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even shorter in comparison.
    Unable to help it, Ally smiled to herself at how blatant her friend was with men. Izzy was practically throwing herself at the poor guy. On the other hand, the man in uniform didn’t seem to mind in the least bit and appeared to be instantly taken with her. He smiled down at Izzy from his muscular frame.
    Ally waited a few minutes, trying to give Izzy her space, then started walking up to them. She had had enough of this debacle. She was about to ask if they could leave already, when Izzy leaned over to the player and Ally heard her say, “Dominic Devereaux, you looked positively sexy on the ice today. You really know how to handle that stick of yours.”
    Good Lord , Ally thought. Please don’t let there be any stick handling. Not in front of the children.
    There was no holding Izzy back. To make matters worse, her hand was awfully low on the hockey player’s waist. Luckily, most of the children had made their way out by now because Ally was fearful that her friend might straddle him right there in the bleachers. She could see the headline now: “Local Woman Assaults Hockey Player‘s Stick.” News at eleven.
    Realizing it would take a freight train to pull Izzy away from her new conquest, Ally decided to go outside and wait for her by the clown car. When she turned to go, a giant Number 20 was standing in her path. Before she could stop her feet from propelling her forward, Ally ran smack dab into the player’s back.
    “Whoa!” he exclaimed after the impact and turned around to see who had hit him.
    “Excuse me,” Ally mumbled and tried to regain her footing. She attempted to hurry out of the building without making a bigger fool out of herself, but was stopped in her tracks when the player’s hand reached out and grabbed her arm.
    Startled, she spun around, looked up and was greeted by the warmest brown eyes she had ever seen. The player blocking her had shaggy brown hair that clumped to his face with sweat. In one hand he held his helmet and stick and his other hand was lightly gripping her arm. “Sorry,” she squeaked, her voice suddenly failing her.
    “Are you okay?” he asked with concern, still holding on to her.
    “Yeah.” His hand was warm and she didn’t want him to let go. “Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Suddenly, with him looking at her like that, she didn’t remember why she had wanted to get out of there so quickly.
    “Are you sure?” He let go of her arm. “That was the kind of hit I’m used to taking on the ice.” He was smiling at her now.
    She smiled back. “I’m sure it was. And I’m so sorry about running into you.”
    Now, if you will just step aside, I will be on my way to bask in my humiliation.
    He made no attempt to let her by. Instead, he asked in a friendly voice, “Did you enjoy the practice?”
    “Uh, sure.” She cleared her throat and fumbled for words.
    The Number 20 must have been hit too many times in the head on the ice because she could have sworn he was still talking to her. Ally looked to her left then right, but there was no one else around. Yep, he was definitely talking to her.
    “You guys look really good out there,” she said finally. Oops. Those won’t the words she was looking for. “I mean…Actually, my friend dragged me here.” Grateful for the change in subject, she pointed to over to Izzy. “She’s over there. The one who left a trail of trampled children behind her to get to your teammate.”
    What a friend indeed. Men trumped all things in Izzy’s existence on earth. Instead of “Nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s”, Izzy’s motto may well have been “Nobody comes between me and my Calvin”.
    Ally thought back to other places Izzy had talked her into going to. Art galleries, plays, the post office, monster truck races, coffee shops, the dog park (even though neither of them had a dog). Anywhere to troll for men.
    As for Ally, she was fine all by her lonesome. Or, at least