“Um…” My gaze slid to Chase and then back to Cam. “No.”
“Did you hide them, dude?” Cam asked him. “What’d you do with them?”
“He’s lying,” Chase said.
I grinned. “Damn. I’m so disappointed.”
“Seriously, he had them taped to his bedroom walls,” Cam said. “Have you ever looked at his phone? He was like a fucking stalker. I bet he has fifty pictures of you saved on there.”
I tried not to laugh. “I haven’t looked at his phone. That would be an invasion of privacy.”
“I know his password,” Cam offered.
“No, you don’t. You think I’m stupid enough to have a password you know?” Chase turned to me. “One time he got my phone and took pictures of my dick and put them on my Snapchat story.”
“Um, how did he do that?” I asked, still trying to stifle my laughter.
“I was asleep, dammit. I didn’t know. Shit like that can get you in trouble. My password is now unknowable.” Then he nudged my shoulder. “But you can look at my phone anytime.”
“You trust me?”
“Sure. Um. Maybe?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t take any dick pics and post them publicly.” Although his dick was definitely worthy, I wasn’t sharing.
“Whew. And yeah, there may be a few pictures of you saved on my phone.”
Our eyes met in a miniature burst of sparks. Even though we’d just banged our brains out an hour ago.
“He was just embarrassed by having his little purple crayon put on Snapchat.” Cam grinned.
I choked on my beer.
“You probably don’t know about his mini wang,” Cam continued cheerfully. “Else you wouldn’t still be with him.”
“Jesus, Brick, shut the fuck up.” Chase shook his head, clearly not upset by the insults. Why would he be? We both knew his wang was far from mini. And probably Cam did too, since I was pretty sure athletes all walked around the dressing room naked. They probably even showered together. Now there was an image…
I shook my head.
“I should tell you about some of Brick’s dates,” Chase said. “Like the time he tried to sneak out of his own place after a one-nighter.”
Brick chortled. “Fuck, I was so hammered I didn’t even know where I was. Just knew I had to get away from her. I was trying to be so quiet, sneaking around getting dressed…I was down the hall and in the living room before I realized I was trying to sneak out of my own place.”
I rolled my lips in on a smile.
“Or the time you asked a girl, ‘Jenny, did we have sex last night?’ because you couldn’t remember.”
I bit my lip. “Ouch.”
“That wasn’t the worst part,” Chase said. “Her name was Shawna.”
“Ooooh. I’m betting you didn’t see her again.”
“Nope.” Cam grimaced. “Don’t judge me though. This makes it sound like I’m an asshole. I’m a good guy, honest.”
His charming smile pretty much convinced me that was true.
A few others joined our conversation. I loved watching Chase interact with his buddies, who he referred to as Boosh, Rico, and Hallsy, and Hallsy’s girlfriend, Kendra. There was such a sense of camaraderie among them. It made me envious, that Chase had this whole team of guys who were obviously there for each other. Of course I had my team too. I missed Aaron and Natosha and the rest of my gang, and Malik and my friends, but it felt nice to be included in this group.
“Hey, Hallsy, where’s Nicky?” Boosh asked.
Hallsy shook his head. “Eh. He’s having a rough time. It’s the anniversary of Aleks’s death next month. He always gets kind of down.”
The air in the room pressed down on us, the mood dipping.
“Hell,” Boosh muttered. “All the more reason he should be here.”
“Yeah, we’d cheer him up,” Rico said.
“He’s probably home in his garage sanding down a table or something, all by himself,” Chase said.
“He enjoys that.” Hallsy shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“We are,” Kendra added with a sweet smile. She and Hallsy exchanged a tender glance that made my heart squeeze.
I didn’t know who Aleks was—maybe Nicky’s wife? That would be so sad. Especially since Max himself had lost his wife a couple of years ago.
I mostly listened as they talked about their friend, then about the game last night. Boosh (Julien Boucher) had been injured and was apparently going to be out for a while much to his disgust. They trash-talked the other team, all of them angry about the bad hit Boosh had taken, and berating the ref for an early whistle that resulted in an Aces goal being disallowed. I’d watched the game last night and I agreed. “Babinsky never had control of that puck,” I said, referring to the Flames goalie. “The puck was loose the entire time. That ref never should have blown the whistle.”
Silence fell, and several pairs of eyes focused on me. I blinked and glanced at Chase.
He smiled at me with a weird expression in his eyes…intense, admiring, and very, very warm.
My insides quivered, and I gave him a toothy smile back.
“She knows hockey,” he said, breaking our eye lock to focus on his friends.
“Yeah.” Cam pursed his lips, his eyebrows elevated.
“That call sucked,” I added.
Especially since they’d ended up losing in a shoot-out. If that goal had counted, the game wouldn’t have gone into overtime. Since I couldn’t yell at the TV, I’d chanted “Ref, you suck” in a normal voice.
The conversation moved on. Chase’s arm came around my waist, pulling me into him. I shifted willingly, smiling up at him. He looked back at me, still with that heat in his eyes that made me think he wanted to drag me into a bedroom and do dirty things to me…again…
“Does it turn you on that I know hockey?” I asked him with a flirty look.
He moved his mouth next to my ear and whispered, “Everything about you turns me on.”
I smiled.
“You should come to games with us,” Jenna said to me.
“For sure!” Katelyn Bennet, wife of player Tanner Bennet, agreed. “You can sit with us.”
“Thanks.” I might feel like a bit of a fraud hanging out with the wives and girlfriends, but it was nice of them to ask me. “I’ve been trying to keep a low profile while I’m here in Chicago.”
Katelyn smiled sympathetically. “I’m sure nobody would bother you at a game.”
“Okay. It would be fun to go to more games.”
Chapter 18
Chase
Chase Hartman is really struggling. His ice time has been reduced to below ten minutes per game recently and he doesn’t have much of a scoring touch. Hartman has just two goals and eight assists this year. With his inability to score, you’d hope he’d be responsible in his own end, but Hartman is -8 this year. In addition, he’s been taking unnecessary penalties.
—Puck Talk
“My dad is insanely dying to meet you.” Jordyn squeezed my hand. “You can’t be nervous.”
“I’m about to puke.”
“Just think of him as another fan.”
“A fan whose daughter I’m fucking.”
“Well, we won’t talk about that.”
“He’ll know.”
“He doesn’t want to think about that, believe me. Don’t worry.”
We were on our way to her parents’ place in Lakeview for Sunday dinner. I wasn’t even sure how this had happened. After Jordyn and I had gone to see Blue Man Group, which her mom apparently loved but which I’d never seen, Jordyn had talked to her mom who suggested Jordyn should bring me over for dinner. Meeting the parents was about as appealing as taking a butt end in the nuts, but somehow I agreed to it.
Yeah, I was shitting bricks and sweating despite the icy February temps, but truthfully I was also curious to meet the people who’d brought Jordyn into the world. Jordyn Banks. Music superstar. “This is so weird,” I muttered.
“Why?”
“You’re Jordyn Banks. Musical superstar. It’s weird that you have parents.”
She laughed. “Everyone has parents. I mean, at some point.”
“I just never imagined…”
“We don’t have to do this. Really, Chase, if this is too much for you, we don’t have to go.”
She’d made it clear that it was just a casual dinner, and her dad would enjoy it because he was such a big hockey fan. I had to sack up about this. “No, no, it’s fine.”