school the bartenders on mixing drinks, remember?” He returned the jersey to a longtime fan, flattered the guy had wanted him to autograph alongside signatures he’d collected from some hockey greats over the past three decades. “I worked the bar for a while.”
He might have gotten away with the excuse if the young backup goalie hadn’t chimed in. A recent Russian import, the kid pointed a finger in Kyle’s face.
“He go with girl.” The goalie grinned as he threw him under the bus with a basic command of English they understood well enough.
All the other players hooted in a collective razz as the event planners began ushering out guests. Kyle waved over a few more fans anyhow, signing their programs at the last minute to make up for the time he’d been with Marissa. He hadn’t seen her since she’d rejected his offer, though he’d kept a close eye on the crowd.
“Come on, Murph, you can’t hide behind the fans forever,” Axel called, slapping the Russian goalie on the back. “Since when are you distracted by the ladies during a play-off run?”
“Since never.” He wouldn’t jeopardize his focus on hockey; he’d worked too hard and his family had supported him too much to enable him to play at this level. Not many families would give their kid a season to play in a European youth league as a way to catch the eye of hockey scouts.
“I don’t know about that,” Leandre, the French-Canadian forward who played in the second line, piped up. His knuckles were still taped from a brawl on the ice two nights ago. “I saw the female in question. Great legs and a tight skirt. She had a naughty secretary thing going on with her hair all pinned up.”
Kyle’s grip on his pen tightened as he scrawled his signature on a souvenir-size hockey stick, two event programs and a bar napkin in quick succession. While he agreed with the other player’s assessment, he sure as hell didn’t appreciate the team’s resident Casanova noticing Marissa. Finishing up the autographs, he gestured to the team gear around the tables.
“Are we going to yammer or load this stuff up for Coach?” He pulled out a box and started tossing in signs, flyers and magnets with the team schedule on it that they’d used for giveaways. “Last I knew, we signed up to volunteer and help out.”
“Blonde or brunette?” Axel grabbed a box and went to work pulling down a team banner overhead, but he kept his BlackBerry in hand, obsessively checking for updates of a competitor’s game in Tampa.
Kyle ignored him.
“Brunette. Sort of mysterious looking,” the mouthy Canuck offered as he headed for the door, ditching on the event cleanup. “She hid behind sexy glasses.”
“I’d hardly call it hiding,” Kyle called as he shoved a pop-up display of the team’s most famous players toward the Russian goalie to dismantle. “Besides, she wore a wedding ring. Did you notice or were you too busy checking out her glasses?”
Let them think she was already taken. Selfishly, he figured it would shut them up. Besides, Marissa hadn’t seemed interested in dating so it wasn’t as though he was scaring off potential admirers.
Although, maybe she simply hadn’t been interested in dating him. The notion ticked him off.
“Dude, don’t even tell me you left with a married chick.” Axel stuffed his BlackBerry in his pocket, giving Kyle his undivided attention. Or perhaps he was just freeing up his hands in case a beat-down was in order.
Kyle knew Ax’s code of honor wouldn’t accept infidelity any more than he did. They shared more than family—they shared values that weren’t always upheld by other pro athletes. Two players on the Phantoms were in the process of divorce this season thanks to philandering on the part of one partner or the other. So yeah, cheating was a sensitive issue. One of many reasons Kyle had no intention of getting involved with anyone right now.
“Of course not.” Kyle realized his remaining teammates were