Chapter Twenty-Four
MAVERICK
Ihad a feeling nobody wanted to be on the flight.
Sometimes the west coast trips were fun.
Sometimes they were a damn chore.
This time, it had the appeal of torture.
Abel looked miserable.
This was his first real road trip away from Wren and Izzy.
Remi squished himself in a first-class seat and frowned.
Now the big man was always grumpy.
Making eight figures a year as one of the top defensemen in the league, he never took it for granted and rarely enjoyed it. The closest he really came to having fun was the night of Abel’s wedding, when he got married.
My guess was that somewhere in that blackened heart of his, he was missing his wife.
And probably his dog.
Of course then there was Coach.
He looked ready to crawl out of his skin, force himself through one of the small plane windows, dive down to the ground and run back home to Carrie.
He had all the intentions in the world of staying back to be with his family.
Everyone supported that too.
Alonso told him to stay back and he’d go in his place.
When I heard that, I almost threw up.
I pictured Alonso on a flight with me. Sitting close to me. Or right next to me. Wanting to talk to me. Wanting to act like we were friends because he thought goalies were smarter than everyone else.
All the while his beautiful daughter was texting dirty texts and pictures to me.
Speaking of that…
I casually looked down at my phone at Madison’s name.
There were no dirty texts.
There were no dirty pictures either.
In fact, Madison and I hadn’t talked since I left her apartment earlier that day.
This was our first time apart.
Not that we were in a real relationship or anything.
It was basically the first time neither one of us could snap our fingers and make the other appear.
It was like sexual magic for us.