Page 35 of Wild Love
“It’s the locker room for me. No matter how many I’ve seen, it’s always something special when you walk into a new place. And the Wildcat’s locker room is pretty epic.”
“They didn’t let us in there,” she says with a frown. “They kept us very far away from anywhere players might be.”
I scoop a big bite of noodles into my mouth and chew.
Dakota takes a much smaller bite, and her face twists up in disgust. “Uh-uh. What is this?”
“I thought you liked Thai,” I say, mouth still mostly full. I’m so hungry. I can’t even taste it. I skipped lunch while trying to get the living room setup.
“I do, but something is funky with that.”
I offer her some off my plate, and she takes another bite and runs to the kitchen. She holds a hand over her mouth and mumbles something as she searches around.
“Trash can is under the sink.” I think. I hope because I hear her spit it out, and then she pops back into view. “That is not edible.”
“A spitter, huh? I am so disappointed.”
Before she can roll her eyes—oh, well, almost before, I put my fork down. “Do you want me to order something else?”
“No, I’ll find something.” She opens a cabinet, then another before hitting me with one of her no-nonsense glares. “Johnny Maverick, did you buy me groceries and not yourself?”
“How do you…”
“Oh, please. You’re the only person I know here.”
I smile. “I was planning on doing it tonight.”
“Okay. Let me come with you. I need to get a few more things anyway.”
“Can I finish this first?”
“Do you really want to?”
My stomach rumbles. Yeah, maybe it’s not the best plan. Something is definitely funky, or she’s appropriately psyched me out anyway.
* * *
“Thank you, by the way.”Dakota grabs a cart for us inside the grocery store.
“For what?”
“The groceries.”
“Oh, that was nothing.”
She drives the cart over to the produce section and stops at the bananas. “It wasn’t nothing. It was really nice.”
This is the part I hate about gifting things. I don’t know what to do with the thanks. It was fifty dollars’ worth of food, not a Rolls Royce.
“Welcome,” I say and set a bunch of bananas in the cart. Oranges too.
“What do you need?”
“Everything,” I say. “And healthy shit. I start working out with the guys tomorrow.” My contract is a two-way, so if I want to stay in Minnie-soda and not be sent down to Iowa to the AHL team, then I have to step it up.
“Okay. Me too. Good, healthy food for a hot girl summer.” She walks ahead of the cart, putting things in the front. “I’m going to put my stuff here so we can keep it separate.”
That lasts all of ten minutes when I’ve forgotten and filled the cart with so much stuff I have to encroach her space. And I don’t even know what’s mine or hers.
