Page 83 of Branded
This time it was less sniff and more huff, but I couldn’t care less.
Because the moment that Monica had disappeared out the front door of CeCe’s (let it be noted that it was without leaving any money to pay for her salad or the Diet Coke she’d ordered), Beth turned to the table and lifted a cheese stick like it was a sword.
“I hereby declare that she is never invited to Cheese Night Extravaganza again.”
I, who was holding a tortilla chip that was—no surprise—doused in cheese (this of the bright orange, definitely not homemade but still delicious variety) froze as Beth whipped around to me and pointed that cheese stick right in my face.
“You, on the other hand, are faithfully invited to Cheese Night Extravaganza every week.”
“Hear, hear,” Hazel quipped.
Pru, who held a half-eaten cheese stick, gestured with it over her shoulder, eyes glued to the television that was playing the Breakers game. “I concur.”
And I, fuck it, used that cheese stick to toast Beth’s. “Good, because otherwise I think I’d show up anyway, and I promise that I’d make a dent in your cheese.”
Hazel grinned.
Pru nodded approvingly.
Beth gave her another stick bump.
Then I stopped thinking about cheese and snarky women and focused on the game and the lovely, friendly group around me.
And just was.
No anxiety.
No drama.
Just being.
It was fucking perfect.
Twenty-Three
Smitty
I was lying on the bed, still in my slacks, my suit jacket discarded to the side, my white button-down halfway unbuttoned.
And Kailey was talking my ear off, totally jazzed after her dinner out with Hazel, Pru, and Beth.
She’d glossed over the interactions with Monica, which had told me precisely how well they’d gotten on—that being not at all.
But then she’d talked about the girls and the food, and she’d watched me play—like she had every game since that first night together. Which made me feel about six feet—okay, twelve feet tall. It was fucking adorable hearing her talk about hockey, too, when she clearly still knew very little about the sport and said things like “quarters” and “the guy who played on the right side of the ice.”
I’d never really been around someone who didn’t know much about hockey, let alone a woman who was interested in me, especially since I’d started playing for the Breakers.
The big leagues brought serious puck bunnies, but most of them—or at least the ones interested in me—knew that hockey had three periods and that right wing or right D was the person who’d been playing on that side of the ice.
If only because they needed to know when to go out to the parking lot and try to pick up the players…and which player to pick up.
Right.
So not the thing I needed to think about when my woman was talking to me on the phone.
“And I lost you,” she said softly.
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m just…” I sighed. “I was thinking about puck bunnies.”
