Changing on the Fly

by Cherylanne Corneille

  Tim told me not even ten hours ago, he doesn’t hide his relationships. And I’m not either.

  “Tim Gibbs and I are seeing each other.”

  Meadow smiles as Harlow nods in approval. “He’s a keeper; I like him.”

  I chuckle. “Thanks for your input.”

  The girls go on chatting about other topics, and I feel at ease. Why had I been worried? There’s no need to be. The only people whose opinion should matter is Tim’s and Kyson’s and that’s the mentality I need to keep in the forefront of my mind.

  The player’s door opens and the some of the team members begin filtering through to their wives, girlfriends, and families. And then Tim comes out. I know he finished quickly to hang out with me tonight since we both have to work in the morning.

  Without a moment of hesitation, Tim comes right up to me, pecks my lips, and takes my hand. Together, as a couple, we say goodbye and head to my car, hand-in-hand. Having no need for two cars at the arena, Tim had taken a cab because I’m taking us to his place after we eat.

  Tim suggests the steakhouse and we head in. Once we’re seated, the waitress comes over and we both order water. I’m not in the mood to drink because it’s late, and I do have to work in the morning. I think Tim feels the same way.

  After we order our food, he starts talking about the game and such. I enjoy listening to his day and everything that is happening in the media department. You never really know what goes on behind the scenes until you know someone behind it. The research, the conversations with other announcers, the gossip, and trying to figure out what is true and not, is countless hours of Tim’s job.

  He asks me about my day since he left me at lunch. I smile bright thinking of our quick romp in my office, but go on about the ins and outs of my day. Of course, I don’t think it sounds as exciting as Tim’s, but he listens and interacts with me. He seems to truly care about my day as I do his.

  When we finish our meal, Tim suggests we go back to his place, and I’m glad I already packed a bag, which is sitting in my trunk. Going back out to my car, I come to the realization where my life is right now. This isn’t a rebound. This isn’t just some guy. There’s more there. I can feel it.

  I’m quiet as I drive us back to his place. As is he. It’s not tension or uncomfortable silence. It’s us in the car, with the radio low.

  Us.

  Together.

  Pulling into his driveway, my heart flutters a bit. I need to let out my feelings and tell him what I’m feeling. It’s time to step up.

  We walk in together, and I take my bag up to the bedroom. Tim follows me. We both change into our pajama bottoms, and I sit on my side of the bed. He stretches out next to me and rest one of his arms behind his head and closes his eyes.

  “Tired?” I ask, gently adjusting myself to rest my back against the headboard.

  “I’ve had great sex, a day at work, and a filling meal. So, I’m a little tired, but in a good way.” He opens his beautiful green eyes, glancing at me. “Why?”

  “I want to talk.”

  “Okay.” He sits up and mimics my position. “I’m all ears.”

  “I’ve had an epiphany of sorts.”

  “And?”

  “I’m falling in love with you. It’s insane, and I know it’s fast, but I am.” I say the words out loud, and I can’t take it back. There’s no delete button.

  Tim seems to be taken aback. He’s either going to talk to me or tell me to get out of his house. “Do you think I’m not?”

  My mouth drops, and I blink several times, trying to comprehend what he’s saying. “What?”

  He smiles, sits up straighter, and looks me right in my eyes. “I’ve already fallen in love with you. I didn’t say it because I wanted you to make sure you were ready to say it.”

  “Why?”

  “Kian, you’ve been saying how fast this is going. I didn’t want to scare you off by telling you I was in love with you after the first time we had sex.” He takes my hand. “There’s something about you...it draws me to you...like a magnet.” His voice cracks. “I’ve never felt it with anyone, but I never want to stop feeling it with you.”

  There have been two times I cried in my life: when my mother died and when Kyson was drafted. I can add this to the list.

  “I love you, Kian. I want you in my life for a long, long time.”

  I sniff and wipe the tears that have fallen from my cheeks. “No man in my life has ever said anything so sweet to me.”

