by Cari Quinn
“I know why they are acting that way,” Sebastian said, his eyes shifting away before he met her gaze once more.
“Why?” She was afraid of what he might say, yet still wanted to hear it. Needed to hear it.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.” He bit his lip and she knotted her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t reach out and snag that bottom lip from where his teeth worried it. “The guys would kill me, but I think you have a right to know what you’re up against. Some of them don’t take you seriously because…” Sebastian gestured in her direction.
Sarah glanced at herself then back at him. “What? What is it about me that’s causing the guys to not take me seriously? I need to know so I can fix it.”
Sebastian’s eyes glittered like the finest emeralds. “You’re a beautiful woman. And you can’t fix that.”
She scoffed. Who was he seeing? It wasn’t Sarah Jenkins, math geek extraordinaire. Sarah exited the car before he could make any more outrageous comments. He didn’t seem like the type to tease, but really, who could think she was beautiful? Turning back to his open window, she said, “I know I’m no model, but you really didn’t need to lie to me.”
Sebastian shot out of the car. “Who is lying?”
“Leave me alone, please.”
“Sarah—”
“No. I need to go.” She got into her car and pealed out of the parking ramp as Sebastian watched, his face a mask of confusion.
Of course it is. I’ve been sending mixed signals all damn night.
There was no doubt in her mind Sebastian had been making a move to kiss her before she bolted from the table. There was also no doubt she’d wanted him to; she’d encouraged him to. But she didn’t understand why he’d try to tell her other guys said she was beautiful. She was a math geek with Medusa hair. Did he think it would win him brownie points?
As she pulled into her driveway, she berated herself. What is the matter with me? I get handed this unbelievable opportunity on a silver platter, and what do I do? One of the very things that could get me fired. Even considering any sort of relationship outside the rink with one of the players was career suicide.
And yet I did. I am. Despite knowing all of this, she wanted him with every fiber of her being.
* * *
“Where’ve you been?” Rob asked when Sebastian returned from dinner with Sarah.
“I went out to dinner.” There wasn’t any point in lying.
“Alone?” Rob said like it was a horrible thing, and Sebastian smiled a little. Rob would never survive eating a meal by himself. Who would he talk to?
Sebastian debated whether or not he should confess who he’d been with. Rob was his best friend, and he could use someone to talk to about this. In the end, that need won. “I, um, I was with Sarah.” Sebastian dared a glance at his friend, whose face was a mixture of surprise and disbelief.
Rob leaned back on the couch and took a sip of the bottle of water in his hand before spearing Sebastian with a hard stare. “You gonna tell me why you were out on what sounds like a date with a woman who works for the team?”
Sebastian crossed the room and sank into a recliner. Toeing off his dress shoes, he said, “I like her.”
Lame, dude.
“I like her too. She’s easy on the eyes, I’ll give you that, and she’s cool, but I’m not about to start dating her.”
Sebastian cleared his throat. He had to get this off his chest. “I tried to kiss her.”
Rob sat up straight. “Are you kidding me? Bud, that’s not a good idea.”
“I know.” He’d already gone over this in his head, and now all he could latch onto was a mixture of confusion about what to do and irritation at his friend for pointing out the obvious.
“What happened? What the hell were you thinking?” Rob plunked the water bottle down on the coffee table and some liquid splashed out, but he ignored it, instead focusing on Sebastian, who was thinking a trip to the kitchen for paper towels didn’t sound like a bad idea. The way Rob was grilling him reminded Sebastian of someone being questioned for a crime.
“I wasn’t thinking, apparently. She freaked and ran into the bathroom. We left right after that, and when I dropped her back at her car, she told me we couldn’t date.”
“At least one of you has her head on straight.”
“Give me a break, man. I’ve never known anything like this before.”
“Well, you better get over it. You can’t afford any distractions, and dating someone who works for the team is way beyond a distraction.” Rob leaned back, shaking his head.
