Page 5 of Hot Shot
“Huh.” I glance around the room, my eyes landing on the coffee table, the upright bottle in the middle of it. “Not even a bottle,” I mutter.
So much for wiping my mind clean and missing today all together.
“How are you doing, Bran?” Walker asks, concern lacing his words, and I look up to find him staring at the bottle of scotch with its inch of amber liquid in the bottom.
I have to laugh. They think I’m a drunk. Fair, considering. Still…
“You think I’m drunk all the time?” I shake my head as I pull my shirt off and slap my abs. “Do these look like I live on alcohol?”
Walker smiles at me and for some reason I want to punch it right off his face even though he appears pleased by my declaration.
“Wanna put those to good use?” he asks.
I raise an eyebrow and shove down the anger boiling to the surface. “Doing?”
“Playing.”
“Ha! Like any team is going to want me after what I did.” I hate what I did. Would take it back—all of it—if I could.
“The Rogues want you.” The woman’s words are like a whip, snapping at me and yanking my attention back to her. “We need someone with your skills and experience to guide us to the finals.”
“Who the hell are the Rogues?” This conversation is getting more confusing by the second.
Fuck. I must still be asleep. Maybe the scotch I drank in the hope of wiping my memory—of avoiding today—is giving me weird dreams. Hallucinations. Nightmares.
No, the nightmares are of my own making.
“The new national league franchise.” Walker claps me on the shoulder. “I want you on my team.”
“You’re playing for them? When did you leave New York?” I don’t keep up with the world outside of my self-imposed exile and I don’t know what shocks me more, Walker leaving the Knights—where he’s been his entire NHL career—for another team or him standing in my living room.
“When Blanchett slammed me into the boards and left me unable to play at a professional level.”
“Wait. You’re not playing? Then how the hell would I be on your team?”
“I’m coaching. Head coach.”
Head coach?Holy shit!Walker Alcott is coaching an NHL team? From what he says, a brand spanking new team who wants me…
I look at the woman beside my old captain. “And who the hell are you? The general manager?”
“No. That’s Natalie Redding. I’m the team owner and this”—she waves a hand behind me—“is our assistant coach, Blake Watts.”
I spin so fast I stumble, air rushing from my lungs as my heart jerks in my chest, slams against my ribcage. “Blake.” Her name is an agonized groan as it leaves my throat.
My gaze locks with hers and I lose myself in her quicksilver eyes, every emotion, every thought, every memory comes rushing, an avalanche of sensation I struggle to hold in.
“I…” My body moves a step without thought. “Blake.” Her name is a plea on my tongue, the weight of all that I’m feeling coating each letter. Weighing them down with regret—with longing.
“Bran.”
Her voice…
My name…
The sight of her…
It’s too much.
