Over and over again.

I finally made my way out of the endless rush of the crowd and found what I thought was the way I entered.

“Wrong way,” someone called behind me.

I ignored the drunk guy and carried on until I found a familiar pathway to the locker room.

I caught a glimpse of the pile of players heading toward the end of the long hallway and slowed down, breathless and annoyed.

I hate hockey players.

Scrap that. I hated just the one.

I couldn’t believe I let myself be charmed by his flirtatious comments and arrogant smirks. I was completely falling for it, like the idiot I was five years ago.

Troy hadn’t even looked my way after he’d won the game. Not even a glance to let me know to meet him back in the hall where he’d left me so he can make sure I got my keys back.

Cool it, Harp, you and your keys are the last thing on his mind, he’d just won the game for his whole team.

Okay, but…did he know that?

Because it sure as hell didn’t look like it by the steeled expression he carried all the way across the ice, until he was out of sight.

I must have looked like a bobblehead the way I kept shaking my head as I walked to the other side of the arena to get to the locker room. Because this—all of this was my fault. If I hadn’t lost my senses that night at the bar, I probably wouldn’t have been stuck here tonight, trying to track down the infamous Troy Hartman as if we were in high school ag—

The tip of my shoe screeched as I reached an empty quiet tiled hallway. It was narrower, and the tiles were gray rather than faded yellow, but the twisting in my stomach all the same. Raging heat flooded my veins at a memory I was still trying to forget.

The corset of my dress was tight and possibly a little off. Okay so it was definitely a little off. The girls were being pressed against something and it certainly wasn’t the part of the bodice they were supposed to be laying comfortably in. I should have probably stopped. Should have gone to the ladies’ room to adjust them, and powdered my nose or whatever the hell it was that seventeen year old girls did in the bathrooms on prom night besides pee.

But no—I keep walking toward the end of the hall because curiosity got the best of me.