I’m at practice. Everyone else already left the ice, but I stayed behind with my trainer to go over a couple of things. Getting back on the ice after four months is always a little shaky. I’ve kept up with weights and cardio and have skated for the past two weeks. I pick up my mask and grab the squirt bottle and squirt water into my mouth. “Want to go for a bit more?” Pierre asks. I just nod and put my mask back on, and for the next hour, I block shot after shot. Right, left, and center from behind the net—we practice every single angle.

I skate off the ice and head down to the locker room, seeing it half empty already. Viktor and Evan are sitting there talking. I walk to my corner and put my mask on my shelf above my name. I sit down and start to untie my pads. I hear them talking, but being me, I keep to myself. “I swear you look like you stayed in the sun all summer,” Evan says, and I laugh at him.

“I’m European. We tan easily,” I say, putting my pads to the side of my bench. Because of the size of my equipment, I have my own bench facing the doorway and everyone else. It’s also the closest to the shower.

“It looks like you were on a yacht living life,” Evan says, getting up, and I just shake my head. “I’m going to go do some cardio. Anyone coming?”

“I have an appointment with Zoe,” Viktor says from his own bench. “Maybe another time.” He takes his stuff and walks out of the room.

“What about you?” Evan asks me.

“I have to eat. Maybe I’ll catch you later,” I tell him as I pull off my jersey, and he walks out of the room. I grab my phone and see that I have one missed call and five emails. I open the emails first, seeing that I have to answer a couple of questions for the opening of the New Orleans store. Then I spot a weird number and press the voice mail button. Her voice comes through right away, and my face lights up with a smile immediately. She sounds nervous, and I wonder if I should call her back. I’m dying to call her back, but I put the phone down and take a shower instead. The rest of the day goes by so fast, and I have dinner with a couple of people from the SPCA to see about doing some ads to bring awareness to animal cruelty. When I finally get home, I take out my phone and see it’s way too late to call her. So I text her instead.

Me: I just got in; the day got ahead of me. Give me a call tomorrow morning and we can talk about my package.