“I know. I just…” Sebastian scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s like she hit me on my blind side. I wasn’t expecting this.”
Rob gave a noncommittal grunt and Sebastian rose, pulling his shirt out of his pants. “I’m gonna take a shower and then go to bed. See you in the morning.”
“Remember what I said.”
As Sebastian walked past, he waved Rob off, too upset to discuss the matter further. Forgetting Sarah was easier said than done, especially since he saw her every day. Deep down he realized Rob was right. He shouldn’t get involved with Sarah. It wasn’t the way to impress the management that he was ready for the NHL, and it could get her in a lot of trouble. Sighing, he went to take his shower.
Chapter Four
The next day before practice, Sebastian was lumbering toward the stick rack when he noticed Sarah examining his stick. He stopped and leaned against the opposite wall. He wasn’t one of those guys who freaked if someone touched his stick. After watching her for a few seconds and taking a minute to appreciate her beauty, his curiosity got the better of him. “What’re you doing?”
She spun, blushing. “I was wondering if you’d try something for me.”
Oh, now you want something from me?
“What do you want me to do?” He smirked, but she didn’t react.
Geez, not even a smile. Maybe she was really serious about that not dating stuff last night. He was surprised how disappointed he felt.
“You’ve got a pretty open face on your stick.” She indicated the blade. “Would you be willing to change your angle from the present one to bring it up to about here?” Sarah used her hand to simulate changing the angle about thirty degrees and Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up.
“It’ll be pretty close to an illegal stick if it’s got that kind of a curve on it. Why do you want me to do this, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m not saying I won’t, I would just like to hear your reason.”
“You like to take slap shots, and this change might give you more power.”
Sebastian frowned. “But I’ve been trying to work on my wrist shot. My slap shot is already good.”
“I know, but if you want to be here come opening day you might want to focus on what you do best—scoring with a slap shot.”
Sebastian grunted but said nothing. She had a point.
“Try it with one stick, use it at one practice. If you really don’t like it, switch back to the old curve using one of your other sticks.”
“I’ll try it.”
“Thank you. I’ll be watching to see how you do with it.”
Sebastian liked that thought a lot. He went and got out the blowtorch with a grin. Hey, he was a guy, and guys liked playing with fire. All different kinds of fire.
Once he got the stick like Sarah wanted, he went out on the ice with all the other guys who were taking shots on Jordan, the backup goaltender. As soon as he stepped onto the ice, Sarah leaned forward. Sebastian liked that she’d come to him to test this out. Obviously, there were other players she could’ve asked. Maybe it meant she trusted him more.
After spending a couple of minutes getting used to the new curvature, he lined up a puck and stepped into the shot. Jordan’s arm shot backward, but Sebastian didn’t see the puck in the net. He winced along with Jordan as the puck dropped out of the guy’s glove.
The goaltender took the glove off to shake his hand out. “Geez, Seb, give
a guy a warning. That freaking hurt.”
“Sorry about that.” Sebastian skated over and tapped his stick on Jordan’s pads then headed toward Sarah. “Uh, I’d say that’s a success, at least so far. I’ll keep using it to make sure it doesn’t interfere with my puck handling, but that was pretty cool. I had no idea a thing like that could make my shot so much harder.”
His skates kicking up snow, Jon pulled up next to him. “What’s up?”
Someone shot a puck that glanced off the crossbar and the telltale ping caused them to flinch.
Jordan mocked the man who’d taken the shot. “Hey Rick, that the best you got?” Another puck sailed in but missed the net by a foot and careened into the glass. Jordan laughed and Sebastian pivoted away, smiling.
“I asked Sebastian to make a change to his stick to see if he could get more power behind his slap shot,” Sarah explained.
Sebastian showed Jon the new stick and Jon nodded. “Do some work with the cones before you change any others.” He sent a look to Sarah that Sebastian couldn’t miss. It was a mixture of “ask me first before you ask them to change their equipment” and “good job.” “Interesting.”
