Breakaway

Chapter 6 - Breakaway

DANA

The Storm had their own, private airplane for travel between games. It wasn't just any old plane, either. It was all decked out, and every seat was like first class—lots of space for everyone, cushy leather, the works. Not that I'd ever flown first class before, but I'd seen it as I pushed past to get to my regular old coach seats plenty of times.

The coaches and management, the trainers and equipment guys, they all sat up at the front of the cabin. As soon as we boarded, they took off their suit jackets and handed them over to the flight attendants. When you travel with a pro hockey team, you wear a suit or you stay behind. There's a dress code for everything.

They pulled out their laptops and iPads and other gadgets, each of them working on reviewing game footage from last night or from the New York Rangers' last few games. They were always prepping, always trying to find an edge and sort out the game plan.

Carrying both his carry-on bag and mine, Eric led me past them, down the aisle and toward the back of the plane. The players all sat together back there. Most of them had also removed their jackets and immediately pulled out laptops and iPads and the like. Instead of game film, theirs revealed movies and books and video games.

We passed Babs and Razor with a few of the younger guys on the right. They all had their noses buried in video games, but Babs looked up at me as we passed and gave me a big grin that brought out his dimples. No wonder Katie Weber had a crush on him. He was adorable. I smiled for his benefit, but mainly I was trying to focus on getting down the aisle without accidentally bumping into any of them.

That wasn't exactly easy to do, what with my head throbbing like it was. I'd never had so much wine in my life, let alone all in one sitting. I'd woken up sometime around three in the morning, raced into my bathroom, and puked my guts up. After the worst of it had passed, I'd realized I was still in last night's clothes, other than my shoes. Someone had thought to take those off.

Then I started to remember, only not fully. It was little bits and pieces—an image here, a thought there. But had it really happened or was it just a wine-induced dream?

I thought I'd kissed Eric on the cheek. I remembered having his arms around me, warm and strong and protective, holding me in a cocoon. The scent of his cologne was strong in my memory, and I had been high up against him and holding onto him, my arm around his neck and my hand on his cheek.

But that couldn't have happened. I couldn't have allowed him to touch me like that. And if he had put his arms around me, I wouldn't have thought it felt protective. I'd have panicked. That's what I do.

But if it hadn't happened, how else did I end up in my bed? And who would have taken off my shoes?

After my stomach had pretty much been emptied of anything and everything, I had changed into my pj's and gone back to bed, but I didn't really sleep very well after that. My head was pounding from the hangover, and I couldn't stop thinking about Eric touching me, holding me...looking down at me like he loved me.

That last part, I knew, was all in my imagination. It had to have been the wine. I mean, he loved me like a kid sister, sure. But not like a woman.

And this morning, my head was still throbbing. I felt like I needed to sleep for about a week, in order to recover. It made me regret having anything to drink at all last night, and I'd definitely think twice before having my next one.

Sitting through a five-and-a-half hour flight ought to be fun. Ha ha. I could only imagine how much worse my headache would be once we were up in the air and altitude exaggerated everything.

Eric stopped a few rows behind Babs and lifted our bags up to the overhead bins on the left. Then he moved aside so I could slip into the window seat. We'd talked about that in advance. Eric figured the window seat would be safer for me—less chance of one of the guys bumping against me as they went up and down the aisle. This way, if anyone touched me on the flight, it would be him.