Page 14 of Getting the Grinder
And that is why the two of us will never even be friends, let alone more. She’s edgy and self-centered. What a waste of an amazing set of tits.
“Yes, Your Highness,” I mutter.
I’m going to make the most of this break. Once I’m out of the house, I take my time walking out to my car. I don’t have any kids, but I do have a baby—my white Range Rover SV. As a kid growing up in Elkhart, Indiana, I never imagined I’d own a new car, let alone one that cost two hundred grand.
My dad was an electrician and my mom worked at a jewelry store. With four kids, we always had what we needed, but no extras. I didn’t have much of a social life in high school because I had to work so hard to keep my grades and hockey game at the level they needed to be for me to keep my scholarship to a private school.
It was a great feeling, paying off my parents’ house for them when I got my first big pro hockey payday. I didn’t ask them, I just did it. They would have refused if I had asked.
I squint as I approach the driver’s side of my vehicle, seeing what looks like a scratch at the very bottom of my door. When I bend down to run my fingers over it, a jolt of pain in my left knee makes me cringe.
It’s weird what does and doesn’t trigger it. I’m pretty sure I know the cause, but it’s going to have to heal on its own. I can’t sit out with an injury. At age twenty-nine, keeping my first-line position gets harder every season. There are endless younger players willing to play as hard as they have to in order to take my spot.
And it wasn’t even a scratch. The mark on my car rubbed away when I brushed my fingers over it. I get in and turn on some music, glancing over at the passenger seat.
Birdie always sits there, and she’s left a little light-brown hair behind. When I brought her back from the bachelor party with me, I planned on finding her a good home. But I’m not sure how I can give her to a stranger, not knowing if they’ll take good care of her.
I use my car’s connection to my phone to call in an order to the restaurant, getting Mara what she wants and ordering ten steak tacos for myself. I’ll eat the leftovers tomorrow.
After a stop at the grocery store for a few essentials, I find a bougie bakery and get a whole pan of brownies. When I walk into the kitchen with the food, her eyes widen over the dessert.
“Holy shit, with the flaky sea salt on top of the frosting? I may need to go change my underwear.”
A corner of my mouth tilts up over her enthusiasm. “You get one now, and another one for every hour you don’t make any shitty comments about me.”
“Ha! Good one.” She holds out her hands. “That would take at least a month unless you count the hours I’m asleep.”
I unload the food from the Mexican place onto the kitchen island, and she’s eating her first bite of a brownie before I’m even done.
“That tastes better than sex feels,” she practically moans.
I furrow my brow. “Who are you having sex with?”
“Only deaf men, remember? You once said they were the only ones who would be able to stay hard during sex with me.”
I flick my gaze to hers, detecting a note of hurt in her voice. Which is weird, because she usually dishes out the insults much harder than I do.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I know I’m not for everyone.”
“What’s that like? When people don’t like you? I’ve always wondered.”
Rolling her eyes, she sets the brownie down on the counter. “Please. When I’m down, I look up Tweets about you and there’s no shortage.”
I shake my head and smile. “Did you see the one about me not being able to score in a brothel with two fists full of hundreds?”
“See it? I believe I retweeted it. And the one about trading you for a bag of used pucks is also a favorite.”
I sigh softly as I unpack the groceries I bought. “Zero goals in the last sixteen games—Abbott is nothing if not consistent. Can’t even score on an empty net. His shooting percentage would be lower than his GPA if he’d gone to college.”
“Wait. Does that stuff actually bother you?”
I glance at her. “Did you want to grab a pen and paper and write some of these down for future use?”
“Fuck the haters.”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re one of my haters. So...fuck you?”
