THIAGO
When I walked into the crowded diner restaurant and saw Anastasia sitting directly beside Cassian in the corner booth, I immediately understood why the rookie player had been acting so completely distracted during our team practices all week.
He was focused on her instead of focusing on his hockey plays, and that was exactly the kind of outside distraction that could ruin our entire season.
The table went strangely quiet almost immediately after I arrived and sat down.
The loud laughter stopped, and several players suddenly looked down at their food plates or adjusted their water glasses.
Everyone tried pretending absolutely nothing unusual was happening, but I could easily tell that several of my teammates were secretly watching my facial expression to see how I would react to the situation.
I completely ignored their looks, and I pulled a menu toward myself and focused entirely on ordering and eating my dinner.
Unfortunately, Cassian did not make things easy for anyone at the table. He did not seem to care that I was sitting directly across from him, and he spent most of the dinner making Anastasia laugh and talking directly to her about various random topics.
Every single time I looked up from my chicken plate, he seemed to be leaning closer to her side of the booth, and his shoulder was almost touching hers as he pointed at things on his phone.
"You should really let me show you around the city when we get back to New York, Ana," Cassian said, completely ignoring the rest of the guys. "There are a lot of great spots that you haven’t seen yet."
Anastasia offered a small smile, but she glanced at me for a quick second before she answered him. "I am pretty busy with the official media schedule, Cassian."
"You can always make a little bit of free time for a friend," Cassian replied, and he laughed and slid his glass closer to her plate.
At one point during the middle of the meal, another teammate named Miller leaned across his chair and jokingly asked a question out loud.
"Hey, Brooks, do you actually plan to ask Anastasia out on a real date before this official road trip ends, or are you just going to keep talking about it forever?"
The moment the question left his mouth, several younger players immediately started chanting Cassian’s name over and over again while slamming their palms down on the tabletop.
"Brooks! Brooks! Brooks!" they yelled, and the noise caused a few people at the neighboring tables to turn around and look at us.
Anastasia looked deeply embarrassed by the sudden loud attention, and her face turned a bright shade of red as she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked down at her lap.
Cassian just laughed out loud and shook his head, looking entirely pleased with himself and the situation.
I set my fork down hard on the table.
"We have a major championship game coming up tomorrow night, guys, and we should probably focus on hockey instead of worrying about dating lives."
My serious voice immediately ended the loud conversation, and the players stopped chanting and went back to eating their food.
The quiet returned to the table, but it only ended the topic temporarily, and the mood remained awkward for the rest of the hour.
After the dinner finally ended, our group paid the bill and began returning to the team hotel together.
We were walking down the main street, but a sudden rainstorm started halfway through the long walk, and the downpour caught us completely by surprise.
The water started flooding the sidewalk, and everyone immediately scattered in different directions to find cover.
Anastasia was trying to run toward a nearby building while shielding her bag with her jacket, but she lost her footing on the slick ground and ended up slipping badly.
She gasped out loud as her feet slid out from under her.
Before she could actually hit the hard ground, I stepped forward quickly and caught her arm with a firm grip. I pulled her upward, stabilizing her weight before she could drop down to the ground.
For a long second, neither of us moved at all. We just stood there in the middle of the pouring rain, and I held her arm tightly while she stared up at me with wide eyes.
The water was dripping down our faces, and I could feel her breathing quickly from the sudden scare.
Then, she looked down at my hand on her sleeve and thanked me quietly. "Thank you, Thiago."
"You need to be more careful on these streets," I said, slowly releasing my grip on her arm once I was completely sure she had her balance back. "The ground is incredibly slick tonight."
The brief moment ended abruptly when several of our teammates started shouting loudly from across the rainy street, asking if she was okay.
Miller and Cassian were standing under a large theater awning, waving their hands toward us.
"Hey, Ana, are you alright over there?" Cassian shouted.
"I am fine!" Anastasia called back to them, shaking her wet jacket. "Thiago caught me before I fell."
We quickly crossed the street and joined the rest of the group under the shelter, and we completed the walk back to the hotel without any more issues.
Once I was finally back inside the warm lobby of the hotel, I walked away from the group, while staring at Anastasia walking away.
I sighed and scolded myself inwardly as to why I went there in the first place and told myself that the entire situation didn’t matter at all.
She was just the team photographer, and it was my job as captain to keep everyone safe and focused on the tournament.
Then, I walked down the corridor and ran into Cassian standing entirely alone near the main elevators.
The moment he saw me approaching, the rookie smirked and looked at me sideways.
"Hey, Captain," Cassian said, leaning his back on the wall. "Are you worried about me spending so much time with Anastasia on this trip?"
I pressed the elevator button and kept my face completely neutral.
"Don’t be ridiculous, Brooks. I don’t care who you spend your free time with, as long as you perform well on the ice tomorrow night."
Cassian’s annoying grin only widened when he heard my reply, and he tilted his head back.
"You know," he said, tapping his foot on the floor, "that’s really not what your face says every time you look at the two of us together."
The elevator doors opened with a loud ding before I could even formulate a response to his comment.