Page 64 of Playing for the Hat Trick
We settle into the living room, which is unfairly cozy for a place this nice. Plush chairs. Oversized windows. Baby toys that somehow blend with the decor. I sit on the couch, hands wrapped around my drink like it might ground me. Hailey sets Luna down in her bouncy chair, then folds herself into the armchair across from me.
“Okay,” she says, voice neutral but eyes laser-focused. “I see it now. You’re losing your shit.”
I pause mid-sip. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve got the forehead crease, the jittery hands, the lip chew you only do when you’re about to spiral. You’ve been spiraling since I opened the door. Now I’m just waiting for the words to catch up.”
I clear my throat. “Umm . . . you just decided that based on . . . caffeine and eye contact?”
Hailey cocks her head. “Scottie, you’re a lot like your brother. You just simmer in your issues until you’re about to explode.”
Her tone is all-knowing as if she’s already scanned my vital signs and pulled my diagnostic report.
“It’s complicated,” I say, immediately regretting it.
“So’s assembling a crib with a half-drunk Leif, but we did it. What’s going on? You texted like your apartment was on fire.”
I wince. Not a slight cringe. Full-body, face-scrunching, soul-flinching wince. “It’s not a fire. Not exactly. More like . . . spontaneous combustion.”
Her eyes widen. “Okay, we’re getting somewhere, but we need a lot more information than that.”
“Information, yes, you do.” I sigh, sipping my drink. “So . . . I have this client who’s, I mean, attractive if you’re into hot professional hockey players.”
“Ooh, this is getting more interesting.” She grins. “Okay, so one of the Vipers is your client.”
“I never said he’s a Viper,” I protest.
“No, but you’re not saying no.” Then that stupid grin gets wider. “Are you telling me you have a thing for a player? Scottie is breaking the rules—hot.”
“I–I’m not—” I close my mouth, open it again, and finally say, “I never said that.”
“Sure, you didn’t, but I’m pretty sure that’s part of the issue. Tell Hailey more.” She drinks from her hibiscus concoction and then spits it. “Oh my God, you’re talking about Jason Tate.”
I gawk at her. How does she know?
“Was Jason Tate naked in your treatment room?”
“No,” I say way too fast and way too loud, then drop my voice to a guilty murmur. “Shit—no. I mean . . . not naked-naked.”
She squints. “Define not naked-naked.”
I press a palm to my chest like that might stop the emotional heartburn working its way through me. “He was . . . emotionally naked. And now I’m emotionally concussed.”
She sets her drink down so fast she nearly knocks it over. “You have got to be more specific.”
“I agreed to have a fuck buddies kind of arrangement where we go full naked—and it starts tonight.”
Hailey blinks. “You what?”
“I dared him. Technically. It was a sexting dare. It escalated quickly. One second, we were talking about one thing. The next, he was saying stuff about dreams, maybe. I can’t remember exactly. The point is that tonight we’re fucking.” The last word comes out like a secret, so Luna doesn’t hear it.
Hailey nods as if she’s trying to understand why I’m freaking out, or maybe she’s freaking out with me.
“So, yeah, we’re having a no-strings-just-sex-mutual-release arrangement,” I conclude. “It’s very mature and grown up, right?”
Hailey stares at me like I just confessed to planning to rob a bakery using a rubber band as a weapon.
“Wow, so you and . . .”
