Page 35 of Mine

I was fucked.

The rest of volunteering turned into torture as I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She couldn’t be Ruby Dix, there was no way this woman was her. They had different colored hair, and Valencia didn’t scream sex worker to me, but did we really know anyone from just spending a few hours together a week?

I knew I was staring at her way too often and the moment that it was acceptable, I grabbed my jacket, and ran into Gomez who was staring at Valencia.

“Shit, sorry,” he said, still looking at her.

“You ok?” I asked, putting my jacket on.

Gomez had a blush on his face as he looked at Valencia.

“Yeah, I… yeah I’m fine,” he stammered, putting on his own jacket, blushing even more. “I just… forgot something I needed to do.”

He wasn’t looking at me, but he was still staring at Valencia. Oh god, no. Please let my mind be overthinking this. Gomez could not be the man I slept with too. He was supposed to be straight, off limits and not this distraction he was panning out to be.

“Gomez,” I snapped, his hazel eyes finally found mine and I knew it had to be him, his reaction was odd, and he had also seen her tattoos.

“Riggs, please don’t start now,” he pleaded, glancing at Valencia again, his blush never going away.

“Shit, Gomez,” I said, backing away, shaking my head.

“What?” he scowled. “Look I can’t deal with you too.”

He shook, pushing me away and that’s when I heard him speaking Spanish under his breath.Fuck me. He fixed his jacket before walking out. This revelation was leaving me reeling that my team enemy and the girl I had been shamelessly flirting with because of him were the threesome I had twice.

What the hell was happening? Did I just enter a sexual twilight zone?

“You ok, man?” Easton pulled me from my spiral.

“Yeah, I just gotta go,” I said, wrapping my scarf around my neck.

“Ok well, let’s have lunch some time,” Easton said, looking at me in a funny way.

I needed to leave before Valencia came over and I did something completely stupid. She didn’t need to know I knew who she was and if my instincts were right, I could not let Gomez know either.

Saying a quick bye again, I walked quickly to my car as flurries started to fall. Once I was safely inside, I let myself take the first full deep breath, wondering what the hell I was going to do.

My life felt like a soap opera lately, from making out with my pain in the ass teammate, to sleeping with him and the woman who worked for our team. I was trying to be discreet, only fucking people within the community, but goddammit, what are the chances that Gomez and Valencia were a part of that community.

Our sweet, funny social media manager was a fucking sex worker and the sweet team heartthrob was a fucking rope daddy. Just thinking about how he had Valencia and I tied up made desire pool in my gut. All I wanted was a good time and I didn’t know if I could go back to acting like everything was ok.

So many unanswered questions were running through my head, like was Gomez bi and I didn’t know? Also, he was twenty-two, how the hell did he become a rope master? That took years and… my stomach soured wondering who in their right mind brought him into the community so young.

Dammit, this year was supposed to be focused on getting a championship, not a sexy cam girl and a young rookie with a love for ropes.

We were playingthe Vancouver Polar Bears and we had one more period to go. We were tied one to one and I thought we had a good chance at beating them. It also gave me a reprieve from thinking about Valencia and Gomez since that seemed to be the only thing I had thought about since we had helped at the soup kitchen last week.

Things with Gomez were ok once I decided to ignore him and not look for him in the locker room. We couldn’t have a repeat of the kissing encounter. One, it was not good for the team. Two, he was over ten years younger than me, and the last one was because I don’t think he knew who the fuck he was. For god’s sake, he was twenty-two. At that age I barely knew what I wanted, much less, know I wanted to be a part of the kink community.

All these thoughts were in my head, and I was pushed into the boards on my bad shoulder, making me fall. I grimaced as extreme pain radiated in my shoulder.

“That was a cheap fucking shot,” Webber snarled, hitting the guy who just ran into me.

They threw punches and when another opposing team member tried to get in on it, Gomez was there to push him back.

A trainer came out to the ice to check in on me and at that point my shoulder was just throbbing.

“I think you need?—”

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