Page 33 of A Little Puck Luck

What do you think?

Scuba

It was still so silly to me that he called himself Scuba. He should go by Terry. It was a great name.

Then again, I never liked nicknames a whole lot. Back in the day, I only let my parents and Terry call me Annie.

As I clutched the letter and read it over a second time, I couldn’t help but think it was terribly romantic and sweet that he gave me a lunch date since he knew I was busy in the evenings. I just hoped it wouldn’t be detrimental to his game. The only way for him to be free during the day was to give up his pre-game nap.

But before I could do anything, Walter whimpered and scratched at the door.

Leaning down, I scratched his head and latched the leash to his collar. “I’m sorry, buddy.”

I opened the door and started to jog a little bit since it was the best way to contain Walter’s puppy energy. We only had to go around the block at a jogging pace, but then he would want to sleep during the day.

So, we jogged around the neighborhood. It was our normal routine.

Chapter 25

Scuba

Ineededtoknockthis first date out of the park.

The sad thing was that it had been a while since I tried to date. Trying to bone someone was easy peasy, but Annie wasn’t someone who wanted to get drunk and laid.

It had to be a more vintage dating style, but not too vintage since we were not in school anymore. She was a mom now and an amazing one at that.

If she wasn't friends with Natalie, I would totally have her set something up for me. But I didn’t want her to spill the beans or be judgmental about me pawning the job off on her.

I scrolled through websites like Yelp and Reddit, trying to find the best option. I discovered the very thing that settled it for me. Minerva’s was Ryan Reynolds’ favorite place. If it was good enough for him, then it was good enough for us. Too bad he wasn’t filming in the area because it would have been sick to have her conveniently run into her favorite actor.

Actually, scratch that. I didn’t need her lusting after another guy in my presence. My ego might be oversized, but I didn’t need it to take a beating.

As I scrolled through my phone, Carter came up to me. “What’s got you glued to your phone?”

“What do you know about Minerva’s?” I asked him.

“The puck bunny or the restaurant?”

Damn. I forgot about that puck bunny. Granted, none of my flings ever held a candle to Annie, and having her living down the hall from me put an end to all the hookups.

“Restaurant. I’m familiar with the bunny.”

Right then, Spencer Suzuki walked into the room from the trainer’s room and snorted. He couldn’t have had a clue who we were talking about, but he couldn’t help himself from chiming in. “Is there a bunny you haven’t sampled?”

The guy seemed to love to bust my balls about my sex drive. Who cared if I had slowed down since I moved Annie in? My reputation was that I liked to have sex, and I liked variety.

It was time to stir the pot some since I didn’t want them digging into my sex life too much.

With the trade deadline drastically approaching, it was easy to do. Especially with several marquee players’ contracts coming to an end. “Did you hear who Elliotte Friedman says is coming our way?”

Elliotte Friedman was a reporter who always seemed to have all the details on players’ contracts. So, if he said a team was interested or a deal was in the works, it was true most of the time.

Carter said, “Eoghan Cooper.”

The name sounded just like Owen.

Even though all of us had nicknames and went by them ninety percent of the time, I couldn’t recall a single time I played against the Wild, and the guys on the ice didn’t use some form of his last name. I almost forgot that Cooper was his last name, but then again, if my first name was so off the beaten track in spelling, then it was no wonder everyone called him by his last name or something easy, like Coop.

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