Page 18 of Passing the Red Line
“The feeling is mutual, babe,” he says, another slap landing on my leg.
As we continue to walk towards the water, I catch a glimpse of more than a few families staring at us and given Christian celebrity status, I can already hear the people on social media going off with their theories of what’s going on between us.
“Great. People are staring at us. If someone takes a picture of us and blasts all over the place and I lose my job, I’m going to blame you.” I say, slapping him against his back this time.
“You're a pain in the ass, you know that?” He says and even though it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, it gives me an idea.
Not thinking twice about it, I close the distance between me and Christian’s boardshorts covered ass and bite down.
“What the fuck?!” He yells out, releasing his hold on my legs enough that I can slide out of his grip and throw myself on the ground.
The sand is soft enough to not knock the wind out of me but I’m still going to hurt tomorrow morning.
How the actual fuck did me trying to annoy Christian go this far? We’re acting like children.
“Did you bite me?” He asks, looking down at me like he can’t believe that the top of his right ass cheek has a bite on it.
“I told you to put me down. You didn’t listen, so I had to think of something. You’re lucky it was just a bite on your ass, I could have bitten something else.” I push myself off and brush off as much of the sand off my body as I can. I would rather deal with sand than cold ass Pacific Ocean water.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he asks, closing the distance between us.
“I don’t have a problem.” I say dismissively.
“Sure, you do, because you are making it your mission to annoy the shit out of me and you have been since day one,” He says and I look up just in time to see mischief in his brown eyes.
Have his eyes always been that shade of brown, almost like caramel color? I’ve seen pictures of him before and seen him on TV, but I’ve never really paid attention to his eyes. The color suits him. It gives him a sense of warmth to his tough and hard exterior. I like it.
Stop thinking about his eyes. At least it’s his eyes and not his bare chest that is currently staring back at me. Does this man even own a shirt?
“I can say the same thing about you. You could have ignored me just now but no you had to go all caveman and throw me over her shoulder.”
“You call it caveman; I call it payback for breaking into my house,” he says, giving me a smirk that I’m sure is expecting to make me melt.
Not going to happen.
I roll my eyes. “This is why I hate hockey players. You’re pompous assholes.”
“Ah, so that’s it. Someone hurt you in the past and you decided to take that anger out on every single player you come across. Newsflash, hermosa. Not all hockey players are the same.”
I look at the man in front of me. Really look at him. I know nothing about him. What I do know is solely based on what I’ve read online or seen on social media or TV. He may be right with saying not all hockey players are the same, I know from first-hand experience that Liam isn’t, but I don’t know if that is true of Christian.
At least, not yet.
“From my experience they are,” I say the words without even thinking.
I don’t talk about my hatred toward hockey players. I keep that close to the heart. Hell, my dad, who’s at the center of it all, doesn’t even know the root cause of it. He just thinks that I hate hockey because of Kalen, and while that is part of it, it’s not the whole story. And I’m not about to tell Christian Rodriguez.
He was about to throw me in the ocean for crying out loud.
“I could stand here and tell you that you are wrong, but I have a feeling that you won’t listen to me. So, I’m going to go and get the workout that you rudely interrupted. Have a nice life, hermosa. I hope I never get to see you again.”
“Gee, you say the sweetest things,” I say, giving him another eye roll, letting the whole interruption thing go.
“I try,” he says, giving me another one of those smirks again. “Stay out of my way, will you?”
“Gladly.” I turn and walk back to where my stuff is, not giving Christian a second look.
This day definitely turned into something that I wasn’t expecting. At the very least, I got under Christian’s skin like I wanted to.