That one word spoke volumes, and Sebastian was excited for Sarah. Maybe this would work out for her after all. He hoped so. He wasn’t nearly ready to say goodbye to her yet, even if, according to her, they couldn’t date.
A few days later while the All-Star goalie Brendan Barsanti was in net during practice, Sarah stood, staring at the guy through a protractor. Sebastian, who’d been watching Sarah covertly whenever he had a minute, raised an eyebrow and casually skated closer.
“What on earth are you doing?” Doug asked her.
“I think Brendan’s weight’s not centered.”
“And a protractor is going to help you see that?”
She took her eyes off the ice for a minute to address Doug. “A protractor measures angles, so yeah, it will.” With that pronouncement, she returned her attention to the practice and Doug shrugged.
A few moments later she grabbed a T-square and held that up.
Now what the hell is she doing? Even through Brendan’s goalie mask, Sebastian could see the same question in his expression, but Brendan didn’t ask questions and quickly returned to his task.
Sarah let the T-square dangle. Then her gaze shot between the tool and Brendan.
An unhappy-looking Jon skated over, and Sebastian braced himself to watch Sarah get yelled at. “Can you either put that stuff down or tell me what you’re doing? You’re distracting the players.”
“Oh. Sure. Well, I’ve been watching Brendan and he’s not square.” Sarah didn’t appear fazed, or if she was, she hid it well, and Sebastian was proud of her for standing her ground. Many would’ve retreated when faced with Jon’s wrath.
“Square to the shooter? Of course he is. Brendan has excellent technique.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Based on the way he was repeatedly tapping his stick on the boards, Jon was losing patience.
“Do these guys see chiropractors?” Sarah asked.
Several of the players in the area had stopped what they were doing to listen to the exchange and Sebastian felt a little better about eavesdropping.
Jon’s eyebrows drew down, seemingly confused. “Yeahhhh, if they need to.”
“I know this sounds crazy, but could you send him and ask that the chiro check out his hips and shoulders?”
“Sure.” Jon smirked. “Since he’s not square, you said?”
Sebastian tamped his annoyance. Sarah needed to keep her cool, even if she was being made fun of, or she’d never get taken seriously, but it wasn’t cool for Jon to treat her like that.
“If he’s leaning one way, even unconsciously, it’s affecting his ability to make saves, to handle the puck—”
Jon held up a gloved hand. “Fine. But you can be the bearer of good news that the kid’s crooked.” He skated away and Sarah now focused on Doug, who shrugged.
“With any luck you’re right about Brendan like you were about Sebastian,” Doug said, “and then maybe they’ll see there’s something to all this math stuff after all.”
And if she’s not right, she’ll look like an idiot…but if she says Brendan’s “crooked,” he probably is. Sebastian trusted her judgment. His slap shot was noticeably more accurate with the change she’d made to his stick.
“I believe in this stuff, even if he doesn’t.” She glanced up and Sebastian caught her eye, giving her a reassuring smile. Her face relaxed and she smiled back.
It was the best thing that had happened to him all day.
The next morning before the team took the ice, Jon came into the video room. “You were right. Brendan’s hips weren’t square.”
Sebastian watched Sarah’s face and saw the play of emotions across it—she was pleased, surely, but also a little surprised. Probably since Jon had admitted publicly she’d been right. Sebastian couldn’t recall any other time the coach had done so since Sarah had been there.
“The doc did an adjustment. I have no idea if it’ll make a difference one way or the other, and I’d prefer it if you didn’t start getting out all sorts of complicated tools during practice, but good job anyway.”
Sebastian, for one, was eager to get to practice to see how Brendan did. Some of the other players were intrigued too, which was a good thing. This could be the start of the other guys developing faith in Sarah’s ideas.
