took off my seat belt and reached for the door. “Oh, before I forget. That was a cheap shot that guy took at you tonight, but watching you fight was pretty hot.”
Jase laughed, blushing all over again. “What? You don’t get off on that, do you?”
“Not usually, but I made an exception this time.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, well. For the record, unless you’re out on the ice with me, don’t expect me to fight someone for your honor or something.”
I snorted. “What honor?”
His laughter lit up the night and crinkled the corners of his eyes, and I was almost too caught up in how adorable he was to catch his comment of, “You said it, not me.”
I just shrugged.
Tsking, he drew me in again. “You’re a dork.”
“Through and through.”
We were both grinning when our lips met, but our mouths quickly softened into a long, tender kiss.
After a moment, I whispered, “I really should go.”
“I know. Tomorrow?”
“Definitely.” I stole one more kiss, then drew back, and this time I did open the door. “I’ll see you then.”
“Looking forward to it.”
“Me too.”
Talk about an understatement.
Chapter 17
Jase
Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I paced in the empty visitors’ locker room. I’d been in here for… Hell, I had no idea how long I’d been here. It felt like hours. It also barely felt like five minutes since I’d left the ice in the middle of the morning skate, and my fucking heart would not slow down.
Come on, come on. Get a grip.
I ran a hand through my hair, which was soaked with sweat. I tried to tell myself that was from skating, but I’d only been out on the ice long enough to warm up and do one battle drill. Enough to work up a little bit of a sweat, but not like this. This had nothing to do with hockey. It was all in my fucking head, and I didn’t even know what it was about.
Goddammit. This was the fucking worst. Getting into one of these spirals always sucked, but nothing was worse than when I didn’t know why it was happening. If I didn’t know why, I couldn’t make it stop. Not that I could usually make it stop anyway, but… Fuck.
Breathing as deeply as I could, I went into the shower area, leaned over a sink, and splashed some water on my face and into my hair. It didn’t help much, but at least then I couldn’t feel the sweat anymore. The drops running down my neck and back were just water. I wasn’t freaking out—my hair was wet.
But I still couldn’t calm down. The fact that I was someplace unfamiliar didn’t help, but it wasn’t what had set me off. Fuck if I knew what had this time.
“Come on,” I muttered to myself. “Get it together.” Leaning against the sink, I opened and closed my hands, trying to get rid of the tingling in my fingers.
I wasn’t having a heart attack. But it fucking felt like I was. My chest hurt and my left hand was tingling. That was a heart attack, wasn’t it? My right hand tingled too, but still. And I couldn’t breathe. I was trying to, I felt like I was taking huge gulps of breath, but I wasn’t getting enough air, and—no, I am not having a heart attack. Right? How would I know? Just because it wasn’t the last dozen times doesn’t mean it isn’t this time, so this time totally could be, and maybe I should call someone. This arena has those defibrillator things, right? Do I need one of those? Does anyone here even know how to use one? Oh fuck, what if I do need one, but no one here can—
The distinctive clomp-clomp-clomp of someone walking on skates startled me, and then sent fresh panic through me. Fuck. I didn’t need someone to catch me like this. I’d fed Coach an excuse about needing to retape my knee, and… Christ, had I been gone long enough that someone had come looking for me? Was the whole team waiting on my ass? How long had I been back—
“Kelly?” Kuznetsov stepped into the locker room. “You all right?”
I actually laughed. Both with relief that it was him, and because I was so far from all right it… Okay, it wasn’t funny. But somehow laughing at it seemed like a slightly less insane response than whatever the alternative was, and I didn’t want to think about that.
The