Page 10 of Slap Shot Daddies

Finally, the new guy, the one I slept with at the party, the brooding and enigmatic one. His face is a stoic mask, his jaw set with a firmness that suggests he carries the entire world on his shoulders. Tall, dark, handsome, with smoldering hazel eyes that made me melt like a puddle.

I exhale sharply, pressing the back of my head against the car seat, letting my eyelids flutter closed for just a moment.

My mind, rebellious and disobedient, betrays me by replaying last weekend in vivid, tantalizing detail, the way his hands had traced every contour of my skin, the way his lips had moved languidly down my neck, the way he’d breathed my name as if it were a sacred mantra.

I know I shouldn’t be thinking about this. I shouldn’t crave more than what was given.

But I do.

God help me, I do. So badly.

I snap my eyes open, shaking off the lingering memory, my pulse still racing just a bit too fast.Get it together, Kenzie, I tell myself firmly.

This is real life, not some absurd fantasy spun from the pages of one of my novels.

Not everyone finds their happily ever after with three impossibly attractive hockey players fawning over them.

Except...Ally did.

I bite my lip at the thought, casting a glance toward the arena where I know my best friend is probably already inside, seamlessly managing the whirlwind chaos of her job.

If anyone had told me six months ago that Ally Perry, the most composed and meticulous woman I’ve ever worked with, would find herself in a unique relationship with three professional athletes, I would have laughed outright.

But it happened.

She’s happy. In love. With not one man,but three.

My chest tightens like a vice, squeezing with the weight of unspoken hopes.

Perhaps such things really do happen outside the confines of fiction, where stories unfold with effortless grace.

Maybe there are those fortunate souls who stumble into such steamy serendipity.

But not me.

I exhale, dismissing the absurd thought with a shake of my head. The closest thing I have to a romantic relationship is the pair of lovebirds I keep at home, and even they spend half their time squabbling in their cage.

Besides, I have ambitions, aspirations carefully sculpted over years of relentless effort. I have battled my way out of the chaos of my past, painstakingly reconstructing my life piece by piece.

I can't afford to risk unraveling it all for the sake of some hockey player with an irresistible smile and a physique that seems to have been chiseled by the gods.

Even if every fiber of my being is dangerously tempted to throw caution to the wind.

I groan, the sound escaping my lips as I drag my hands down my face in exasperation.

I need guidance, a lifeline to pull me back from the edge.

I slump further into my seat, my eyes fixed on the gray, textured ceiling of my car for what feels like an eternity before I finally let out a long, deliberate breath.

I need to pull myself together.

With a resigned sigh, I glance down at my phone, my thumb flicking mindlessly through the seemingly endless stream of social media updates.

My old vet school classmates are flourishing, posting vibrant pictures of their weddings, cradling newborns, and basking in the golden sun on vacations to exotic, tropical getaways.

They all seem so settled, so blissfully content with the paths they've chosen in life.

And then there's me.

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