  Tim cups my face, pulling my lips to his. “I mean every single word.”

  “I love you.” It easily rolls of my tongue and every cell of my body means it. “I want to be with you for a long, long time.”

  That night we expressed our love with words and our bodies.

  About the Author

  Best-Selling Author, Mary Smith, has been coming up with stories her whole life. She has written A HOCKEY TUTOR and THE NEW HAMPSHIRE BEARS SERIES along with numerous other titles, as well as co-authored THE PENALTY KILL TRILOGY, OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN SERIES, and THE NINTH INNINGS SERIES with Lindsay Paige. When not busy writing or rooting for the Chicago Blackhawks you can find her with her nose stuck in her Kindle.

  You can visit her website at: www.authormarysmith.com

  Books By Author:

  The Ice Series (Adult Sports Romance trilogy):

  Melting Away the Ice

  Breaking the Ice

  Shattering the Ice

  Thawing the Ice (A Novella)

  New Hampshire Bears Series (Adult Sports Romance)

  The Muse and the Fairy Tale

  The Workaholic and the Realist

  The Fat Girl and the Hero (coming summer 2016)

  The Arrangement (coming summer 2016)

  Books with author Lindsay Paige:

  A Penalty Kill Trilogy (New Adult Sports Romance):

  Breakaway

  Off the Ice

  Game Over

  Our First Christmas (A Novella)

  Oh Captain, My Captain Series (Adult Sports Romance)

  Looking for You

  A Hockey Player’s Proposal

  Finding Carson Lee

  Let’s Be Crazy

  Their New Beginning

  You and Me, Forever

  Tainted

  The Ninth Inning Series (Adult Sports Romance)

  Felix

  Blake

  Hector

  Trent

  Jordan

  Colby

  Roman

  Spencer (Releasing October 2016)

  Tanner (Releasing November 2016)

  Take A Shot

  Samantha Wayland

  3 Flaming Pucks

  Dedication

  For my Hearties. I can’t begin to thank you enough for everything.

  Acknowledgements

  I must thank Stephanie Kay, whose superpower appears to be coming up with far better titles for my books than I ever could.

  Chapter One

  WHEN TIM TOLD the story later, far more often than he cared to, people would comment on how he had such a detailed memory of something that had actually taken a matter of seconds from start to finish. It was as if they thought he couldn’t hear the surprise in their tone or guess the reason for it.

  Contrary to popular belief, Tim Robineau was not an idiot. He was perfectly aware he came across as a bit of a doofus sometimes, but it was just because he was super laid back. And liked hanging out with the boys and being stupid.

  That didn’t mean he was actually stupid.

  People made a lot of assumptions about hockey players, but more often than not, those assumptions were dead wrong. Everyone admired the quarterback in football, because a good one, a smart one, could look out over the field, and the chaos of bodies moving with and against each other, and make the right play.

  What people didn’t seem to understand was that a hockey team had twenty-two of those guys.

  So, maybe that was why Tim remembered exactly how the ice felt under
his blades as he swung around behind the net, waiting for the puck. His best friend and roommate, Chris Kimball, was trying to dig the damn thing out of a scrum of players to send it along the boards to Tim. He tapped his stick on the ice, making sure Chris knew he was there, and scanned to see where the rest of the Ice Cats were positioned, looking for whatever the next play would be once he got the puck.

  He didn’t think anything of the defenseman barreling toward the knot of players hacking at the puck lost among their skate blades and sticks. It wasn’t until said defenseman hit the guy on the end—his own teammate—that time switched to slow motion.

  Every athlete, professional or otherwise, knew the risks. They studied them and learned how to avoid the worst of it, and accepted that if things went sideways, there was only so much they could control. So Tim knew, as he watched all four guys—not one of them less than six feet tall or under a hundred and eighty pounds—topple onto the ice with their legs and sticks tangled, that it wasn’t going to end well. He just didn’t know who or what would break—or how badly.

