Page 18 of Cross the Line

“I hate what Wilson said,” she seethed. “But I’m glad something good came of it.”

“Several good things,” I said, thinking of the way Coach had been there for Frasier and me. He had our backs. And it felt good to have the team on our side, supporting our actions. “For the league. For the team.”

“For you.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “It looks like your teammates are finally seeing you as one of them—as a Hawk. You showed Frasier, and the team, that you have their backs.”

“I didn’t do it because I had something to prove.”

“I know,” Logan said in a quiet, confident tone. “You did it because you care. Because it was wrong.”

It felt so damn good to have her see and recognize that. Because I did care. About my teammates. About the sport and our reputation as a whole.

If only I could go back in time…

If only I could’ve shown Levi that I cared about him instead of…

Whatever. It didn’t matter anymore. I couldn’t change the past, but I could make better decisions in the present and for the future.

“And what about you?” I asked, removing the ice pack from my ribs and setting it aside. “Am I still your—” I remembered back to one of our early text exchanges. “—third-favorite Hawk?” I teased.

“Third-favorite?” She laughed. “Now that was being generous.”

“Oh, come on now,” I chided, though I was grinning the entire time.

“Though, I suppose…” Logan mused. “After the fight and how you played tonight, you might have moved up a few positions.”

“Is that so?” I grinned. “And what would it take to come in first?”

She considered it a moment. “I’ll have to think on it and get back to you.”

“You do that,” I drawled.

CHAPTER FOUR

November

Iheld my camera above the food, testing a different angle.

“Are we going to eat before it gets cold?” Levi whined.

“Go ahead,” I said, finally satisfied with the pictures.

Levi, Mom, and Dad had flown to Minnesota so we could celebrate Thanksgiving together since I had a game tomorrow. Even though our parents had divorced a few years ago, they remained good friends. In many ways, not much had changed. We still spent the holidays as a family. Though, we’d opted for a more nontraditional feast this year—turkey tacos. We’d roasted a smaller turkey, fixed a ton of sides, and I posted some pics to my socials while my brother served himself.

It was definitely an effort at times to show more of my personal life online. Carson often reminded me that if I really wanted to influence people, I needed to connect with them first. And I could only do that by letting them see more of who I was as a person, not just as a hockey player.

He’d been right. The more I shared about my personal life as well as my professional one, the more invested people seemed. And I was really starting to see the benefit of that the last few months.

“So…I have some exciting news,” I said after we’d taken a seat at the table.

Mom served herself some cranberry sauce. “That usually means someone’s pregnant.”

All three pairs of eyes swung to me.

“No. God no.” I rolled my eyes, though my heart might pound out of my chest at the mere suggestion. “Don’t even put that out there.” I waved my hands in front of me. “We are absolutely not manifesting that for me.”

“Not yet,” Mom said. “Someday, you might decide you want to be a mom.”

“Right. But not now,” I said. “Not anytime soon.”