Offside Hearts (Love and Hockey Book 1)

It’s Wednesday, and Margo still hasn’t shown up for work.

When I asked Ted where she was yesterday, he said she was still out sick, but I could tell he was lying. His tone was clipped and curt, and I got the distinct impression that he blames me for what happened with Margo.

As he should.

It’s all my fault, and I’ve been carrying around the weight of that responsibility ever since I got back.

Practice is a fucking nightmare. I miss every shot I take, and I’m so distracted that half the time one of my teammates passes me the puck, I let it go flying by without even noticing it until after it’s long since been nabbed by someone else.

Dunaway is yelling at me from the sidelines, telling me to get my head in the game, and I wish I could. I keep trying to focus, to keep my eye on the puck, but no matter what I do, I can’t seem to stay present. My mind keeps wandering back to the day Margo confronted me outside my condo, back to the way her face looked when she asked whether or not I had been with another woman.

“Blake, come on!” Dunaway, who’s now red in the face, and who hasn’t screamed at any other player except me all morning, throws his hands in the air as I miss another pass, then stalks off toward the lockers.

Practice is technically scheduled to go on for another fifteen minutes, but once Dunaway disappears, Coach Price takes over for a while before finally shrugging and giving up. It’s obvious that nobody feels like running any more drills, and an uncomfortable tension hangs in the air of the practice rink. I’ve fucked up our flow, and it’s really difficult to get that sort of thing back, especially when the head coach isn’t here to guide us.

I hit the showers and then get dressed with the rest of my teammates, keeping my head down and avoiding making eye contact with anyone. Then I grab my bag and throw it over my shoulder, heading for the exit. I’m hoping to slip out without having to talk to anyone, but as I pass by the coaches’ office, Dunaway’s deep voice cracks out like a whip.

“Blake, get in here!”

I come to a stop, closing my eyes and tipping my head back. Fuck.

The door to the office he shares with Coach Price is partway open, and I step inside and close it behind me. Dunaway has his phone in his hand, and it looks like he just got done talking to someone. I hope it wasn’t the team owner or anything, although it wouldn’t surprise me if there was talk of trading me so that I could screw up someone else’s chances of winning the Stanley Cup.

“Hey, Coach,” I mutter. “I was just about to head out, so—”

“Sit. I want to talk to you.”

He gestures to one of the rolling office chairs, and I sink into it, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. He studies me in silence for a long moment, a dark expression clouding his face, then shakes his head.

“What the hell was that out there?” he demands, gesturing in the direction of the ice. “You looked like a fucking kid who’s never even been on skates before. I was having flashbacks to years I spent coaching my son’s elementary school team. Except those kids actually had better control of the puck than you did just now.”

“I know, I know.” I blow out a breath, looking down at my feet and rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. I just had a rough weekend.”

Dunaway snorts, crossing his arms over his broad chest. The lack of hair on his head only emphasizes his square jaw and thick eyebrows, and when he gazes at me from beneath those brows, I have the uncomfortable feeling that he can see right through me.

“Are you sure that’s all it is? Because I’ve seen you after some pretty bad losses, and I’ve also seen you after some late nights out drinking—but I’ve never seen you play like that before.” His phone is still in his hand, and when it vibrates, he glances down at it and snorts under his breath. “I just got off the phone with my wife, and now she’s texting me to make sure I keep a cool head. She says I make bad decisions when I’m angry, and she’s not wrong.”

I hate that I’m the reason Dunaway had to call his wife to get talked down off a ledge, but I don’t think there’s anything I can say right now to make things better, so I just sit patiently and wait for him to either give me a lecture or yell his head off.

“Look,” he says after a pause. “I don’t know all the details of what’s going on with you, and frankly, I don’t want to. The less I know about your personal life, the less I have to worry about, and that’s the way I like it. But that said, you need to get your shit in order, Blake. Because if you keep playing like you did in practice today, I’m going to have to bench you.”

“I’m trying,” I say, and I despise the way my voice breaks a little as I speak. I clear my throat, but I know Dunaway heard it.

Hell, he can see it on my face. Everyone can.

I’m wrecked, and I don’t know how to pull myself out of this spiral.

Dunaway looks at me again, his dark brown eyes perceptive and sharp.

“Do you know why I’ve expressly forbidden my daughter from ever dating a hockey player, Blake?” he asks.

I shrug. “Because we’re all jerks?”

He smirks and shakes his head. “Yeah, alright, that’s part of it. But the real reason I don’t want her involved with any of you meatheads is because it’s gotta be miserable dating a hockey player. They’re relentless. Once they know what they want, they never stop chasing after it. It’s the same way they chase the puck down the ice, with nothing but determination. Hell, I know my wife gets sick and tired of my determination and single-mindedness.”

“I don’t really understand what you’re getting at, Coach.”

For a moment, the hard lines of his face smooth out a bit, his expression turning almost fatherly.

