Page 32 of Anatomy of a Player

For as long as the week had been, I was surprisingly awake. I thought about trying to study for about half a second, but I wasn’tthatawake. Plus, I’d crammed in so many chapters before the game that it was already a jumbled mess up there. Definitions blurred until I couldn’t remember which word went to them.

So I decided kicking back on the couch and watching TV was the better choice. I flipped through channel after channel, nothing really catching my interest. There were a lot of infomercials on this time of night, and I accidentally watched five minutes of one for Shake Weights. What with access to an entire room of more effective weights, it was the last thing I needed, but I couldn’t look away—they had women in sports bras demonstrating, their boobs jiggling as the weight bounced up and down. The move was quite suggestive, too. The allure wore off quickly, though, so I clicked the button again…

Then leaned forward, smiling at the funny coincidence. I reached for my phone, wanting to text Whitney and tell her that there was aStar Warsmarathon on, and if she was still up, we could watch it “together.”

Then I remembered that I didn’t have her number.

Damn, maybe Iwaslosing my touch. Considering she’d preemptively shut me down tonight, she’d probably say exchanging numbers crossed a line.

I could always use the “just friends” angle. It wasn’t totally false, even if the “just” was a bit misleading. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation with a girl where I wasn’t simply nodding at the right places, waiting for the conversation portion to be over so the kissing portion could start. It’d been a long time since I’d been attracted to a girl’s personality. Probably because I’d been hanging around the wrong girls, but they were less complicated, and I needed uncomplicated. Especially now. Dates would cut into study time and hockey time.

Dates? Where the hell did that come from? I’m not going to start dating her, great personality or not.

She’d just say no anyway.

When she’d said “hooking up with a hockey player,” even though it’d been in the context of how she couldn’t, my mind dove right into the gutter. I’d wanted to yank her to me and kiss those lips that had mesmerized me all night until she couldn’t remember her rules.

Dane barged into the room, the door slamming against the wall before swinging closed. “Bro, I saw you leaving with Whitney—you seal the deal?”

I could lie. Then he’d leave me alone about it. Now that I was getting to know Whitney, thinking about my bet with Dane sent guilt pinging through me, each organ it hit suddenly heavy. I’d shoved away plenty of guilt in my day, so I shoved it back to hang out with the rest.

“Not yet. See, unlike you, I know how to be smooth.” I made a big show of looking around. “Or did you bring home a girl, and she’s just invisible?”

“Funny. Maybe I just got back from her place. Did you think about that?”

“I might have, if you hadn’t added the ‘maybe.’ Besides, it’s been”—I glanced at my phone—“like, twenty minutes since I left. So if you did, you really need to work on your stamina, dude. Quickies are for amateurs.”

If Whitney and Ihadhooked up, we’d still be in the midst of it. Images flooded my mind, of kissing her neck and undoing that bun, and desire heated my blood. Later I’d let my imagination run wild, but right now, I needed to calm down before I ended up with a hard-on.

“Whatever. I’m not listening to someone who came home alone himself.” Dane flopped next to me on the couch, making the cushions dip. “Why don’t you just admit defeat and hand over your Lundqvist jersey now?”

“I’ve still got six weeks—not that I’m even going to need that much time.” There I went, digging myself in, nice and deep, instead of using the opportunity to climb out of the douche hole.

The door swung open again, and as soon as Ryder stepped inside, Dane immediately shot up on the couch. “Guess what? He didn’t seal the deal.” At Ryder’s confused face, Dane added, “With the uptight reporter. Although, tonight she was actually pretty cool. Who knew?”

I did, I wanted to say, and a predatory urge I’d never experienced before drifted up. Suddenly her earlier comments about hooking up with a “hockey player” were too vague. Me. No one else.

Ryder shrugged, tossed his keys aside, and then headed up to his room without comment. The disappointed look on Dane’s face made me laugh.

“Laugh it up,” he said. “That’s what I’ll be doing when I’m strutting around the place in my new signed Rangers’ jersey.”

That competitive edge that usually helped me during hockey games, but screwed me over with pretty much everything else, rose to the surface. Regardless of the number Whitney was doing on my head, I needed to focus. With ineligibility to play a few failing grades away, and my goal of earning a sociology degree slipping through my fingers right along with it—not to mention the constant phone call reminders of what waited for me at home if I couldn’t pull it together—I refused to surrender that symbol of everything I hoped to be one day.

I couldn’t lose that bet.

Chapter Twenty-One

Whitney

Another day, and another boring outfit. On top of that, I’d fallen asleep at my desk last night, and the crick in my neck wasn’t going away. Add the strain of carrying my laptop and all my books and there wasn’t any float-walking going on. I felt like a hot mess—strike that. Not even a hot mess anymore. Just a mess.

I’d texted Will, the paper’s tech guy, to see if I could get him to meet me at the office early. Luckily he’d agreed, but when I walked inside, he wasn’t typing on his computer as usual. His curls were askew, his eyes were half-closed, and he had a blank look on his face.

“Thanks so much for meeting me.” I set a cup on the desk in front of him. “I brought you tea.”

“Much obliged,” he said, lifting the tea for a sip and then giving a happy sigh.

The staff of the paper came and went as schedules allowed, but I’d never seen the newspaper office so empty. The news didn’t stop, but reporters obviously needed to, and this one wanted to sprawl across the desks and take a nap.

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