Page 6 of Slapped Into Love

Considering how pissed I’d been when Tamara had given him even a hint of her approval, the answer was obvious. “Yeah,Iam.”

“Dude, you don’t have a chance in hell with her,” he chuckled. “But at least you don’t have to worry about one of us stealing her away from you. We’ll be too busy watching you go down in flames to hit on herourselves.”

“Fuck off,” I muttered as I stripped out of the rest of my gear and headed for the showers. I cleaned up and got dressed in less time than usual for me since the guys kept on giving me a hard time about Tamara. Nothing they said crossed the line since it was all aimed at making fun of me and how she wasn’t going to look at me as anything more than another skater on the ice while she ran us through drills. Little did they know I’d been inside her and planned to remind her how good it’d been between usbefore.

As I was putting on my jacket, Jason came up next to me and grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t let them get inyourhead.”

“What if they’reright?”

He squeezed his hand tight before dropping it. “It’s not like you to be uncertain around women. You’re usually so confident, you’re basicallycocky.”

“Yeah, well, being cocky is only going to do more harm than good when it comes to Tamara,” Isighed.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Now’s not the time for it. Not if you want to get the girl. Learn from me and all the months I missed with Cee-Cee, man. Go after her. Now,” Jasonurged.

I hadn’t missed as much time with Tamara as Jason had with Cee-Cee, but it’d been enough for me to know good advice when I heard it. “Fuck,” I groaned. “You’reright.”

I raced out of the locker room and pounded on the door down the hall. When she didn’t answer, I pushed the door open and groaned when I saw that the lights were all off. Turning swiftly, I raced down the corridor to the exit that led to the secured parking lot for the players in back of the arena. I was just in time to see an unfamiliar car drive past with Tamara behind the wheel. “That woman is too damn good at disappearing acts. It looks like I’m going to need to get faster off the ice as well as on it if I want to catch uptoher.”

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