Page 11 of The Grinder

“I guess that makes us both pitiful losers.”

“Yeah, but I’m a pitiful loser with a date with a hot hockey player. And if you come along, I’m sure you’ll meet lots of other hot hockey players.”

Damn it, she shouldn’t have said that. Vivi’s expression hardened and her mouth pursed in a way that only happened when she thought about the former asshole boyfriend.

“Never gonna happen. But I will totally be there tomorrow to make sure he’s not a complete dick.”

“Gee, when you put it like that, maybe it’s not even worth it.”

“I’m not sure any guy’s worth it.”

Trying to lighten the mood, Aly grinned at Vivi. “I guess you really do want to live with me forever. We’ll be known as the Spinster Sisters and have twenty cats.”

Vivi rolled her eyes again and finally started to laugh. “All right, all right. I’ll stop being such a downer. And no, I do not want to live with you for the rest of my life. We’d probably kill each other after twenty years or so. Doesn’t mean there has to be a man involved. One of these days, I’m going to backpack across Europe and I’m going to hike Everest and…”

As her sister continued to rattle off all the things she wanted to do with her life, Aly considered the fact that she didn’t really think about stuff like that.

Sure, she’d love to travel and see the world, but her sister wanted to escape.

And what’s so bad about that?

She hated to admit it, and wouldn’t never admit it to her sister, but she wanted to find a guy, someone to spend time with and do things with. Someone with mutual goals and—

Oh my god. She sounded like her mother.

“Hey, Aly?”

Her attention snapped back to her sister, who stared at her like she might have accidentally said all that out loud.

“Yeah?”

“I totally think you should do him.”

With a laugh, Aly grabbed the pillow and smacked her sister across the head.

“I totally think that’s not going to happen.”

* * * * *

“We have a game tonight and you are taking a girl out on a first date? We have a streak going and you must fuck with it?”

Taking laps around the rink before the start of practice, Riley ignored Vladimir “Lad” Marchenko’s taunt and kept skating.

He refused to allow any of the kids to get in his head. As the second-oldest player on the team, he sometimes was reminded that he’d actually grown up some since he’d been Lad’s age.

“Seriously?” Defenseman Derek Flaherty flew by then turned to skate backward so he could get in Riley’s face. “Chickie got someone to go out with him? How the hell’d that happen, old man?”

Restraining the urge to check the little shit into the boards for using that stupid-ass nickname and for commenting on his age, Riley once again took the high road and ignored the six-foot, hundred-and-eighty-pound redhead who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, no matter how many times he took a fist to the face for opening it.

Okay, he and Derek had a lot in common but Riley would never admit it.

“Yes, unlike you.” Lad pounced on Derek with the same droll wit he’d used on Riley. “Who cannot get a date because you open your mouth and speak.”

Instead of taking offense, Derek grinned. According to his roommate, Adam Zappala, that grin got Derek laid more than a rabbit in mating season.

“Don’t need to date if all you wanna do is get laid. Don’t need a girlfriend, either. They just fuck with your head.”

“Yeah, well, we all know he doesn’t have a brain so they don’t fuck with that.”

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