Melting the Ice(127)

            It was time he started concentrating more on hockey, and less on Carolina. Though the thought of seeing her less made his gut clench.

            Some guys felt that dating women during the season was bad luck. He wasn’t one of those guys. Then again, when he played with his concentration fully on the game, he was an ass-kicker. He had to admit, he’d focused more on Carolina and less on the game so far this season, and it was clearly hurting his game.

            Time to change that. As painful as it was, his career was his life, and he wasn’t going to let anything jeopardize that, no matter what—or who—that was.

            He showered and dressed, then packed his bag.

            There was a text message from Carolina.

            Watched your game. Rough loss. I know you can come back from this. I believe in you.

            He smiled at the message, then checked the next one.

            We need to set a time for you to come in for your final fittings, talk about the advertising campaign, and decide on the date for the photo shoot. Can we get together when you get back?

            He stared at it for a long few minutes, then typed a message back to her.

            Have a lot of work to do, game-wise. We’re kind of a mess right now so coach wants extra practices. I’ll get back to you and let you know.

            He knew Carolina needed him. But so did his team.

            And he had to prioritize. As of right now, his priority was his team. His career.

            Carolina would have to wait.





TWENTY-SEVEN


            CAROLINA HAD SENT DREW MULTIPLE TEXT MESSAGES, and had even called him a few times, but he kept saying he was busy with hockey stuff and couldn’t find the time to work on her advertising campaign.

            He’d actually popped in for the final fittings on a day she hadn’t been here. She’d been at the event center, taking some photos and talking to the event coordinator. Her staff had handled the fitting, and he’d been gone by the time she’d come back.

            He hadn’t said a word to her. He hadn’t called her or told her he was coming by, so they hadn’t had a chance to talk about the advertising campaign.

            She had the photographer ready to go. All she needed now was her model. A model who was being really goddamned uncooperative right now.

            The test photos they’d taken had turned out phenomenally well. With a professional photographer on hand, she knew the real product would be spectacular. Half a day. A few hours. That’s all she needed from him to get this finished.

            She paced in her workshop, everyone else having left for the day. She’d known Drew was going to let her down. She should have gone with someone else. Not that it wasn’t too late to do that. But dammit, the whole campaign was lined out perfectly in her head, and the only face and body she saw on there was Drew.

            Maybe that was because she was personally involved with him, because she’d slept with him. There were many great-looking models who’d fit the advertising perfectly.

            She tapped her pencil on her sketchbook, staring at it and getting nowhere. She pulled up the Travelers schedule. No game today, and yet her phone remained strangely silent, at least as far as Drew. Everyone else was texting and calling her about every last-minute detail, including wanting invitations to the show which was in three goddamn days. As if that wasn’t enough to tighten her chest and make it hard to breathe. But the one person she needed to hear from had gone silent.

            She dialed his number, the phone rang several times and then she got his voice mail, which sent her blood pressure through the roof. She knew from looking at his schedule that he had a stretch of home games, which meant he was in town and was going to be here for a while, including for the show, thank God.