Defender (Seattle Sharks 9)

It was the proximity that had me a little stressed out. She’d already drawn the line—we weren’t dating or doing...anything. But she was right, we had chemistry. As if acknowledging it sent it skyrocketing, I was now gifted with a distracting hyperawareness when she was around.

Like last week in the lab when her breasts had been in my face. Super distracting.

“Yep, I’m fine. No worries.” That check I’d taken in the third period had affected my chest more than my head.

“Okay, as long as you’re certain.”

She didn’t even look up in her concern, which made me laugh.

“What?” Her head popped over her laptop, her eyebrows sky-high.

“Nothing,” I answered with a shake of my head. “Go back to what you were doing. We have plans in—” I checked my phone, “thirty minutes.” And her surprise was currently in the elevator.

“We what?” she squawked.

“Come on, you didn’t think I’d forget that today is your birthday, did you?” Oh man, watching her get all flustered was way too enjoyable.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I thought!” she snapped, a note of panic creeping into her eyes. “What are these plans? Where are we going? What am I supposed to wear? I only brought hockey-appropriate attire, and—”

She was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hold that thought, Harper,” I instructed, sliding off the bed and striding for the door. I swung the door open to find Faith and Sawyer. “The cavalry has arrived!”

“Happy Birthday!” Faith squealed, pushing past me with an armful of balloons and a black garment bag.

“Faith!” Harper jumped up, data forgotten and raced to hug her friend. “You’re here!”

“Noble flew us in,” Sawyer told her as he was the next recipient of one of her hugs.

I had no hugs. What the hell?

“Thank you! You’re the best!” Harper rewarded me with a bright smile before she was pulled into unzipping whatever Faith brought with her.

“Good to see you,” I said to Sawyer, shaking his hand.

“You, too.” He nodded underneath a baseball cap. Kid looked how I felt the morning after I realized I hadn’t gotten drafted.

“Wait!” Harper shouted, and we all turned as she jumped onto the bed and scrambled for the laptop. “Okay,” she sighed in relief. “Sorry, I only have so much time to download the data before the sensors reset. Hence why I’m here,” she explained, typing away. “It’s done, so we’re good to go! Or at least we will be once we get ready.”

“On that note, every guy out!” Faith ordered. “I haven’t even told Lukas I’m here, so time is ticking! And don’t you two dare spoil the surprise! We’ll meet you downstairs in ten—” she glanced back at Harper. “Make that twenty.”

Before I realized what was happening, Faith shut the door in our faces. I’d been thrown out of my own room. Definitely a first.

“So I guess I’m going in what I have on,” Sawyer remarked, pointing to his ACDC shirt.

“I’m right there with you,” I said with a shrug, motioning to my plain black tee. So much for throwing a dress shirt over it.

I punched the button for the elevator, and we stood there as awkwardly as people who were only acquainted could. Difference here was that I had what the kid wanted, and I’d been where he was.

We walked into the empty elevator, and I took a chance.

“Look, I’m going to say this, and I hope you’ll hear me out, but you have every right to tell me to shut the fuck up, and I will. And once I’m done we never have to talk about it again, okay?”

“Sure?” Sawyer questioned, hitting the floor to the lobby. The LA hotel was a high rise, thankfully, giving me a few extra minutes before we’d hit the ground floor.

“Okay, here we go.” I turned to face Sawyer. “I entered the draft when I played for Minnesota.”

His forehead wrinkled. “You did? But I thought…”

“Exactly. I didn’t get drafted. No one wanted me. The thirty-day extension for NCAA passed after I graduated, and still...crickets.”

“What did you do?” he asked, the first spark of genuine feeling I’d seen in the guy.

“I went home and licked my wounds for a month,” I admitted. “Not my finest moment. Plus, I got the honor of watching my brother Nixon get drafted into the NFL, which was simultaneously awe-inspiring and dick-shriveling. Then I got a job delivering pizza and spent every other minute on the ice at our local rink. Tried out and made an ECHL team. Spent two years there. That’s when the Sharks noticed me and signed me.”

Sawyer blinked. “You spent two years in the minors?”

I laughed. “I wish. Just because the Sharks signed me didn’t mean I played with the big boys. I held down the farm team for years before I got called up with these guys. I’ve barely had this jersey long enough to take off the tags.”