Page 58 of It's Mother-Pucking Christmas!

Erik stabbed at Rick when he went for the maple syrup.

I shoveled the food in my mouth. The pancakes were really good, the best things I’d ever eaten.

Or maybe it was all the sex last night.

Or maybe that finally a girl not just liked me back but loved me back. And she was absolutely perfect.

“Eh?” Rick said in a fake Canadian accent as Erik chewed a small bite of pancake.

“All right, all right,” he said, opening the cap on the maple syrup. “It’s fine.”

He took another bite. “Okay, it is really good.”

Dakota served him up three more.

“So,” Mike said to her. “Ryder said you’re trying to get him to take his hockey career seriously.”

“He could easily play for a big-name team.” Dakota cut a sausage lengthwise and rolled it in a pancake while the next batch sizzled, dipping it in a cup of syrup.

“Witchcraft!” Rick whispered then copied her.

I sank in my seat, wondering if the guys were going to be mad. “I don’t think I’m that good.”

“Listen to him. He is,” Mike assured Dakota. “Coach made him captain after one game. And he was an eleventh-hour walk-on.”

“Coach said I was made captain because I have enough executive function to shave every morning and I can spell my own name.”

“I don’t know why you hockey players have an aversion to shaving.” Dakota crossed her arms.

“Well, in the Arctic Avengers’s case,” I said letting the smugness enter my voice, “it’s because they’re depressed we keep beating them.”

“Hell yeah!” My teammates whooped.

I smirked. “And that their women like it better when we eat them for a pregame snack.”

21

DAKOTA

“Did you make pancakes?” two of my brothers complained from the top of the stairs when I tried and failed to sneak back into my parents’ house after Ryder and his teammates left for the rink.

“Not for you.”

“Mom!” they yelled, running off.

“Doing the walk of shame at lunchtime?” Gracie teased me when she followed the pugs, who had raced through the house to greet me.

The pugs barked, smelling Dasher on my boots, probably.

“So worth it!” I sighed. “It was amazing. He was amazing. I can’t wait to see him again. He said he’s going to come fuck me after the game.” I floated into the living room.

“Must have been. You never spend the night at a guy’s place.”

“I had to. I could barely move. He could have kept going, though.” I sprawled out on the couch.

“Dang. It wasn’t like that one guy you hooked up with the one time who popped all that Viagra, and his weenie turned purple, and you had to take him to the emergency room?” Gracie sat down next to me.

“Oh no,” I purred. “He managed to come. And then he did it again. And again and again.”

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