Trade Deadline - Avon Gale Page 0,9
to the sharks,” said Gina. “We had a student volunteer do that once.”
Micah said, “And we only have smaller sharks, they don’t even eat people.” He felt compelled to add, “They normally don’t, by the way. Always feel free to throw that tidbit in about sharks if you can.” The truth was, more people ate sharks than were attacked by them, but it remained a long-standing fear of beachgoers the world over. Micah was way more concerned about jellyfish. There was one summer when he’d suddenly become so concerned about them that he hadn’t wanted to go swimming, though it made no sense given he’d grown up swimming in the ocean practically as soon as he could walk. He’d gotten over it, but they still gave him the creeps. They just...slithered and bopped around. It was weird. Maybe Micah liked things to have spines.
As Micah waited for the elevator that would take him to the restricted lower level and his office, he scrolled idly through his Instagram feed. Most of the people on his personal account were other marine biologists who worked in the same field, nature photographers, and friends. But he did follow exactly one sports figure—Daniel Bellamy, Captain of the Atlanta Venom of the NHL. And it wasn’t because he liked hockey; he didn’t like or dislike it, not really, but he was a Florida boy born and bred. That meant he was suspicious of water when it was in anything other than liquid form. It wasn’t even that Daniel was absolutely gorgeous, with that dark curly hair and his bright blue eyes, and a body that rocked those game-day suits for sure.
It was that long ago, Micah had known Daniel as “Danny,” his best friend from kindergarten to age thirteen, when Daniel and his family left the sunny beaches of Miami for the ice rinks and developmental league opportunities in Chicago. They’d met as kids in the same neighborhood and been inseparable, having sleepovers and going to the beach, making up games where he was a famous dolphin trainer—hey, he’d been seven—and Danny was a famous hockey player...and they both had mansions and occasionally solved crimes while maybe starring in a movie or TV show. Again, they’d been seven.
Danny was Micah’s best friend, first crush and first kiss—and then, at age thirteen, his first heartbreak, when he’d been low-key convinced their experimental kiss had made Danny move. But it had been hockey that stole Danny away and kept him there, and how could Micah have begrudged him chasing after his dream? Especially when they both, against all odds, became what they’d always dreamed of, in those games of pretend they’d played as kids? Micah still remembered the shock when he’d heard the news about his old friend, though honestly, Danny always had been pretty determined.
He’d been the one to get Micah over that random, and admittedly short-lived, fear of jellyfish.
They’d managed to keep in touch and even visited for two summers straight after Danny moved. But then hockey took Danny’s attention and kept his schedule full with games and travel, and Micah turned toward summer intensive science programs. They’d fallen out of touch, but Micah had rediscovered his old friend via social media and happily followed his accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. He kept up with Danny’s—Daniel, now—career, though he’d never thought about actually getting in touch. It seemed a little tacky, considering he knew how much money Daniel made—hey, they put his salary right there on the website for the team!—and didn’t want to be like one of those people who came out of the woodwork when someone they knew in grammar school won the lottery or became famous or something. Instead, he’d been happy for his friend and had even gone to a Venom game a few seasons ago, when he’d been in Atlanta for a conference. But he knew Daniel was married with kids, and it seemed best to just appreciate his skill on the ice and remember their goofy games and hours spent at the beach looking for shells that might be “worth something” and earn them millions. That kiss at the age of thirteen was just about as awkward as a first teenage kiss should be, but it made Micah smile to remember it all the same.
Also, despite the fact Daniel had talked about it all the time and made him watch games when they were kids, Micah didn’t really know anything about hockey. It’d been cold in the arena, and