Page 13 of Knocked Sideways

“All fine so far, Lil. And Petey’s good. He said something about maybe having an extra room so I may not need to find my own place right away.”

“That could be fun. But—are you ready for the Moreau show 24/7? You told me you like living by yourself.”

Remy rolled his neck to stretch out the tension and buy some time. He didn’t want her to worry about money any more than she had to, although he suspected paying for school was on her mind as much as it was on his.

“I’d rather save up while I’m here. Just in case I get sent back down, you know? And Mike told me—” Remy broke off as Lily made a face that showed exactly what she thought of him bringing Mike up. “Hey, this is hockey advice, and you know he’s never steered me wrong there. He told me I should try harder to spend time with the team.”

“Hmm. Well, this looks like it’s stressing you out. So I’ll just say, if I have to borrow money to get through school, it’s not the end of the world.” She raised her eyebrows as Remy opened his mouth to respond, and he promptly closed his mouth to let her continue. Her smile turned a little evil. “Let’s talk about something more fun. Like a certain super-hot goalie. Did you fanboy all over him?”

Remy rolled his eyes, but he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks.

“First, fanboying is not something I do.”

Lily rolled her eyes right back.

“Second, he’s not super hot. He’s just a regular guy.”

Lie, lie, lie. Jed was super hot if you liked intimidating, stone-faced, beard-wearing giants. Which Remy did because he wasn’t dead inside. But that didn’t mean he had a thing for Jed now. And there were undoubtedly other equally hot and intimidating stone-faced, beard-wearing giants in Denver. Probably. It wasn’t like Remy had time to hook up, anyway. And he would never with his goalie.

Lily laughed. “Okay, you just had a whole internal conversation with yourself about what a huge lie that was, didn’t you.”

Damn, his sister knew him too well.

“Maybe,” Remy admitted. “But for real, he’s my goalie, Lil. I can’t think about him any other way right now. Or, like, ever.”

“Well, good luck with that.” Lily expressed, he had to admit, an appropriate degree of skepticism.

“It’s not a problem, really.” It couldn’t be a problem, so that wasn’t a lie. “Okay, I gotta go. Have a good day, okay? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Nice try. I am literally not going to do anything you would do today. But nothing you need to worry about, okay? I, too, am an adult now.”

“Mmm, not quite. Love you, though.”

Lily blew him a kiss and ended the call, and then he was alone in his hotel room again. Time to get moving.

He was going to need to rent a car, he thought, as he walked across the parking lot and waited in the freezing cold to cross over to the practice facility. Or buy a new one, although he’d been hoping to put that off until he knew whether he was getting a one-way contract at the end of the year. There was no way his beat-up Honda would make the drive down from Montreal even if he had time to go get it. And he’d barely seen anything of Denver so far, but this part of it was clearly designed for drivers, not pedestrians.

One more thing to add to his list. He had no idea where to start.

But that could be a problem for later. Someone had texted him the schedule, and he’d managed to scroll through the next few weeks while downing a cup of wretched hotel coffee in his room. The Blizzards had an early home game tomorrow, an evening home game two days after that, and then the team left for a three-game road trip up north.

So first up this morning, he’d get breakfast in the team lounge because he’d already hit his lifetime limit of congealed eggs at hotel breakfast buffets. Then he had a full day—meeting the team’s trainers and getting in a workout, followed by a video meeting and then extra time with the video and analysis coach to get up to speed on what he needed to study for the coming week. And to cap it all off, they had practice, which Remy was actually looking forward to.

By the time Coach called for a scrimmage, pushing himself to the brink of collapse had worked its usual magic. Remy thought he was maybe beginning to find a groove with Bakesy, his new d-partner. He even won a puck battle against Hal, which made him feel pretty great for about thirty seconds until Hal stole the puck back and scored.

But it was a start. Bakesy clapped him on the back as he left the ice, saying, “I think this is going to work out just fine.” And Hal, who was standing by the boards talking to Coach, caught his eye and gave an approving nod.

It wasn’t a game. But one piece of advice Mike had given him—and Mike was a pretty great coach, a much better coach than almost-boyfriend—was that the only way to do this job was one day at a time. And to recognize the good days as well as the bad days.

Today was a pretty good day.

He’d take it.

Remy’s optimistic mood lasted into the locker room, where he took his time undressing and hitting the shower, listening to Petey and McBride’s good-natured banter and throwing in a comment or two of his own.

“You still moving in today?” Petey asked, as Remy was drying off and pulling on his sweats.

“I mean, if you’re sure?” Remy looked past Petey to McBride, who was texting furiously on his phone. “You sure you don’t mind, Mac?”