Dear Roomie (Rookie Rebels #5) - Kate Meader Page 0,40
over to greet his master.
“Daddy?” Tate Kaminski shot him a look. “This dog and …” He flicked a glance at Kennedy. “Is yours, Durand?”
“Oui.”
Mia chimed in. “I was coming over for lunch and ran into Kennedy and Bucky …”
No one heard the rest because the entire locker room went gaga about Bucky’s name and how cute was that, etcetera. The little huckster loved the attention.
“Bucky …” Kershaw said in a musing tone that Reid knew he was going to hate, “Which makes you Captain … Canada?”
“Rebels. Assemble!” Kershaw called out, which jumpstarted a spirited conversation about which Avengers hero might work for each team member.
As he pulled his shirt on, Erik Jorgenson was refusing the Thor label on the grounds he was Swedish not fucking Norwegian—and now Reid realized that most of the guys were shirtless, and at least one of them was still in his towel from the shower.
Jorgenson crept closer to Reid’s roommate. “So, Kennedy, you work at the coffee shop, right?”
Kennedy pointed at their tender. “Chocolate mint frappe!”
“That’s me.” Jorgenson winked, a total hambone. “Haven’t seen you there lately.”
“I’m full-time with this little guy.” Reid could tell she was doing her best not to look at him and oddly, he was trying to do the same.
Because if he did, he might not be able to stop.
Damn this woman and her skimpy white panties.
Petrov latched that aristocratic Russian gaze onto Reid. “You have a full-time nanny for your dog, Durand?”
“Live-in, too,” Foreman said, and that was all it took. Every single player gawped like goldfish learning that water was wet.
Kennedy was watching him, not jumping in to explain, recognizing that this was his territory. He shouldn’t have to explain a thing to these fuckers but for some reason known only to the hockey gods, he found himself justifying why he had moved a strange (to him) and gorgeous (to everyone) woman into his apartment. Put like that, maybe it needed no explanation.
“The dog needs a lot of care.” As do I.
Where had that come from? That wasn’t Kennedy’s job, yet this morning when she touched his arm and gave him a peck on the cheek, he had felt … appreciated.
Perhaps he was a touch sensitive because of his conversation with Coach. Coach, who had said Reid had skills the team needed right now. Reid, who had never felt needed for anything.
Cade was staring at him, the gears of that sharp brain turning, rubbing the rough bristle on his chin. “But you got someone to move in. For the dog.”
“I like my dog.” Bucky needed him. Of that Reid was 100% certain.
“He’s doing me a huge favor, too,” Kennedy said. “I needed a place to stay so it all worked out.”
“Sounds like it did,” Kaminski muttered.
“Oh, not so sure about that,” Foreman said so low only Reid could hear. He turned, ready to be annoyed as always with this guy.
The smart mouth Bostonian was considering him with something like pity. Shoe’s on the other foot, that look said. Kaminski and the rest of them might think he’d lucked out having a hot, free-spirited roommate like Kennedy under his feet—and maybe under him—but Foreman knew better.
Reid was in trouble, and Foreman was enjoying the hell out it.
15
It usually started this way. A slight ache at the back of his skull. If he left it any longer and it moved to the front, he knew.
He was getting a migraine.
Since he was fifteen, he had suffered them, usually triggered by stress, sometimes by alcohol. It was another reason to be careful about his diet and his preparation. Anything out of the ordinary might set him on a road to debilitation. Only once had he felt so sick that he couldn’t play: during the semis of the Frozen Four in college. His parents had come down from Canada, and Bastian had been there, ready to cheer him on.
That night the migraine had barreled in swiftly, too fast for him to try to head it off with medication. All he’d wanted to do was lie in a darkened room, put a blanket over his head, and pretend the world didn’t exist. He had tried to push through it, getting dressed for the game, taping his stick, running through his mantras.
You are better than anyone here.
You can overcome anything they throw at you.
You deserve this.
Only when he vomited in the locker room did he realize that no amount of positivity-boosting self-talk could get him into that game.