Page 39 of The Grinder

“Don’t worry,” Vivi continued. “You don’t have to say anything. I can tell by the smile on your face he must’ve been good.”

A blush heated Aly’s cheeks but she purposely ignored Vivi’s sly remarks as she poured herself a mug of caffeine and headed for the cabinet for something to eat while the coffee kicked in.

“Obviously, the man knows how to move off the ice as well as on.”

Yes, he certainly had. But she still wasn’t giving her sister the satisfaction of responding.

Vivi sighed dramatically. “Guess I’ll need to get earplugs if he’s going to be sticking around. You two probably made enough noise to wake the neighbors. Maybe I should ask Tig if I can stay at her house tonight. I assume you’re seeing him again tonight.”

“I’m ignoring you.”

Vivi huffed. “You’re trying to ignore me. You’re not doing a very good job of it. Come on, spill. You know you want to tell me all about it.”

Aly grabbed the box of Lucky Charms out of the cabinet and poured a bowl. Every other day, she had something sensible, but on the weekends she needed her sugar. It was Sunday—and she’d probably burned enough calories last night to eat the entire box.

Which made her smile.

“Oh, now, that’s just mean.” Vivi threw her napkin at Aly as she sat across from her at the breakfast table. “If I had smoking-hot sex with a guy, I’d tell you all about it.”

Aly gave her sister a raised eyebrow. “Whether I wanted to hear or not.”

“At least admit you had a good time.”

She shrugged, trying for nonchalant although she felt anything but. “I did.”

“And that you want to see him again.”

“I do. He’s…” She struggled to find a word that wouldn’t trigger all kinds of questions from her sister that she couldn’t answer. “He’s really nice.”

Vivi’s eyebrows rose again. “Nice? He’s nice? Oh please. Any man who makes you look like you’re still in shock from last night is not just nice.”

“Please stop telling me how I look this morning. It’s weird.”

“Then maybe you should look in a mirror before you come to the table looking like you spent all night screwing your brains out.”

Aly stuck her tongue out at her sister before she started eating, then proceeded to ignore her and read the paper.

For the first time since she’d played field hockey in high school, she looked at the sports pages. The article on the game took up about half a page but it mentioned Riley’s name a few times, all favorably. The writer made special mention of Riley’s work ethic, how he never gave up, even if he didn’t get what he wanted the first time.

And yeah, she’d seen that part of him in action last night. Once he’d set his mind on something, he didn’t stop.

When he’d said he wanted to hear her scream, he hadn’t been kidding.

She swore she was still blushing when her phone rang a few minutes later.

She grabbed it…and sighed.

Not Riley.

“Hey, Mom.” She exchanged a glance with Vivi, who shot out of her seat like her ass was on fire and disappeared. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just forgot to remind you about the service contract yesterday. The one for the heater? You probably need to renew that this month. I remembered that when your dad complained about the heat yesterday. We’ve had the air running nonstop for the past six months, I swear. And we’re supposed to be getting hit with that tropical storm next week…”

Stifling a sigh, Aly let her mom ramble, answering appropriately when required, feeling guilty when she looked at the clock and rolled her eyes when she realized her mom had just spent the last twenty minutes talking about her dad’s refusal to go to the doctor for his constant intestinal issues and then ran down her own health issues. All of which she’d mentioned yesterday.

She loved her parents. She did. But sometimes…

Well, sometimes she wished she wasn’t the one they relied on. The one everyone relied on. Sometimes she wished she could be a little more like Vivi, born with the ability to let everything roll off her back and not feel guilty about it.

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