Daniel had to admit, it felt good to have the team he’d long admired actively recruiting him. He couldn’t help but be flattered. It was one thing to believe he had value to offer the Thunder’s organization; it was another to have that belief confirmed. Despite how much it would hurt to leave the Venom and his friends, something about going to Miami appealed. He could be somewhere he might truly make a difference. He could offer guidance to players who were new to the league and floundering. He could be near his family again.
Maybe it was time for a change. Maybe being on a new team would give him a second wind. A Renaissance year.
Even if Tabby didn’t want to move, the hockey season was only around eight months, and that was if a team made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. With the Thunder, that wasn’t a very likely prospect. Daniel and Tabby could work out a visitation schedule easily enough, and after the season was over, they’d reassess. There was really nothing to stop him. No matter which contract he chose, nothing beyond this next season was guaranteed to him. Both off and on the ice, Daniel never had been one for taking risks, but perhaps it was time to change his thinking. He only had a limited amount of hockey years left. He could choose the safe option—staying with the Venom for one final year—or he could roll the dice with a new team and see what happened.
Daniel met Vladimir’s dark eyes across the table. The smile that came to his face felt natural, free of the uncertainty and stress he’d been nursing for weeks. San Diego had never truly been an option, although he’d let them have their say for his own peace of mind, and they’d offered him three years instead of one. The Fury was a solid team. They didn’t need his help the way the Thunder did. Going to Miami? That felt right in a way he couldn’t put into words, like he was moving toward the destiny he’d always envisioned. Returning to Florida had always been his long-term goal anyway.
“You have a deal, Mr. Fetisov. Let’s see what we can do together.”
Chapter Four
Micah headed toward his office, stopping to say hello to the new volunteers who were attending orientation. A lot of their volunteer staff were college students, and the fall always meant a return to school and the need to find some nice retired folks to fill in—not that Florida ever had a dearth of those. Gina, the volunteer coordinator, was leading them around and pointing out the sorts of things they could expect; mostly questions about where the bathrooms were, or how to find lost children.
“You probably don’t want to make a joke about throwing the lost children to the sharks,” said Gina. “We had a student volunteer do that once.”
Micah said, “And we only have smaller sharks, they don’t even eat people.” He felt compelled to add, “They normally don’t, by the way. Always feel free to throw that tidbit in about sharks if you can.” The truth was, more people ate sharks than were attacked by them, but it remained a long-standing fear of beachgoers the world over. Micah was way more concerned about jellyfish. There was one summer when he’d suddenly become so concerned about them that he hadn’t wanted to go swimming, though it made no sense given he’d grown up swimming in the ocean practically as soon as he could walk. He’d gotten over it, but they still gave him the creeps. They just...slithered and bopped around. It was weird. Maybe Micah liked things to have spines.
As Micah waited for the elevator that would take him to the restricted lower level and his office, he scrolled idly through his Instagram feed. Most of the people on his personal account were other marine biologists who worked in the same field, nature photographers, and friends. But he did follow exactly one sports figure—Daniel Bellamy, Captain of the Atlanta Venom of the NHL. And it wasn’t because he liked hockey; he didn’t like or dislike it, not really, but he was a Florida boy born and bred. That meant he was suspicious of water when it was in anything other than liquid form. It wasn’t even that Daniel was absolutely gorgeous, with that dark curly hair and his bright blue eyes, and a body that rocked those game-day suits for sure.
It was that long ago, Micah had known Daniel as “Danny,” his best friend from kindergarten to age thirteen, when Daniel and his family left the sunny beaches of Miami for the ice rinks and developmental league opportunities in Chicago. They’d met as kids in the same neighborhood and been inseparable, having sleepovers and going to the beach, making up games where he was a famous dolphin trainer—hey, he’d been seven—and Danny was a famous hockey player...and they both had mansions and occasionally solved crimes while maybe starring in a movie or TV show. Again, they’d been seven.
Danny was Micah’s best friend, first crush and first kiss—and then, at age thirteen, his first heartbreak, when he’d been low-key convinced their experimental kiss had made Danny move. But it had been hockey that stole Danny away and kept him there, and how could Micah have begrudged him chasing after his dream? Especially when they both, against all odds, became what they’d always dreamed of, in those games of pretend they’d played as kids? Micah still remembered the shock when he’d heard the news about his old friend, though honestly, Danny always had been pretty determined.
He’d been the one to get Micah over that random, and admittedly short-lived, fear of jellyfish.
They’d managed to keep in touch and even visited for two summers straight after Danny moved. But then hockey took Danny’s attention and kept his schedule full with games and travel, and Micah turned toward summer intensive science programs. They’d fallen out of touch, but Micah had rediscovered his old friend via social media and happily followed his accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. He kept up with Danny’s—Daniel, now—career, though he’d never thought about actually getting in touch. It seemed a little tacky, considering he knew how much money Daniel made—hey, they put his salary right there on the website for the team!—and didn’t want to be like one of those people who came out of the woodwork when someone they knew in grammar school won the lottery or became famous or something. Instead, he’d been happy for his friend and had even gone to a Venom game a few seasons ago, when he’d been in Atlanta for a conference. But he knew Daniel was married with kids, and it seemed best to just appreciate his skill on the ice and remember their goofy games and hours spent at the beach looking for shells that might be “worth something” and earn them millions. That kiss at the age of thirteen was just about as awkward as a first teenage kiss should be, but it made Micah smile to remember it all the same.
Also, despite the fact Daniel had talked about it all the time and made him watch games when they were kids, Micah didn’t really know anything about hockey. It’d been cold in the arena, and his seats were way up high, but he’d cheered when everyone else did, and even bought himself a souvenir T-shirt. And maybe he’d gotten sort of into the playoffs last year, when the Venom had won the Stanley Cup—but why did the playoffs take literal years?—and he’d laughed, thinking about how Danny once wrapped up an old fancy wineglass of his mom’s in aluminum foil and carried it around for the day. He’d explained you got a day with the Cup and a parade when you won, so Micah had dutifully thrown some confetti at him while Daniel propped the “Cup” in a wagon and dragged it behind him while waving to their neighbors.