Page 33 of Puck You Very Much

Dax collapsed onto the bench and let his head fall back against the cold tiled wall.

Shit. He needed a drink.

However, since he didn’t drink during the season, he needed the next best thing: sex.

It was a good thing he knew the best bars in pretty much every city for achieving his goal.

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and it’s about 350 miles north of the US border—damn cold in October, compared to California.

Dax didn’t mind the cold—he was an ice hockey player after all—but when it was forty degrees outside, you didn’t bother seeking out the best bar miles from the hotel. Instead, you went into the first one you came across—no matter how many moose statues stood in front of it, no matter how bright the neon lights screaming out some hokey name, “Snow Hut” or something.As long as it wasn’t a sports bar where someone would immediately recognize him and threaten to beat him up because he was the opponent, the declared enemy, he was fine. Even though tonight, technically, he’d played like more of a friend to the Edmonton Whales than a foe.

Shit, the thought was depressing and needed to be fucked out of his brain! He approached the door of the bar, reached for the handle…and his cell phone rang.

He paused in disbelief. How the hell did she know? Was she a damn psychic or what?

Annoyed, he pulled the phone out of his pocket fully expecting it to be Lucy demanding to know where he was and why he was doing what he was doing. However, before he could dismiss the call, he realized he was wrong.Annablinked across the screen. And he always answered when his sister called, on principle. No matter how bad he felt in the moment. That was how it had been ten years ago and it hadn’t changed since then.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked.

“What’s up?”Anna replied hostilely. “I just had a strange woman call me who thought she dialed your number. Because it was the one you gave her.”

He frowned. Oh yeah. He did that sometimes; gave out Anna’s number instead of his. But, if he was honest, he didn’t feel like having another discussion about why he was an asshole, so he said, “Can we talk about it another time?”

“No.”

He groaned and stepped back from the bar door to let a mustachioed Canadian through. “Please, not now, Anna. I’m not in the mood.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because you played like you couldn’t tell the puck from your head? Or because you were booed because of it?”

He gritted his teeth. “You saw the game, didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t going to miss the first game that finally united my beloved brothers after twelve years,” she replied sarcastically. “But now I almost wish I had.”

“You always know how to lighten the mood,” he replied dryly.

“I’m not calling to cheer you up. I’m calling to complain!” she clarified. “Are you aware that, in three months, I have my second board exam? I have better things to do than console your one-night stands. And believe me, it’ll be to your advantage to have a fully trained doctor in the family. Someone who can resuscitate you if one of the many people angry with you finally tries to kill you.”

He snorted. “Now that’s a bit over the top.”

“Oh, you should have heard the woman on the phone just now. If you had, I’m sure you wouldn’t have said that,” she stated unwaveringly. “And while we’re on the subject. Why are you giving my cell phone number to strangers?”

“Well, the idea is that you pick up and they are put off by another woman answering my phone,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “It makes it a lot easier on me.”

“But it’s not your phone, it’s mine!” she cried in disbelief. “And if you’re going to sleep with so many women, you should at least have the decency to tell them you don’t want to get serious.”

He grimaced. He would happily have this conversation with anyone other than his sister. “I do, Anna,” he assured her. “It’s about the first thing I tell them. Can I help it if no one listens to me?”

His sister snorted loudly. “Well, stop giving out my number! It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

Shit, she was absolutely right. Next time, he would give out Lucy’s number. That was a lot more responsible.

“Okay, okay,” he reassured her. “It will never happen again. How are you?”

“Are you only asking me so I won’t go on about your performance this evening?”

Yep, exactly that. “No, I just want to make sure you’re getting enough sleep and food and not spending all your time at the hospital or with your nose in a textbook,” he said innocently.

Anna seemed to think about his words for a while and then said, “Oh, I’ve been sleeping a few hours a night. But I’ll be ecstatic when this whole thing is finally over.”

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