I’ve been working toward this for so long that it’s almost hard to believe that it’s finally here and happening. Our pre-season games so far have given me a little taste of what it’s going to be like to be one of the pros, but it’s not quite the same thing. The stakes are lower, at least for the rest of the guys. They’ve already proven themselves and earned their spot on the team, and while I’ve had a few great plays myself, there’s a lot more riding on my performance than theirs.

So they might be able to take practice a little less seriously than I can. But I don’t honestly think I’d be treating this any differently even if I’d been on the team for five years. Playing hockey and being in the NHL mean way too much to me to ever not take it seriously, even something as mundane as a practice session.

But we’ve been at it for almost two hours now, and I can tell the rest of the guys are starting to wear down. Coach Dunaway picks up on it too because he blows his whistle and motions us off the ice to the locker room, signaling the end of practice. The rest of the team streams away to the locker rooms, but Dunaway signals for me to hold back as I make my way and claps a hand on my shoulder when he reaches me.

“Your sessions with Hannah must really be paying off. You were on fire today,” he says, and my chest clenches at the reference to me spending time with his daughter. He doesn’t seem like he has a clue that anything is going on between us other than our yoga lessons, and I’d very much like to keep it that way for both mine and Hannah’s sake.

“Uh, yeah, it’s been great working with her.” I stumble over my words and have to keep myself from visibly wincing at it, but Dunaway either doesn’t notice or chooses not to acknowledge it.

“I told you she was good. And I can tell from the way you were skating tonight that it was the right call to hook you two up.” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from reacting to his choice of words. I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by them, but there’s always the possibility. But when he smiles and pats my shoulder again then starts walking away, I breathe a sigh of relief.

“We’ve got our first real game coming up soon,” he says over his shoulder as I follow him toward the locker room. “How are you feeling?”

“I can’t wait. Like literally can’t wait. They aren’t going to know what hit them until it’s too late.”