pervert.”
His smile disappeared, and he quickly turned back to the game. “You don’t have to be an ass about it.”
“You started it,” I replied.
“Water’s boiling!” Sharon said. “No talking from this point forward, Kyle. Are you ready?”
I nodded.
She tapped the wireless remote that controlled the three cameras in the kitchen, then smiled brightly for the one in the middle. “We’re back and ready to boil our pasta. Now, the key with this is to get a rolling boil, but as soon as you add…”
She cut off when my phone rang in my pocket.
“I thought you put Do Not Disturb on?” Sharon complained.
“I have a few contacts who are exempt. You and Grayson are two of them…”
“He’s on the ice, so it can’t be him,” Kyle said.
I sighed when I saw the name on my phone. “Sorry, but I have to take this. This is Josie Harper.”
Bob Trent’s voice drifted through the phone. “Josie. Hope I’m not calling at a bad time. I just stopped by your beer stand, but you’re not there.”
“I’ve got the night off. What’s up?”
“We’ve finished the plans for your next date with Grayson. The final date in the contract.”
I was excited, but only for a second. “I thought you said we were going to wait until after the playoffs?”
“I changed my mind. We’ve got a new plan for your date, a way to tie it into the playoff series against the Oilers. But I need to verify something with you first.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you have a passport?”
28
Grayson
Playoffs.
The part of the season thattrulymattered.
In a vacuum, making the playoffs wasn’t that impressive. Out of the 32 teams in the National Hockey League, 16 made the playoffs each year. Half the league. Basically, if you flipped a coin and it ended up heads, you were in.
But the Surge were a fledgling franchise. It was our first season in the league. Typically, new teams wallowed in mediocrity for a few years before they became good enough to play beyond the regular season.
After the final game of the season, when we were officially in, we celebrated with champagne and beer in the locker room. Small victories mattered, and it was a long season, so it was important to celebrate any chance we got.
But the next day, everyone shifted their mindset.
The San Antonio Surge were in the Western Conference, and we were matched up against the Edmonton Oilers in the first round. We were a Wild Card team, and they were the number one seed. The best team in the conference. They were the heavy favorites, and we were massive underdogs.
