BLAZE: Enemies to Lovers College Hockey Romance by Eddie Cleveland (ebook reader macos .txt) 📕

You are a good person, and you did a good job. Look at me.” I squeeze her tightly.

“I don’t know if that’s a great example,” she teases me. Her eyes soften. “So why do you want to keep it quiet?”

“Tomorrow is the last game. This is the time for mindfulness and visualization. If I go announcing it to the team that we’re a thing, how are they gonna concentrate? They’ll all be fighting about who will get to be my best man.”

Prissy laughs. “Um, was that a proposal?”

“No. That was a joke. Not a proposal. I hope you expect more than that for a proposal. How low are your standards?”

“I’m joking. Besides, I wouldn’t marry you.” Her eyes sparkle, and I can see she’s lying.

“Yeah you would.”

“Nope,” she insists. “You’re just not good husband material.”

“Pfft, name three reasons I’m not good - ”

“You think you’re God’s gift to women. Too many girls agree with you. Oh, and you’re obnoxiously cocky.” She prattles off her reasons, ticking her points off on her fingers.

“Wow. Okay. So, I wasn’t expecting you to just fire off a whole list like that.” Prissy laughs. “Like, how much time are you spending thinking about this? You were just ready with those?” I tease her.

“First of all, you love how cocky I am. It makes me good in bed.” I pull her in toward me.

“Second, I can’t control how many women fall for me, it’s just the way it is when you look like this.” My smile broadens as she rolls her eyes. “I mean, can you blame them?”

Prissy pulls the pillow out from under my head and bonks me in the face with it. “Seriously?”

“Hey, just wait a second. I wasn’t done. Listen, I might not be able to control how bad they want a piece of this, but I’m not sharing. I’m not noticing either, okay? There’s way too many things about you that keep me distracted. Like your fine ass.”

“Blaze!” The pillow hits me again, and Prissy giggles.

“Hey, you didn’t let me finish.” I throw my arms over for protection from her pillow attack. “Also all the other things. Because of your beauty, and your smarts and your personality.”

Prissy sits back and sighs. “You’re a handful, you know that?”

“You love it.” I pull her back down under the covers with me. “C’mon, admit it. You’d marry me.”

“Well…” she doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t disagree either. And right now, that’s enough for me.

I slide my hand down her back until I cup her cheek and give it a squeeze. “Now, let me see some more of that fine ass.”

30

Raising Roosters Priscilla

This has to be the longest amount of time I’ve shared a space with Canuck without hearing him say something dumb. He’s very quiet sitting next to me, but it’s not just him. The entire bus is weirdly calm and cool. I’ve shared early morning shuttles and late-night buses with Westbury’s hockey elite. At best, it’s been varying degrees of loud.

The whirr of rolling tires against pavement and the shuffle of winter coats against bus seats are songs on the soundtrack of our drive to the arena. I have no doubt every guy on here is trying to whittle their thoughts down to the final game, or even to one single word: Win.

The hum in the air reminds me of the white noise apps I used for major study sessions in college. Driving in to play the last game of the Frozen Four is no study session. It’s an entirely different energy. This drive is giving me too much time to think. I have a single word playing on a loop in my head too: Liar.

I’ve made some mistakes, but I have no regrets. I didn’t expect to fall in love with Blaze, but that’s what this is. I love him. I almost told him last night. I wish I did. Despite my mistakes in life, I’ve always had integrity.

Until now.

We finally pull into the arena, and the bus stops. I hang back as the team shuffles down the aisle and out into the cold. They don’t notice. They don’t even see me. They’re in the zone.

After the entire bus empties, I get off. Guys who usually can’t shut up for ten seconds are now marching wordlessly to the locker room. When Coach Wilson follows them in, it’s usually my cue to go find my seat, or at least go load up on pre-game snacks. Not today. I couldn’t eat anything if I wanted to. Not with all this guilt churning in my stomach.

I pace the floor, waiting. I know he’s giving them a good speech from the cheers. They get louder and wilder until the locker room sounds like it might explode. When the door flings open, it sounds like the coach is narrowly escaping a lion’s den at dinner time.

“Prissy? Is there something you need?”

He looks so happy. It twists the guilt inside me tighter. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.

“No, why?” I lie.

“You don’t usually wait outside the locker room.”

Integrity. It’s a word I don’t get to hold onto anymore if I can’t tell the truth.

“Actually…” I try to spit the words out before I’m too cowardly to speak them. “There is something I need to talk to you about.”

“I figured. Go ahead. My ear is yours to bend, but we gotta talk and move.” He starts walking, and I try to keep pace. He’s fast for a guy his age.

“I wanted to talk to you about my job,” I start. But it’s not really about my job. It’s about Blaze. I just can’t find the words to say it.

“Yeah, this is it, huh? One more game to get through, and you’re a free woman.” He laughs. “I would be happy to be a reference for you or write you a letter of recommendation. You didn’t have an easy task keeping Blaze reigned in. The difference I’ve seen in him has been nothing short