Page 9 of Puck Me Back to Life

“Good morning.” Then he immediately looks somewhere else.

My smile grows. Maybe the season won't be completely miserable.

The arena empties out surprisingly fast once practice ends. Coach gives us a few hours before puck drop, and most of the guys disappear almost immediately. Some head home to sleep. Others go out for lunch. A handful linger around the training room pretending they aren't nervous about opening night.

I think about driving back to my apartment. I immediately decide against it because the round trip would take longer than the nap.

Instead, I grab a sandwich from the concessions and spend an hour wandering around the mostly empty arena. There is something calming about hockey buildings when nobody is inside them. The noise disappears. The pressure disappears. All that's left are concrete hallways, empty seats, and the faint smell of ice.

I head back toward the locker room to grab my phone charger from my stall. The showers are running.

At first, I assume somebody forgot to turn one off. I push through the doors and immediately spot Hayes standing beneath the spray.

The rest of the room is empty.

The shower water runs over his shoulders while he stares at the tiled wall in front of him. He isn't moving at all, like his mind is somewhere else entirely. Something about it unsettles me.

“Hayes?”

He jumps. The reaction is so immediate that guilt flashes through me. His head snaps around. The shower shuts off a second later.

“Sorry,” I say. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

“It's fine.” The answer comes too quickly.

Hayes reaches for a towel and wraps it around his waist. Then he just stands there, a pregnant pause forming between us. Water drips from the ends of his dark blond hair and tracks down his chest.

Standing here now, with nothing but a towel around his waist, it's impossible not to notice the pull of want in my stomach. Anybody with functioning eyes would probably feel the same.

Unfortunately, what catches my attention isn't his body. It's his face. His eyes. Hayes always looks sad. Like somebody stitched it directly into him. His gray eyes are the kind that seem permanently exhausted. Permanently haunted.

I wonder if he'd be a pretty crier.

The thought hits me before I can stop it. My brain immediately supplies an image. Hayes looking up through wet lashes. Gray eyes glassy. Flushed cheeks. I shut the thought down so fast I practically get whiplash.

Jesus Christ. Get a grip.

The guy is standing here looking like he's one bad day away from a breakdown and my brain is thinking about the many different ways I could elicit such a reaction from him.

I clear my throat. “You okay?”

Hayes gives me a tired look. “Yeah.”

I wait. The silence stretches.

Eventually, he sighs. “Why does nobody believe me when I answer that?”

The question catches me off guard. Mostly because it sounds genuine, like he really wants to know.

I lean against a nearby locker. “Because you look like you haven't slept in about six months.”

To my surprise, Hayes laughs. The sound is small. Brief but real.

His hand rubs his eyes. “Three hours.”

I blink. “Last night?”

“Every night.”