Page 38 of Passing the Red Line
“No, I meant give me your number so I can call you,” I say to her, a grin spreading across my face.
“You’re weird as hell, but whatever. Give me your phone.” She holds out a hand and I let out a laugh as I reach over to the table in front of us and hand over my phone. “You better not use it at two in the morning for a booty call,” she grumbles.
“No promises on that one,” I joke.
She grumbles under her breath as she types in her phone number and hands it back to me.
I instantly call her and notice that she has a generic ringtone, and I promise myself that the next time that I see her I will change it. Generic ringtones are fucking boring.
We silently walk back into the house and Eliana gets dressed while I call her a car. I would much rather drive her home but I may get attacked somehow so I will save myself.
When the car arrives, Eliana is all ready to go, so I walk her out, even though she told me not.
“I’ll call you when you get home,” I say, opening up the back door of the waiting car for her.
“A little stalkerish, but whatever floats your boat.”
“See you later, pain in my ass,” I say, leaning in and giving her a chaste kiss. Something that takes both of us by surprise but the smile she wears quickly has the surprise evaporating.
“See you later, grumpy. Don’t brood too much.”
I shake my head at her and watch as she gets into the car. I stay outside until the car starts to drive off and when it’s out of sight, I start to head back in.
I’m not even inside two seconds when my phone rings. I grab it from where it is on the kitchen counter and check who it is.
I snort as I answer. “You just left. Let me guess you miss me and my magic dick already?”
“God, no. I called because I forgot to tell you something,” Eliana’s voice comes through the other end.
“Oh yeah? And what is that?”
“I still hate you, Rodriguez,” she says, followed by a quick giggle.
“Don’t worry, Solis. I still hate you too.”
CHAPTERTEN
Christian
One of thedisadvantages of spending the off-season states away from your home rink, is the fact that you can’t just drive to your team's facility and get some ice time whenever you want. Well at least to me it’s a disadvantage.
While a large of the players in the league have access to an ice rink wherever they land for the postseason, whether it be a team affiliated rink, a rink that is close to home with no NHL affiliation or even their rink that they built in their own house, I don’t have that in my part of California.
Sure there are ice rinks within a fifty mile drive from me, but a large amount of them are in enemy territory or have very limited hours. And while I don’t mind stepping into enemy territory and stepping into their team affiliated rinks, I try not to do it very often. I don’t want them to get the wrong idea.
And as much as I want to build a rink in my own house, no way was I going to spend over ten million dollars on a house in the Bay Area that would give me enough property to do that. Especially since I don’t need more than two rooms.
So I have to get creative with how I get some skating time. Workouts are not a problem, skating on the other hand can be.
As much as I would like to feel the ice under my blades every single day, inline skating gets me through when I need it the most.
Especially when my off season is a lot shorter than it usually is what with the Dark Knights winning the cup and all.
Ever since I signed with the nights almost seven years ago, I’ve had at least four months to gradually get ready for the season. What with our team always choking when we were close to playoff time. But this is different. We have the cup and we have to work twice as hard to get ready for the season to come.
Something that me and every single one of my teammates are more than happy to do. Usually our off seasons are filled with family time, gold and fishing, but this summer is different. If we are going to keep the cup where we want it, we have to put in two times to work to show everybody that the Knights winning the cup wasn’t a one time thing.
Which is why, I’m currently under the hot July sun, sweating my ass off, shooting pucks into a net that I’ve had since I was a kid.
