Page 80 of Unrivaled

Grady hugged her too. “Good to see you, Amanda. Merry Christmas.”

“And this is Polly.”

“Nice to meet you.” Polly was probably a normal height when she wasn’t standing between Jess and Amanda, who were both close to six feet. She wore a nose stud and a bright red undercut.

Grady might need to put a king bed in his guest room. “Same,” he said. “Car’s this way.”

Mercifully, Jess held off on interrogating him until Polly and Amanda excused themselves to go to bed. Grady needed to go to sleep soon too—the Firebirds would play Pittsburgh tomorrow and the Monsters the next night—but he wanted to talk to Jess more.

As soon as Polly and Amanda were upstairs, Jess turned to him in the armchair and curled her legs up in her seat. “So. Tell me aboutMax.”

He’d thought for sure she would realize Max meant Max Lockhart, the hockey player Grady had been bitching about for years. But nothing in her expression or tone suggested any suspicion. Then again, she probably hadn’t thought much about Grady’s love life for the past few days. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters, when did he get upgraded from Shithead?”

That one was easy. “Officially? The night my trade to Anaheim fell through.”

She put her chin on her folded arms and leaned closer. “Why then?”

“He found out before I did.” Grady thought back to that night. “The game was a shitshow, but I kept thinking to myself, ‘At least it’ll be over soon,’ because Erika had told me a trade was in the works. Then I got home and Max had TSN on and they were running the story about Baller getting traded.” He huffed. “He could’ve been an asshole about it. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been, if I were him—”

“If you were him?” Jess interrupted. She narrowed her eyes. “Wait a second, are you saying Max is also a hockey player?”

Thereit was. “Yeah.”

“And he was hanging out at your house instead of playing? Does he play in the AHL or something?”

“No.” Grady braced himself. “He was injured.”

It still took her a moment. “Grady,” Jess said slowly, “are you sleeping withMax Lockhart?”

He couldn’t read her expression. “Surprise?”

“What the fuck! Grady!” She ran a hand down her face. Okay, that didn’t fill him with confidence. He’d thought she’d be happy for him. “Since when?”

“World Cup.”

“What!”

“It’s your fault,” he accused. “You’re the one who downloaded Grindr instead of an actual dating app—”

“Oh my God.”

“And then Max and I matched, and he didn’t believe I was really me because I used my headshot from NHL.com. Apparently that’s a no-no—”

“Oh myGod!”

“So he said if you’re really Grady Armstrong then prove it, and one thing led to another….”

“Oh my God!”

This was getting rude. Grady was only dating one guy he used to hate. Jess had started dating her ex-girlfriendandher ex-girlfriend’s girlfriend, and he was being way more chill about that. “Anyway, the sex was”—great, amazing, transcendent—“good. So we kept hooking up. And I explained why I had Grindr in the first place, and Max helped me download anactualdating app. But it turns out I suck at dating, so Max was giving me pointers—”

Jess made an incredulous noise.

Finally Grady stopped trying to explain. “What? You asked.” Besides, she was the one who’d ended up in a porny Lifetime movie.

“Yeah, but you just… trusted him?”

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