Page 43 of Anatomy of a Player

Adrenaline surged through me as I rushed up the stairs, then the different, bad kind of adrenaline mixed in. Poor Lyla was probably losing circulation in the hand I’d clamped on to.

Unlike Kristen, who would’ve insisted on an explanation—or even argued with the explanation—when I’d turned to Lyla and told her I needed to “get out of here right now,” she’d sprung into action. She’d muttered something to Beck, giving him a quick kiss on the way, and then we’d been rushing up the aisles, moving as quickly as we could until the flow of people slowed us to a crawl.

A squished, I-can-smell-ten-kinds-of-B.O crawl. I didn’t realize how much I hated huge crowds until today. I could handle them if there was proper room to move around, but there wasn’t enough room or air. I was starting to think part of that had to do with knowing Hudson was in the same building.

What the hell’s wrong with me?

I was falling for an obnoxious, cocky…sexy, funny… When all I could come up with were more complimentary adjectives to describe the hockey player I couldn’t stop thinking about, I cut myself off. Even when I knew better, my brain betrayed me. Or maybe it was my body—it was definitely in on it.

Didn’t it remember how much the crash hurt? Hudson Decker was the exact type of guy I’d sworn off almost a month ago, and I’d done it for self-preservation.

Finally, we made it to my car—luckily Lyla had ridden here with Beck, so she could ride home with me. As soon as we were safe inside, Lyla said, “Okay, spill.”

So I did. The documentary watching and joking around, and the tingly butterflies I’d felt when he’d rested his knee against my leg. “I know he’s a bad idea. But right now my brain is full with that idea, and I want to conduct my own experiment.”

Lyla laughed, and when I whipped my head toward her, she held up her hands. “Sorry. But the experiment thing—I must be wearing off on you.”

“Yes. That and I suddenly want to have sex with a hockey player.” I pushed her shoulder. “You’re a bad influence.”

I got the giggles and so did she, but when the laughter died down, the truth remained. I was softening toward Hudson. Not to mention lusting after him. I wasn’t sure which of those was worse, only that both of them would screw me in different ways—and not the good kind.

Before we ended up trapped in the parking lot forever, I fired up my car and merged with the vehicles already lined up at the exit. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to keep my mind off Hudson, but the harder I tried to not think about him, the more my brain fixated on him. Seriously, I’d never experienced abs like that in person. Was it so wrong to want to know what they felt like underneath my fingertips, just once?

“Uh-oh,” Lyla said. “I’ve seen that face before. You’re starting tolikehim like him.”

“No?” Of course it came out weak, because I was suddenly having trouble convincing myself of it. “Okay, yes. A little bit of like and a whole lot of lust. I like sex, okay? When’s the last time you went for even a few days without it?”

Lyla opened her mouth and then shut it. Then she opened it again. “At the beginning of summer when Beck and I were apart, I had to go four long weeks. If you don’t count phone sex.”

I gasped and nearly rammed my car into the blue rust bucket in front of us when it unexpectedly slammed on its brakes. “Lyla Wilder, I’m so proud.”

She flushed crimson.

“Jealous and proud—it’s a weird combination, honestly.” I eased my foot off the brake, but kept a few extra feet between me and the car I’d nearly rear-ended. “But my point is, don’t come at me with your barely-counts-as-going-without four weeks that happened, like, six months ago.”

She stuck her tongue out at me, and I laughed again. At least I had her to help me get through this.

“You know what I think the real problem is?” Lyla asked.

“Besides the lack of sex?”

“Well, that’s certainly contributing to the problem. But, you took out all the variables, until there weren’t any left. Now the equation has holes in it.”

“I’m not following.” A common problem when she started talking in chemistry instead of English.

“You crossed outall guys.I’m not saying you should jump into bed with the next one you’re interested in, but you need to go out and meet the nice, nerdy type of guys we said we were going to go for—I know I was a big liar when I agreed to it, but I’d already fallen in love with Beck.”

“You’re saying to save myself while I can.”

“Yes. I mean, no, because that sounds mean to Beck, but in a way, yes. Start with dating a bit. Of course a total shut-out is going to make you want to cling to the closest guy, especially if he looks like Hudson and has all that sexy hockey gear on.”

I could tell by the way her voice lilted, she was picturing Beck in his hockey gear. She shook her head slightly, her eyes slowly refocusing, and then said, “But he probably thinks he deserves to have sex with you, and the only guy who really does is the guy who thinks he doesn’t.”

I followed the Lyla logic, spinning it around in my head. Then I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

My heart was barely getting back to normal, and I was way too close to setting it on another crash course. Someday it was going to give out from being broken too many times.

This time I was going to do the breaking—I was breaking the cycle.

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