It was difficult to discern a difference, but after practice ended Brendan lumbered over to Sarah. Sebastian not-so-subtly eavesdropped on the conversation. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think that adjustment yesterday worked. I couldn’t tell you for the life of me why, but I hadn’t been entirely comfortable in the net. I felt much better today.”
Jon joined them. “How’d it go?”
“Great. I was just telling Sarah there was something just a little bit wrong before. I’d chalked it up to my rustiness, but it’s gone now, so maybe she was right.”
Jon’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? Just like that?”
“Well, we’ll see if it continues tomorrow, but yeah. Today was good.” Brendan went to the locker room and Jon faced Sarah.
“I still don’t like you fiddling with stuff on the bench and distracting the guys, but if this adjustment really did make Brendan more comfortable, maybe you’re onto something.”
Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up. That was high praise from Jon.
Sarah smiled. “Thanks.”
Jon skated away and Doug let out a low whistle. “Nice going, Sherlock.”
Sarah laughed. “Yeah, now I just need about a million other things to work and they won’t all think I’m a waste of oxygen.”
Oh, ma belle, you’re so much more than a waste of oxygen. I want to show you everything you are.
Doug grabbed her hand as she reached for her stuff. “I work with you day in and day out, and I don’t think you’re a waste. I’m excited.”
Sebastian’s eyes were glued to the joining of their hands. Was something going on between the two of them? That would pretty much shoot to shit her assertion she couldn’t date someone who worked for the team, and Doug was married.
“Thanks. That really means a lot.” Sarah glanced in Sebastian’s direction and he debated for about two seconds if he should let her see his jealousy.
In the end, his possessive nature won out. He glared at Doug, and Sarah raised an eyebrow. Sebastian pivoted and then skated off the ice. He’d shown her his hand again, but couldn’t find it within himself to regret it. His heart was simply not listening.
* * *
One day, Sarah arrived at the rink to find a large, clumsily wrapped box covering the entire surface of her desk. The attached card read “To Sarah, from the guys.” Her guard immediately rose. She gingerly picked up the package, half expecting it to be a goat or something equally awful as evidence of a bizarre hockey hazing ritual.
Hockey player
s were known pranksters, but so far she’d escaped unscathed. Strangely, if they were playing a prank on her, it would make her feel more like a part of the team. Why would they bother if they didn’t like her? At this point, several of the players were seeking her out to ask questions, but there were still some holdouts who sneered every time she tried to explain something.
There was no way she was opening this thing in her office though. Keeping it at arm’s length as best she could—the box probably measured three feet by five feet—she carried it into the video room, where the morning meeting was set to begin in a few moments. The package is so large but yet so light. A few of the men smirked as she walked in and her hackles rose.
When Rick, the team’s enforcer and one of the biggest pranksters, spotted her, he shouted, “Hey, guys! She’s opening it in the video room!”
The rest of the team swarmed in from the locker and training rooms. It was strange to have the team all gathered and waiting for her to open this mysterious gift. Even more so, it was hard not be suspicious with all those impish faces grinning at her.
Sarah fixed the guys with a stern look, making eye contact with each one, though she skittered right over Sebastian. She definitely didn’t need that distraction with the entire team watching her. “All right, I want you all to promise this isn’t a live animal. I mean, you didn’t even poke holes in the box.”
They molded their faces into innocent expressions, mostly without success. She inspected the sides for clues, but it appeared to have regular sides and a top.
Ben, the captain and de-facto leader of the motley crew of players, said, “It’s not alive, we promise.”
“Good. I was afraid this was some kind of sick hazing ritual with a live goat or something,” she said. But if it wasn’t holding something alive, what the heck was it?
Rumblings of “should’ve done that” and “now that’s a good idea” went up from the boys.
Sarah laughed. She’d laughed more in the past month than she had in her entire life previous to coming here.
“Well, open it already.” Rick sounded much more like a petulant five-year-old than a six foot, five inch, two hundred sixty pound on-ice pugilist, known more commonly in the hockey world as an enforcer.
