We raced down the concourse, rudely shoving our way past people until we reached our section. A quick glance past the usher at the open ice confirmed we’d made it in time. We slid into our blue-line glass seats as the team took the ice. Perfect timing.
Like I had super-Josh-radar, I found him the moment he skated onto the ice. My smile erupted as I heard the arena burst in applause at the team’s arrival. My eyes couldn’t leave Josh.
“Holy shit, girl, you’ve got it bad.”
My smile spread wider, accepting the riot of emotions within me. “You have no clue.” I loved him. But more than that, I wasn’t just proud of the player out there, I was in awe of the man he’d become. “Did you know he got hurt?”
She nodded her head. “Yeah, he was out last year, but I didn’t really talk to him. I mean, he was on campus and at the parties, but it’s not like we ran in the same circles, even living next door. Did he tell you what happened?”
I shook my head.
“Rumor is he got shot that fall, but there’s like ten thousand different versions of how it happened.”
Shot. Holy shit, he’d been shot? “What’s the most popular?”
“I heard everything from stopping a robbery to a pissed-off girlfriend.”
Tweedledee and Tweedledum took their seats behind us again. What were the odds? These were the seats Josh had given us . . . Josh. I glanced back at the blondes with a smile. “Nice to see you, ladies.”
Tweedledee glared at me. “Yeah. What’s the deal with you and Walker?”
I gave my best go-to-hell smile. “He’s just my whatever. You guys enjoy the game, okay?”
I turned around and ignored their scoffs and comments about how hot Josh was. I couldn’t blame any of the population for fawning over him. Hell, by the end of the first period, he had me reduced to nearly drooling with want. When he checked someone into the boards, I flashed back to feeling him press me against a wall, undoubtedly his signature move. When I watched him skating backward, I remembered him pulling me down the ice, so careful with me. When he took a shot, I saw his fist flying through Riley’s face, ready to destroy him for hurting me. When he adjusted his grip on the stick, I swore I could feel his hands on my body. The temperature in the rink called for a coat, but I was on freaking fire.
He scored, his arms raised in victory, and he met my eyes with a joyful smile before being assaulted by his teammates. It was me he was searching for.
There was no way to deny it, and I didn’t want to. I was in love with him.
By the end of the third period, I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t care they’d won, or that Josh had scored two of the five goals and assisted one. I just wanted him alone. The buzzer announced the end of the game, and the arena exploded in applause.
“Hey, can you take my car home for me?” I asked Sam as we waited for the crowd to clear the concrete stairway.
“Planning on catching a ride with a certain player?” She winked.
“Something tells me he’ll bring me home.” I laughed, and it felt good. I could do this, be happy, if that’s what this ecstatic feeling bubbling through me was.
I might have skipped down the back of the arena to the player’s entrance for all my feet hit the floor. I had to tell him. He needed to know. I didn’t even care if he reciprocated. Well, that was a lie. Of course I cared, but it was more of an epiphany that I could feel this way again and not hide it. It wasn’t about what he felt for me as much as it was what I was now capable of feeling for him.
The hallway was crowded, but I found a spare piece of wall and waited while the Tweedle twins glared from near the entrance. I understood their infatuation, but they didn’t know him. No one knew him like I did. To them, he was a hot hockey player and a great lay. To me . . . he was everything.
Anticipation made the wait seem like forever, but the first players finally trickled out, shaking hands and giving high fives down the lined walkway. I didn’t have to wait long.
Josh burst through the locker-room doors and the hallway was filled with thunderous approval. He gave his cocky smile, the one that had girls flocking around him, touching him, but he cut through.
His eyes swept up and down the corridor before locking onto mine. The smile that came across his face was anything but cocky. It was the slow, sexy one he reserved for me. It made me think of peeling his clothes off his body right where he stood and made me bolder with every step he took closer to me.
I reached for his hand, and he brought mine to his lips, kissing the back. “Thanks for coming.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
Our moment was interrupted by Tweedledee and Tweedledum. “Hey, Josh, give us a ride to the after-party?”
They slid up against him, one on the side, one on the front, doing their best to push me out of the way. How aggressive could two girls get? He expertly turned, sliding me past the girls. “Ember? Do you want to go to the after-party?”
I shook my head slowly, ready to burst with everything I needed to tell him. I couldn’t contain it, or it was going to come shining out of me like I was some dysfunctional Care Bear.
He gave a nod. “Want to end the night? I’ll take you home, babe.”
“Walker! You ready to go for that division trophy?” someone in the crowd shouted.
“I’ve already got my trophy!” he called back with a heart-stopping grin. He lifted me by my hips, holding me above his head. “I’d better put you back in that glass case,” he teased.