Page 49 of The Game Plan

I briefly thank the Lord that this is a local network and my parents will live another day without being told that I am in a whoopsies marriage.

Jax rubs his finely chiseled jaw and takes a moment of pause – good, he’s remembering his training.

“I met my wife through work, a while ago and, well, have you seen her? I was understandably blown away from the first day I saw her. She’s beautiful. And thanks to my many misdemeanors, I got to spend more time with her because she’s managed my PR in the past. I don’t know, maybe I even started playing up to get her in a room with me.”

Oh he’s smooth. He winks at me and my cheeks burn up as I fight a smile in response. “She was in a relationship when we met and I was respectful of that but the second she told me that relationship was over…”

His eyes meet mine in a way that’s uncommonly intense. A way that makes something deep in my abdomen twist or contort or do a somersault. When he continues speaking, it’s to me. “I wasn’t going to waste any time in making her my forever.”

Forever? Is he being sincere? I genuinely can’t tell and I think I’m hugely disturbed by the part of me that’s… hopeful? I? Me? I’m hopeful that Jax wants forever? With me?

As I swallow my concern, so loud I’m sure the whole dressing room can hear the gulp, Jax beams at me, spinning my panties inside out. God fucking help me. He’s a Demon in all respects, including for my girl hormones.

I suddenly drop a clipboard from my hands and it clatters so loudly on the floor that now everyone is staring our way and listening to this interview.

Oh shit.

“Wow, that’s intense and I guess explains the shotgun wedding in Las Vegas,” Melissa says (petulantly, I swear it). “Do we have this new professional wife to thank for you getting through a game without being put in the sin bin?”

Jax rubs his jawline again. “You probably have a preseason friendly to thank for that, but I’m excited for the season ahead and who knows, maybe I’ll manage to spend more time on the ice under the influence of a good woman.”

He ends the interview by dropping to his hunkers and helping me collect my clipboard and the papers that fell from it. Our hands wrap around the items at the same time, heat touching heat, and as ridiculous as this little teenage fantasy of the academic and the hot jock is, I’m momentarily falling for it.

“Great job,” I whisper. “You even had me fooled.”

20

SEPTEMBER

Jax

Second Coolest Guy on the Planet

It’s the annual preseason charity event at the Dragons’ Arena. The parking lot outside the arena has been transformed into an enormous fairground. It’s become a symbol of the end of preseason. The last PR act before the real games begin.

The comms and admin guys do an incredible job of coordinating a fun event, transforming the entire space around the arena with dragon-themed activities. The place looks like a fairground on a summer’s day, only without the big rollercoaster. But all of the usual games, like hook-a-dragon and shooting down tin cans, tossing balls into hoops and smashing the hell out of a mallet in a glorious display of Thor-level strength, they’re all here.

The guys and I spend the day playing games and mixing with the fans, interacting, having some pretty awesome chats (while also having to hear their thoughts on how we need to play in the upcoming season – slay, generally).

Despite it being late September, Long Island is rolling out a second summer for us. The weather is glorious. We’re all wearing shades, caps and Dragons summer apparel. I love days like these, when I can wear shorts, because like most hockey players, my thighs and butt feel like they’ve been locked in a cell when I have to wear full-length pants.

The added perk this year is that Sienna is circulating, wearing a summer dress that makes her caramel hair brighter, cheeks glowier, and her smile genuine.

Who can refuse to smile under the sun? Sienna, usually, but not today.

In fact, she seems, I don’t know, a little less neurotic and even a smidge perkier this last week or so. Maybe she’s been so busy filling in for Mitch that she’s had to stop thinking about her ex and the business she’s lost. Good for her, I say. And good for the man who has to live with the Chief of the Miserable Cleaning Clan.

Now, if only she’d stop pecking at me like a fucking hen about everything I do wrong in the home on a daily basis, she’d be almost a normal functioning human being, as well as hot.

I recognize that I’m a privileged white man and that my life experience has been good schools and elite hockey teams. Even when I’ve travelled the world, it’s been, in recent years, on a private jet or a yacht and before that it’s not like I was slumming it with a backpack. So, this is one of my favorite events of the year because I get to meet people from so many walks of life with different perspectives and needs.

I spot one of the not-for-profits that comes here annually because they have all their kids dressed in the same lilac T-shirts. Amongst their group, I immediately spy a kid I know called Jenson. He’s beaming at me, a sweatband wrapped around his head that reads It’s only an extra chromosome. He’s come to the event the last few years. We’ve even had him in the dressing room pregame and walking out onto the rink as a mascot for the evening. The kid is awesome.

“Jenson, my main man!” I call out as I walk, hands in my shorts pockets, tennis socks pulled up my calves, toward the kid who looks exactly like me – decked out in the best the Dragons’ training store has to offer, courtesy of the club.

He holds out his arms and bounces toward me, greeting me like no one else does, like I am the best thing since sliced bread.

I concede that I might be the second coolest guy on the planet because this kid is in the top spot.