“To be fair,” I said, “I’ve been calling out your stupidity for years.”
Dallas rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I gave up on yours. That shit would be a part-time job.”
“I’ll have you know I haven’t done anything stupid in at least a month or two.”
Admittedly, the summer had been rocky, and I’d made more than a handful of regrettable decisions. But fall had been smooth sailing. Mostly because of Bailey. Okay, solely because of Bailey.
“Pretty sure that’s a record,” he said, pulling his red captain’s jersey over his head.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Pretty sure it is.”
I was amped up on testosterone and refueled sexual frustration during practice, which meant I had no shortage of energy. Yeah, I was frustrated again. It would take a while to work that out of my system. A long while.
“Carter!” Dallas shouted.
I snapped back to reality in the middle of the rink. “What?”
“The puck?” He gestured. “Go get it. We’re done for today.”
“Oh, right.” I skated off to the side and retrieved it before hopping off the ice.
One would think finally having sex would temper some of my horniness, but instead, it fueled it. Now I was thinking about James twenty-four seven. That part wasn’t new, but the scenarios had heated up significantly.
Though I was still trying to reconcile what she told me at XS with how she was in my bed, because they were like night and day. Seemed like actually paying attention to her needs went a long way.
Christ. I felt sorry for chicks. Sometimes I wanted to mail a map of the clitoris and a fucking clue to other guys.
On the plus side, it made me look good in comparison.
After hitting the showers, I got dressed quickly and headed for Coach Miller’s office. I’d hoped weekly check-ins would go to the wayside now that my probation had ended, but I still had the pleasure of seeing his shiny bald head and stern, cranky face for one-on-ones every five to seven days.
“Hi, Coach.” I set down my bag, flopping into the seat across from him.
Hopefully, this would be another in-and-out meeting so I could go do literally anything else. Maybe hit the library before my last class to write my economics paper or text James or think about James instead of writing my economics paper. Ooh, James as a sexy librarian…goddamn it.
“Carter.” Coach Miller tented his fingers, furrowing his brow. “I’d like to talk to you about the game the other day. Tell me about the hit you made on that Morrison kid from Callingwood. The one where you got a charging penalty.”
Well, this wasn’t good. Last thing I needed was to get benched for our next game against Callingwood because Miller thought I was a liability.
I mean, I probably was. But I didn’t need him to know that.
I kept my expression neutral, my tone to match. “What do you mean?”
Dodging the Bullet 101: When sensing trouble, keep the other person talking to determine what, exactly, they know. Thus avoiding incriminating oneself.
Learned this one the hard way. Several times.
“You’re lucky they didn’t call a major penalty on you for that,” he said. “You went way out of position to hit him. Why?”
“Got carried away, I guess.” I shrugged.
“You never get carried away.” He narrowed his eyes, studying my face with the intensity of someone reviewing game tapes. “Don’t think I missed your verbal altercation with him beforehand. That hit was clearly personal.”
“Off day,” I said. “Won’t happen again.”
The lie detector determined: that was a lie.
He harrumphed, leaning back in his reclining desk chair. “Make sure you keep your head on straight out there. Your game was a little uneven too.”
He wasn’t wrong. The rest of the team wasn’t pulling their weight, either, but that didn’t excuse my lapse in performance.
“Noted, Coach.”
OceanofPDF.com
BAILEY
After the night with Chase, I spent the following day in a total daze. I’d phoned it in for my classes, squealed over the new developments with Zara and Noelle at the Callingwood Daily office, and thought about him way too often.
Then I had to meet Siobhan to discuss which apartment to go with and pretend like I had my brain together.
I did not.
And like I’d thought about apartments.
I had not.
Roughly speaking, I was about 90 percent ecstatic and 10 percent terrified. I had no reason to be terrified. No excuse for feeling that way. Things had been nothing but amazing. And that’s what scared me.
Being so high meant there was so much farther to fall.
“So,” Siobhan smiled at me expectantly across the table, “how are things?”
Heat creeped up my neck. Suddenly, the cafe felt like a sauna.
“Good.”
“Things with Chase, I mean.”
“Really good.”
She grinned. “Dallas wanted to bring people back to the house last night, and I told him no way.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, hiding behind the menu to conceal my blushing. “The alone time was nice.”
“Did I hear him call you his girlfriend before you guys left?”
I broke into a grin. “Yeah, he sure did.”
“That is adorable.” She made a puppy dog face.
“Right? It’s nice to finally make it official.” I set the menu down. “What about—I mean, you and Dallas. You guys still haven’t had that talk? If I’m being nosy, just tell me, and I’ll shut up. We can blame it on too much time with Chase.”
Shiv laughed at my last comment, then her expression sobered. “We had a fight about that last night, actually.” She pursed her lips, looking away.
“You did?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Some guy hit on me, and Dallas got pissy over it. I turned the guy down, so what does it matter? But then he tried to give me an ultimatum. I mean, he didn’t phrase it that way. It was more of an ‘are you in or not’ type of thing?”
I sucked in a breath. “How did you guys leave it?”
“A little frosty. But we’ve had this argument before. It’ll probably blow over.” She shrugged. “It’s not like I want to date anyone else.”
“But…” I prompted her.
She winced. “What if making it official changes things?”
“That doesn’t mean it’ll change for the worse,” I said gently. “It could change things for the better.”
At least that’s what I was hoping for with Chase. Not that there was much to improve on. But I felt more secure in our relationship now. Hopefully, I could work through some of my residual trust hang-ups. Might take a while, though.
Shiv frowned at her Diet Coke. “This is going to sound stupid. Like, really stupid. But I honestly never thought of it that way.”
“If Dallas was anything like your ex, you wouldn’t still be with him.”
“I know.” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m crazy about the guy. He’s right there in front of me. The man’s perfect. What the hell is wrong with me?”
I shrugged. “Once burned, twice shy. I get it.”
“Honestly, I’m this close to taking the leap.” She held her thumb and pointer finger an inch apart. “I just need to wrap my head around it.”
After we ordered, our conversation turned to the reason we were here: living arrangements. At this point, we’d narrowed our apartment selections down to two. The unit I had liked initially, plus another new one that had come onto the market when its prospective tenant fell through at the last minute. It was one hundred dollars more per month, which wasn’t totally make-or-break, but still a factor.
Shiv took a sip of her drink, then slumped over the table. “I hate making decisions,” she said, muffled by her arm.
“Me too,” I admitted. Between the both of us, it was a tough combination. “The possession date for the first one is in four weeks. But the new unit on Pine is available almost immediately.”