I laughed as I wrote back, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on boring paperwork anyway.
Yeah, well, it’s a lot more of a pain when I keep thinking about hockey and hanging out with hockey players.
LOL What do you do, anyway?
Ugh, I work in the accounting department of an electronics distributing company. It’s exactly as boring as it sounds.
He followed that with, Do you think if I stapled my hand to something, my boss would put me on injured reserve?
I laughed again as I wrote, I don’t think that’s how that works? But don’t staple your hand.
Fine. But let the record show that this sucks.
I responded. Then he did. Then I did again. And the emails just kept going. When the team left for a ten-day road trip later that week, he suggested we switch to texting, which we did, and the conversation kept going. We’d talk about my game on a given night. I’d ask about him and Dallas. He sent me a picture of his cat. I sent him one of Gagnon passed out on the bus with a dick drawn on his face in Sharpie, which Devin said nearly made him spit out his coffee.
A few days into the road trip, a migraine knocked Dallas off her feet. I’d kind of expected him to go dark, but after I returned to my hotel after the game, he was chatty.
How is she doing? I asked.
Just riding it out. The meds help, but she’ll be miserable for the next 24 or so.
Jesus. That’s rough.
It is. Thank God for these meds, though. It was a lot worse before.
Wow. Poor kid. Must suck in school.
Ugh. Attendance policy = my worst nightmare.
I bet.
Anyway. How has your night been?
Well, I could’ve done without the bloody nose, but otherwise all right.
Oh, fight or check?
Me? Fight? Come on now.
Please, dude. I’ve watched you play.
Fine. And for the record it was an accidental high stick.
Ouch!
It hadn’t been so bad, but it seemed like it gave him a distraction from worrying about Dallas, so I ran with it and filled him in on the play-by-play and the gory details. He seemed to like the virtual company, too, so I stayed up a little later to keep talking to him.
And it was good for me too. Before the game, I’d had one of those godawful mental spirals where something had kicked my brain into overdrive, and I’d suddenly been a sweaty, hyperventilating wreck. Now, long after I’d pulled myself together enough to play hockey, I was still off-balance. Talking to Devin was relaxing. Which was weird, considering it usually stressed me out like whoa to talk to someone I thought was attractive.
Maybe it was different because we couldn’t see each other. Words on the screen were easy. There was a backspace button in case I said something stupid, and worst case scenario, I could blame some gaffs on autocorrect. So communicating this way was easy.
But still, I was seriously attracted to Devin. To a man. To the man who was somehow on the other end of these texts and emails and hadn’t gotten sick of talking to me.
This was attraction, right? I’d never been into a guy before, and no one had ever had me checking my phone every twelve seconds like Devin did. What the hell did it even mean? Did it matter yet? I was enjoying it. It was calming me down even while it gave me something else to work myself up over, and it seemed to keep him happy while he was otherwise stressed out.
Ugh, why wasn’t there a manual for this shit?
Right then, my phone pinged again.
Oblivious to me tying myself into knots over everything, Devin had sent a picture of Tony, who was currently contorted into a pretzel beside Devin’s leg.
My cat is so dignified, Devin wrote.
And just like that, without even knowing he was the one who had my mind reeling like this, he made me laugh, which made me breathe, which made me calm down a little.
I wrote back, LOL.
But what I thought was, What I wouldn’t give to see you in person again.
Chapter 6
Devin
Couldn’t there be more guys like Jase on dating apps? Because if there were, I sure as hell hadn’t found them.
I didn’t even care if I was his type or in his league. He was nice to talk to. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d missed having a companion or even a close friend who I could chat with at