Tomboy

His pulse picked up, and he hunched over his phone. Well, about as much as he could, considering that even on the team plane the seats were cramped.

Zach: We’ll be in Vancouver tonight.

Her response came half a second after Stuckey, obviously impervious to Zach’s don’t-sit-by-me vibe, flopped down next to him. Zach made sure to angle his phone screen away from his younger defensive partner before reading Fallon’s message.

LL: Have a good flight.

Zach wasn’t smiling. He was grimacing in a weird way. At least that’s what he told himself when Stuckey, wearing his usual no-cares-in-the-world grin, elbowed him in the arm.

“What’s up, man? You got another muffin lady?” Stuckey asked, taking up too much room with shoulders that made Zach’s seem narrow.

Triple shit. He did not like anything that might allude to the slightest weakness being out there. “Who told you about that?”

“Man, Fitzsimmons has no chill.” Stuckey shrugged and started scrolling through his phone. “He was ready to tell the front office, wanted them to sue for endangerment or something.”

“Everything turned out fine.” He ground out the words. Defensive asshole? Him? Fuck, yeah.

“Thanks to your lucky nurse.”

As if he hadn’t just dropped a little bomb in Zach’s lap, Stuckey took the earbuds hanging around his neck and popped them into his ears.

Tension strung him tight enough to make his traps burn; not even rolling his shoulders or neck did much to ease the sudden ache. He reached over and yanked out Stuckey’s buds. “What do you know about her?”

“Dude, everyone knows about her.” He hit pause on the music blaring from the tiny white headphones. “Didn’t you see what Harbor City Nights posted on Insta? They are total stans.”

He’d gotten a few notifications, but if the posts didn’t tag him, he had no clue what was going on. Kyle’s assistant was supposed to let him know if there was gossip swirling. “I hate social media.”

“Well, it fucking has a hard-on for you and this girl.” Stuckey scrolled through his apps and pulled up Instagram. “Look, they have a ton of posts of you two at some Mexican restaurant, and you’re looking mighty cozy.”

“Let me see that.” He snatched Stuckey’s phone.

Fucking A. The pics weren’t the best—and it was creepy as fuck that someone was taking photos while they were on a non-date and not at a public event—but there was no missing it was him and Fallon. Sure, she was in a Nurses Rock T-shirt, but there was nothing else to identify her as a nurse.

“How did you know she was a nurse?” he asked.

“I swear you live under a rock.” Stuckey took his phone back and opened Tumblr. He hit on some hockey gossip account, and he started to read the post. “We are totally #TeamZuck and so are you, looking at our polls. The question is, do you ship it more for the way our new fav hockey hottie has been playing on the ice since he met his Lady Luck, or because even Harbor City’s most-hated needs the love of a good woman? We’ve got all the deets you need to know about ER nurse Fallon Hartigan, who snagged herself Zach Blackburn and helped turn around the Ice Knights’ losing streak.”

Fallon was going to flay him alive and leave him for the buzzards. And he deserved it. All he’d wanted was to get his hockey mojo back, not force Fallon out into the court of public opinion. He knew firsthand how all those little nips and bites at the ankles could end up taking a chunk out of a person.

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“Yeah, most of it’s pretty gooey, but you still don’t want your girl to look at it.” He shook his head. “Trolls, man.”

Zach glared at the other man, who still seemed totally immune to the look that sent most people scattering. “She’s not my girl and why?”

“Why isn’t she your girl?” Stuckey grinned at him, showing off every one of the dental-technician-made teeth in his mouth. “Because she obviously has taste.”

“No,” he said, trying to remain calm when he was ready to take some nameless internet troll’s head off. “Why shouldn’t she look at it?”

“Let me put it this way.” Stuckey grimaced. “My sisters are tough as shit, and some of the comments would make them cry. Lots of shit about her looks, that she needs a girl makeover.”

Zach sucked in a deep breath, trying to remember the yoga instructor’s words about the power of mindful breathing, and unpeeled his fingers from the armrest he was gripping like it was a weirdly shaped stress ball. “Bunch of assholes.”

Stuckey shrugged. “Pretty much.”

A prickly nugget of guilt burrowed into his gut. Sure, everyone in the world got used, it was the way life worked. Even though it didn’t rise to the level of what his parents did to him, what was happening to Fallon was shitty. So what in the hell did he do about it? She was his Lady Luck, and without wins on the ice, he’d be fucked, and everyone would know exactly what his parents had done and what a total chump he’d been for not seeing it. How many times had he heard his old man, his favorite uncle, coaches, and hell, just about every man he’d ever looked up to with a few exceptions reinforce that real men didn’t cry, they didn’t accept defeat, and they didn’t get made fools of—by anyone, ever. Sure, part of him knew all that was bullshit, but his reflexive reactions were what they were.

Still, there had to be something he could do to help Fallon. He needed to talk to Lucy. She’d know. As soon as he got back into town from this road trip, he’d get advice from his favorite shark in an ocean full of defenseless minnows, and everyone would come out fine. No harm. No foul. No secrets spilled.