  The series of noises that followed was crystal clear, in spite of the roar of the crowd that echoed in the rafters: a helmet hitting the ice, a composite stick cracking apart, the dull thud of bodies and pads crashing into each other and the boards. These were familiar. But there was another sound, too. One that Tim had never heard before, but knew was bad even before Chris screamed.

  Later, he would learn it was the sound of a healthy twenty-four-year-old man’s tibia and fibula being snapped into three pieces. Each.

  But even without that knowledge, bile surged into Tim’s throat and his feet started moving. He couldn’t think of anything, couldn’t do anything, except obey his gut-deep, visceral need to make Chris stop hurting. It felt like panic and anguish and the Norovirus all at once.

  Mike Erdo, the defenseman he’d been planning to pass the puck up to, caught his arm and yanked him to a halt before Tim could grab the player on top of the pile and haul his ass off Chris.

  “Think,” Mike said sternly, letting go of Tim to drop his stick and shake off his gloves.

  Tim did the same and shed his helmet, too, his equipment flying behind him. He was distantly aware of the cold air on his bare fingers and the sweat on the back of his neck. He forgot that, though, forgot everything, when his eyes locked with Chris’s. He went suddenly numb except for the ache in his chest.

  Chris was trapped in the middle of the pile, a man pinned beneath him and another two on top. He stared at Tim, ghost-pale and wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open as if he’d forgotten to close it after he’d screamed.

  Teammates shouted for the trainer and gathered around. More gloves and sticks littered the ice, the sounds of them landing more pronounced for how the crowd had gone eerily silent. The player least entangled with the pile rolled away and was summarily dragged clear.

  Hands reached to lift the player on top of the pile. Tim thought vaguely that he should help, that this was what he had planned to do, but instead he fell to his knees and yanked off Chris’s glove, grabbing hold of his hand. Chris was still staring at him, silent, his expression full of pain and questions. Like Tim could possibly have any answers.

  His eyes scanned Chris’s body, just for an instant, and he swallowed back another, more violent urge to puke when he saw how Chris’s leg was bent.

  That was very bad. Very, very bad.

  But not as bad as the sound Chris made when they lifted the guy off him.

  Chris’s face drained of what little color it had left, even his lips going pale. Tears filled his eyes. They looked amazingly blue, his pupils narrowed down to pinpricks, almost swallowed by his irises as he groaned in agony and made a decent bid at breaking Tim’s fingers.

  It turned out Tim’s hand wasn’t as numb as he had thought—not that he cared. He was more concerned by the fact that he was shaking. That they both were. He slid his fingers over Chris’s pulse and felt how it galloped under the thin skin of his wrist.

  Trainers from both teams fell to their knees, one at Chris’s head, the other at his legs, both shouting out orders. They asked Chris questions about being able to move and feel, and all Tim could think was, how was there any doubt that Chris could feel?

  Whatever answers they derived from Chris’s short nods and one headshake were enough. They told Tim to put his free hand under Chris’s neck and he did it automatically, without taking his eyes from Chris. It wasn’t until Chris groaned in agony that Tim realized this was the part where they had to lift him off the poor guy who was still pinned beneath him and straighten that damn leg.

  The bones in Tim’s hand ground together under Chris’s grip, but he held on. Squeezed back. A backboard appeared through the haze of tears now clouding his eyes. Then a doctor and a gurney. And finally they tried pulling Tim away. Chris held on tighter.

  “Let them take care of you. It’s going to be okay,” Tim said.

  Chris’s grip didn’t ease in the slightest. “No.”

  Tim felt so profoundly relieved to still have Chris’s hand in his, he almost smiled.

  “Come on,” snapped one of the trainers. “If he won’t let go, then you’re coming with us.”

  Tim nodded dumbly and skated along beside the gurney. He had the sense to look up at his coach when they got to the mouth of the tunnel that would take them back to the trainer’s room.