“You just need to figure out what it is you want,” he tells me. “Because once you figure that out, I’m sure you’ll stop at nothing to get it. And that’s what’s going to turn things around for you. That’s what’ll make everything fall back into place. So, Blake, do you know what you want?”

My heart twists, my chest tightening. “Yeah, I do. But I can’t have it.”

He squints. “You sure about that? Maybe you just need to be more relentless.”

I don’t really have an answer for him, but he doesn’t make me give him one. Sighing, he rises from his desk, gesturing toward the door to let me know I’m dismissed. I pick up my bag from where I dropped it near the chair and head for the door, but before I leave, his voice stops me again.

“I don’t want to bench you, Blake. You’re one of the best players I’ve ever coached. We need you out there.”

I nod without looking back, letting him know I heard him.

Outside the practice rink entrance, I stand for a while in the cold air, not ready to go home and face my empty condo just yet. A few minutes later, Sawyer and Theo walk out of the building, and Sawyer shoots me a pissed off look as they walk by. Everyone on the team seems to believe the story about me getting another woman pregnant, and since Sawyer’s ex-wife cheated on him, he has zero tolerance for people who betray their partners like I did. Or, like they all think I did.

God, I fucking hate this.

Theo on the other hand, lifts his chin in acknowledgement, although he doesn’t stick around to talk or ask if I’m going out for drinks after the game later this week. They make their way to the parking lot, and Reese steps out of the building a second later.

He stops when he sees me.

“Hey, man,” he says carefully. “Rough morning, huh?”

I grunt under my breath. “How could you tell?”

He combs a hand through his messy blond hair. “Well, the first clue was when you didn’t snipe that shot on net during the scrimmage. Usually, that’s your bread and butter. But, come on. You’ve been playing like shit all week, and we’ve all seen it.”

“Yeah. I know.”

I shove my hands into my pockets, feeling even more like shit than I did in Dunaway’s office. Reese isn’t even calling me out for letting the team down, but the concern in his voice is almost worse.

He hesitates, as if debating whether or not to say whatever else is on his mind, then sighs. “So, listen, I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet, but I thought I should tell you in case you haven’t. Rumor has it, Margo might be quitting her job.”

“What?” I stiffen, my eyes flaring wide. “Who told you that?”

“I overheard Ted talking to someone else in the marketing department yesterday when I was upstairs in the office. I had to go talk to payroll about my new bank account, and they were in the breakroom when I went to grab some coffee on my way out. He said he doesn’t think she’s going to come back to work after her sick leave is up.”

Panic wells up inside me, and I shake my head. “But she can’t quit.”

“Of course she can.” Reese pulls a face. “I mean, can you blame her? You know I’ll always have your back, but… you fucked up. Did you really expect her to stick around after everything went down the way it did?”

Goddammit. This is not how things were supposed to go. Not at all.

My mind is churning, trying to figure out some way to undo this, to make it right. I can’t let Margo lose her job.

“I know I fucked up,” I tell my teammate, and it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said. Pulling my keys out of my pocket, I start backing toward the parking lot. “Listen, I’ve gotta go.”

“Uh, okay.” He nods, worry glinting in his brown eyes. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”

I give him a wave, already halfway to my car. As I settle behind the wheel, a single thought rises above all the others jockeying for a foothold in my head. A single thought that beats against the inside of my skull, urging me on. nod,

I have to see Margo.

Now.

I speed across town to her apartment and spend fifteen minutes ringing the buzzer outside her building. She doesn’t answer, but I manage to slip inside the building when someone else is leaving, and I take the stairs up to her floor. I’m in the middle of banging on her door when an annoyed looking older woman with a long braid sticks her head out of the unit across the hall.

“She’s not here,” the woman informs me, glaring at my fist, which is still poised a few inches from the door.

“Where is she?” I practically beg.

“How the hell should I know?” She shrugs, throwing her hands up. “She left a couple days ago with a packed bag and asked me to water her plants.”

Somehow, I get the feeling that this woman hasn’t held up her end of that agreement, but there’s no time to argue with her, so I just thank her for the information and run out of the building and back to my car. I’m fairly certain I know where Margo is, so when I get on the interstate, I follow the signs toward Boulder, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel the whole way.

When I pull up in front of her parents’ house, the first thing I notice is her car parked in the driveway, and the sight of it fills me with both relief and anxiety. She really is here, which is great—but it also means that I have to figure out what the hell I’m going to say to her in the next few seconds.

Assuming she’ll even come to the door to talk to me.

As I stride up the snowy pathway toward the front door and knock, my palms are sweating despite how cold it is outside. My breathing becomes labored as I wait in a frigid silence for someone to answer, and when the door finally swings open, I tense in anticipation.

Margo’s brother, Derek, is the one who answered, and when he catches sight of me, his head jerks back in surprise. Then his eyes narrow, fury darkening his features as he takes a half step forward.

“What the hell are you doing here?”