Page 69 of Suck My Puck

“Yeah, absolutely.”

We both pull out our phones and I give her my number. She texts me.

“My mom is going to be so excited about this,” Ingrid says. “Thanks, Bella.”

She asks if she can take the Prosecco and glasses back to the table with her. I say of course and that I’ll bring the pitcher of beer to the table soon.

After she walks off, Braden smiles at me. “Look at you, coffee queen.”

I chuckle. He rests his elbows on the bartop and leans closer to me.

“Can I come over tonight?” His voice is low and rough and makes me hot instantly.

“Isn’t it a couple of days before your next game?” I ask, smiling.

He grins. “Yeah. But we’re playing New York and they’re really damn good, so I need all the good luck I can get.”

My head falls back as I laugh. When I straighten up and look at him, heat flashes in his soft blue eyes.

“I really wanna see you tonight, pretty girl.”

The roughness of his voice combined with the way he’s looking at me, makes my heart slingshot around in my chest.

I smile. “Okay.”

Chapter 24

Braden

“You didn’t have to wait for me to finish my shift,” Bella says as she pulls on her coat.

Earlier Bella mentioned that she took a rideshare to work because her best friend’s husband was borrowing her car to haul some baby furniture for their new nursery. Her plan was to call an Uber or Lyft to get home, but I told her I’d wait and drive her home. Yeah, rideshares are fine for the most part, but she’s a woman alone late at night, in a car with a stranger. Just thinking about anything happening to her sets off an ugly feeling in my gut.

Together we walk out of the bar. “No way am I going to let you go home by yourself this late,” I say while holding the door open for her.

She smiles at me. “Holding doorsanddriving me home from workandfun times in bed? You’re the perfect man.”

I laugh. We walk down the street where my car is parked. We pass a trendy whiskey bar at the end of the block, right as Xander stumbles out the door, clearly drunk. Theo and Maya walk out after him, shaking their heads and chuckling.

We stop walking and I look at Xander. “I thought you guys left to go home already?”

Theo pats Xander’s shoulder. “This guy wanted one more drink before we dropped him off at home,” Theo says.

“One drink turned into three,” Maya says.

“My trainer only lets me drink one night a week now,” Xander says. “I gotta live it up.”

Xander takes a step, trips over a crack in the sidewalk, and starts to fall, but Theo grabs him, propping him up.

“Damn, dude,” I say to Xander. “Went a little too hard tonight, huh?”

Xander slow-blinks and laughs. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

Theo grabs Xander’s arm and hooks it over his shoulder. I take Xander’s other side and offer to walk him to Theo’s car.

“Where are you parked?” I ask.

Maya points to their car, which is on the street a dozen feet away.

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