Page 185 of Cold As Ice

“Agreed,” Noah nodded.

“Well, this got depressing as shit.” I clambered to my feet. “We still have a game to win tomorrow, you know.”

The guys followed suit.

“Madison and Imogen are coming, right?” Noah asked.

“I fucking hope so.”

It had been a long couple of days without seeing my girls.

“Still surprised you didn’t insist on bringing them down earlier.”

“Kayleigh needed help with an event and Madison has this thing about paying her own way.”

Which I wanted to respect.

She was used to being independent, doing things her way. I didn’t want to bulldoze my way in and take over.

Besides, the schedule was crazy and didn’t leave much downtime for players to spend it with their friends and family so having them come down tomorrow was probably for the best.

“Any regrets about telling the Canucks you weren’t interested?”

I shook my head. “None.”

“I always knew you were going to fall harder than the rest of us.” He smirked and I flipped him off.

“We should probably head in before Coach Walsh comes looking for us,” Aiden said. “But before we do, I just want to say, playing hockey with you all has been the privilege of my life.”

“Fucking hell, Cap, you’re not dying. Who knows where we might meet in the future. There could be more games in our future, we just might be on opposite sides of the ice.”

Aiden shot Noah an exasperated look and skated off toward the tunnel.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” I shook my head and took off after Aiden.

“What? What did I do?” Noah called after me.

Damn. I was going to miss these guys. But I was excited to see what the future had in store for us all.

Starting with winning the national championship in front of my girls tomorrow.

MADISON

“Wooks, Mommy. Wooks at it.” Imogen stared up at the PPG Paints Arena as if it was the most magical thing she’d ever seen. “It’s so… shiny.”

“It is pretty impressive, isn’t it.” Rory squeezed her hand gently. “Austin is going to be so happy to see you, princess.”

“We can sees him befores the game?”

“We talked about this, remember?” I said. “We’ll be able to see him after.”

“But I needs to wish him good luck.”

“We already did that, baby.”

“It’s not the sames.” She pouted. “I wanted to gives him one of my special kisses.”

The girls all laughed.

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