  “Go ahead,” Coach said with a grimace. “That was your last shift this period. But be in the locker room in five minutes.”

  Tim opened his mouth to tell his coach where he could shove it, but a tug on his hand drew him back from the brink of insanity. He looked down at Chris and realized staying to argue would just slow things down. It made the decision easy.

  As it turned out, there was little he could do anyway. They didn’t even bother going to the trainer’s room, rolling straight toward the door being held open by an EMT, the red flashing lights on the ambulance bouncing off the corridor dizzyingly.

  Chris closed his eyes and swallowed heavily. When they got to the end of the rubber matting, Tim automatically jerked to a stop before his skate blades could touch concrete.

  “Hold up, guys.”

  “You’ve got ten seconds,” the EMT muttered while he strapped Chris down for travel. A trainer started cutting the laces of Chris’s skates. Chris screwed his eyes closed and hissed.

  Tim hovered above the gurney and pressed his free hand to Chris’s cheek. His friend’s eyes snapped open and a tear escaped.

  “This is my stop,” Tim said, trying to sound calm, but undermined by the croak in his voice. He swept Chris’s tear away with his thumb.

  Chris blinked up at him. “Come with me?”

  “Coach will have my ass if I try it. And I’m pretty sure these guys aren’t going to let me into the ambulance with my skates on.” As if to prove his point, the trainer thrust Chris’s skates into Tim’s arms. “I’ll come to the hospital as soon as I can,” he promised.

  Chris’s weak smile made the ache in Tim’s chest worse.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Tim said with as much conviction as he could muster.

  Chris nodded and finally let go of his hand, but Tim could see he didn’t believe it. Not as they took him through the door to the waiting ambulance, and not as he looked back from inside it through the little window.

  Tim walked back to the locker room on wooden legs, grateful when he pushed through the door and found it still empty. How had the period not ended? It felt like hours had passed since he’d seen Chris go down on the ice.

  He recalled that sound—the one he would never forget—and was especially glad the room was clear as he emptied his stomach into the nearest trashcan.

  It wasn’t just about breaking bones and the kind of pain Tim had never experienced and couldn’t imagine. What would happen if Chris couldn’t play anymore? Sure, the Moncton Ice Cats were minor league, and Tim and Chris didn’t expect to take their hockey careers much further than this, but it was all they
had. All they knew. Their friends, their jobs. They’d been in it together since they were practically just kids—eighteen years old and sure they’d died and gone to the heaven where people actually paid them to do what they loved.

  Tim wasn’t sure how long he stood there, braced against the wall, his head hanging from his shoulders. A warm hand on his neck was the only clue that he was no longer alone. Alexei, their goalie, didn’t say anything, just guided him to his seat in front of his locker. After six seasons with the team, this was the quietest intermission Tim could ever remember. No one said anything, or asked how Chris was, or how bad Tim thought it was. That alone told him that they all knew exactly how bad it was, too.

  For all that Tim would be able to remember every detail of the incident on the ice, he would never be able to recall one damn minute of the third period that followed. He must not have fucked up too badly, since he didn’t get his ass chewed out on the bench or afterward in the locker room as he raced through his shower and getting dressed.

  He was just shrugging on his jacket and grabbing his car keys, nodding as guys shouted out messages to be passed along to Chris, when Mike blocked his exit.

  Tim was surprised to see Mike was dressed and ready to go. He plucked the car keys from Tim’s hand. “You are in no condition to drive.”

  The hell of it was—Mike was right. Tim wondered distantly how the hell he’d managed to play hockey with his hands shaking like this.

  Still, he hesitated. “I’m planning on stopping at home to get some stuff, then staying at the hospital. I’m not sure when I can get you home,” he told Mike. He had no intention of leaving Chris until he was forced to or could bring him home.

  “Alexei will come get me,” Mike assured him, putting a hand on Tim’s arm. “Come on.”