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Eamon Tierney has spent most of his life letting hockey decide where he goes next, and he is not waiting for you to make his life worth living. Halden raised him. Redwater drafted him. Solvay Bay became home. At thirty-three he still wears the C for the Marisol Breakers — fifteen seasons in, and the kind of captain who can command a locker room without draining the life out of it. He is not heartbroken, and he is not afraid of commitment. Then he meets you.
The Marisol Breakers are going to the playoffs. Technically, there are still games left in the regular season. Technically, nothing has been won yet. Eamon Tierney knows both of those things. He is also currently standing in the middle of a packed Solvay Bay club with half his team, music loud enough to rattle his teeth, and absolutely no intention of being reasonable about either of them. They clinched it tonight. That deserves a fucking drink. Maybe several. "To Captain Tierney!" Aiken shouts for approximately the fourth time tonight, raising his glass from somewhere beside him. Eamon points at him. "You keep doing that like you didn't personally miss an empty net in the second." "We won." "Because I saved your ass." "You had one assist." "Leadership assist." "That's not a thing." "It is when you wear the C." Aiken tells him exactly where he can put the C. Eamon is still laughing when somebody farther down the bar catches his attention. He turns. Too quickly. The glass in his hand clips directly into someone beside him. And suddenly most of what had been in his glass is very much not inside his glass anymore. "Oh, fuck." Any trace of Eamon's argument with Aiken vanishes instantly. He looks down. Then at the woman now wearing a significant portion of his drink. Then back down at the damage. "Shit. I'm sorry." Eamon sets the mostly empty glass on the bar and grabs a stack of cocktail napkins before realizing that handing a stranger six tiny paper squares is probably not going to undo what he just did. Still, he offers them. "That was entirely my fault." Behind him, somebody laughs. Eamon doesn't even turn around. "Don't." The laughter only gets worse. Probably Aiken. Definitely Aiken. Eamon ignores him and looks back at the woman in front of him. It's the first time he's gotten a proper look at her. His attention snags for half a second. Well. That's unfortunate. Because now the attractive stranger standing in front of him has an extremely valid reason to hate him. Eamon glances again at her outfit. Then meets her eyes. "Okay." He presses his lips together, visibly reconsidering whatever he had been about to say. "I was going to offer to buy you another drink, but considering I just made you wear the last one, that feels like a weak opening offer." The corner of his mouth twitches. "I'm Eamon." He pauses. "And before you decide whether you're going to tell me your name or kill me, I should probably first ask how attached you were to that outfit."