Offside Read Free Page A

sit at a desk and look
busy.
    The corners of her eyes stung and she
blinked hard.
    This wasn’t what she wanted. She’d
thought this was going to be a real job, where she’d use her
education and skills, as she’d told them in the meeting. She really
was qualified. She wanted to contribute and have a feeling of
accomplishment.
    She didn’t have to show the world that
she was a different person now, because she understood now that the
rest of the world didn’t matter. But it mattered to her.

 
    Chapter Two

     
    A couple of guys with injuries were
already there working with athletic therapists Buck and Rob when
Matt arrived in the dressing room for practice. A few months ago,
after that massive hit into the boards that could have ended his
career, he would’ve been one of those guys. Now they checked in on
him about how he was feeling after skating last week with the team
for the first time. He was happy to report he felt great, no
post-concussive symptoms at all and his neck was fine. Sure, there
were always minor things, sore muscles, but overall he felt solid.
He changed into shorts and a T-shirt and climbed on a bike to warm
up while other guys started showing up, some getting some
ultrasound to loosen up their muscles, some getting minor things
checked out, others getting help with some stretches.
    Buck and Rob were great at their job
and Matt had faithfully done everything they and the medical
professionals had asked of him during his rehab, everything and
more. This was his career and being in good enough shape to play
was everything.
    As he pedaled he couldn’t help
thinking about Honey Holbrook. Shit. How the hell had this
happened?
    She was still fucking gorgeous. He
couldn’t stop his mind from going back eight years to the time
they’d spent together when he’d attended the Condors’ development
camp that summer. After the week-long camp, he’d decided to stay in
California because of her. He’d been out of his element—a kid from
a small Canadian city who went to school in North Dakota, spending
time in Los Angeles hanging out with Honey’s mega-wealthy friends,
partying and doing wild and crazy things, even though some of those
things he had to admit had made him uncomfortable. But she’d been
pretty and sexy and fun, and wow, the chemistry between them had
been red hot.
    Christ. He couldn’t be distracted by
her. He had a career to get back on track. He’d been working his
ass off and wasn’t going to let her pretty face and hot body divert
him from his goal. He pedaled harder.
    The practice went well. After a win
last night the mood was always lighter, with lots of joking and
trash talking and Matt was right in there, despite still wearing
the orange no-contact jersey. He liked to try to make things fun.
When the team was losing, that wasn’t always easy, and sometimes
the fun aspect of what they did got away from them. But they were
all there because they loved hockey and focusing on that was better
than focusing on the negatives.
    Not that there wasn’t anything to work
on.
    Despite the win, their power play had
not rocked, so coach Kris Radnor had them working on that, trying
to create good point shots and puck movement. He spent time
explaining plays and drawing diagrams on the white board. “We’ve
got to simplify it. We’ve got to have better convergence on the
puck and on the net. We gotta make sure when we get an opportunity
to shoot the puck that it’s getting off our stick fast and getting
to the net.”
    While recovering from his injury, Matt
had been watching home games from the press box. Watching from
above gave a whole different view of the game and he’d seen a few
areas the team could improve on—puck movement, player movement not
being so stagnant, getting pucks to the net, having a better
net-front presence—which he’d shared with Coach. He was glad Coach
had been interested in listening to what he’d had to
say.
    Then they got down to running drills.
Coach