Page 17 of Drawn to You

CHAPTER SEVEN

Josie

Jane:How are things going with the hockey player?

I stare at the phone screen for a second, considering telling the truth. But complaining never got anyone promoted. And since Dane is busy with his game day routine, today has been relatively peaceful for me.

Me: It’s going well. He’s getting ready for his game tonight.

Jane: Keep me apprised.

Classic Jane. She doesn’t give compliments.Keep me apprisedmeans I’m off the hook for now, but she could become displeased at any moment. I shove my phone back in my bag, glad I’m no longer under her watchful eye every day.

“Is this groin massage gonna have a happy ending?” a player named Tate McGovern asks as he gets on the athletic trainer’s table.

“Probably,” Gina, the trainer, answers with a shrug. “Seeing as I’m the only woman who ever touches you. Just keep quiet while you jizz in your pants, for fuck’s sake.”

Some of the players include Gina in their locker room banter; others don’t. She doesn’t take any shit from them. She said I could hang out with her in the training room, and in the hour I’ve been in here, I’ve learned a lot.

Apparently one of the Tampa players is going to get chirped at a lot tonight. They call him Smitty, and since he slept with a teammate’s girlfriend, he’s on his teammates’ and his opponents’ shit lists.

Chirping is trash-talking opponents on the ice. And from what the guys are saying about Smitty, he’ll be hearing a lot of chirps about his small dick and his back acne tonight.

“Relax,” Gina tells Tate as she puts on rubber gloves.

“How’s Dane treating you, Josie?” Tate asks me.

Everyone calls him Tater. He’s one of the friendliest members of the team, almost always smiling, unlike Dane, who’s usually scowling.

“Fantastic,” I deadpan.

“It’s not your fault, you know. He’s been a salty bastard since his divorce.”

Record scratch. His divorce? Dane used to bemarried?

“When was that?” I ask.

“Uh, I think like four years ago?” He groans as Gina massages. “Damn, I feel like I should have taken you out for dinner before this.”

She scoffs. “What, to White Castle?”

“That was one time,” Tate says defensively. “It was after midnight and nothing else was open. It happened like two years ago, and my girlfriend at the time loved White Castle.”

“I’d rather eat a stale bag of gas station peanuts than go to White Castle,” Gina says, cringing. “Am I right, Josie?”

“I’d eat the plastic bag the peanuts came in before I ate White Castle.”

Gina snort-laughs. “I think we’re gonna be good friends.”

“What should we call her?” Tate gives me a puzzled look. “Jo? JoJo?”

“Call her Josie,” Gina says. “Save the nicknames for the boys.”

“You’re still not over me calling you Gina, are you?”

He pronounces it likevagina, and Gina shrugs. “I don’t care, Tater. I know you’re intellectually still in puberty, so I can see why it amuses you.”

Dane walks into the room, announcing, “My back hurts.”

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