Page 31 of The Goal

By the time we arrive at the stage, I’m sporting a semi, which is fucking embarrassing. Getting a hard-on at the mere sight of a girl’s ass isn’t something that’s happened to me since high school.

I force my eyes upward in time to avoid a table full of frat boys. One of them reaches out to slap Sabrina’s ass as she sways by him.

A jolt of rage shoots up my spine. I shove forward, but a bouncer sitting at the base of the stage reaches the punk before I do.

“No touching, asshole.” He hauls the polo-shirted kid to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” the asswipe protests. “It was reflex.”

But the bouncer doesn’t listen and the guy is dragged out anyway. Hisfriends just watch him go.

Hollis grins. “Strict fuckers here.”

“We need that guy on our team,” Fitzy observes.

“No lie.”

Sabrina holds out her hand. “Anything I can get for you boys?” Her voice is barely audible over the loud dance beat blaring through the club.

“Whatever you have on draft.” I keep my eyes fixed above her chin, which is a fucking miracle.

I don’t miss the unhappiness washing over her face. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess she’s embarrassed, and I don’t know how to tell her that where she works doesn’t make a shit’s worth of difference to me.

Brody flops down in the chair next to mine. He rests his forearms on the tabletop and leans forward to watch the half-naked woman dancing five feet away from us. The tall redhead is in the process of wiggling out of her G-string, leaving her in nothing but a leather holster around her waist and two fake guns.

“And for you?”

Hollis’s brother tears his gaze off the naked cowgirl and glances at Sabrina. “Whiskey, neat.”

“Coming right up.”

“Thanks, baby.”

With a strained smile, Sabrina disappears, and somehow I manage not to lunge across the table at Brody. Sabrina’s not his baby. If he calls her that one more time, I’m not sure I’ll be able to restrain myself from beating the living crap out of him.

“She looks familiar,” Hollis yells in my ear. “The waitress. Doesn’t she?”

I shrug. “Don’t know.”

Fitzy turns to study her as she leans forward to take orders at a nearby table. “I guess she looks a little like Olivia Munn?”

“No way. She’s a million times hotter than her,” Hollis declares. Then he shrugs. “Whatever, maybe I don’t know her.”

His brother grins. “I’ll ask her later why she looks familiar. You know, when she’s on her knees in front of me.”

I clench my fists against my thighs. I have to, or I’m going to poundHollis’s brother into mincemeat and then Hollis will be pissed off. I like Hollis.

Luckily, Brody decides to stop being a creep, as if on some subconscious level he figured out how close I was to straight-up murdering him. He turns to me and says, “Mikey mentioned you’re going to start your own business?”

I nod. “That’s the plan.”

“Got something in mind?”

“I’m kicking around a few ideas, but I haven’t settled on anything yet. I’ve been focused on hockey.”

“Yeah, I hear ya.”

“But once I’m done with school, I’ll evaluate my options.”

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