Page 38 of Double Pucked

“I didn’t bang them,” I point out.

“But you will. Or really, you better. Say, tonight?” Her voice rises with hope.

At a light, I turn to her, uncertainty racing through me. “I honestly don’t know if they want to again.”

She rolls her eyes. “He invited you to stay with him.”

“But he didn’t say it was to bang him. Or them.”

“Because that would have seemed transactional. But trust me, he’s wanting to make another transaction,” she says with a naughty little purr in her voice, then she hits the gas and cruises through the city. “You’re going to be a legend among women soon. You’re going to be the patron saint of Double Teams. I bet women are going to build a shrine to you at your bookstore. You should tell the book club.”

“I’m not going to tell the book club about my escapade.”

“Then just tell me. Like, did you spend the entire day googling different positions for three-ways?” she asks salaciously as we hit a light.

Laughing, I roll my eyes.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

I smile. “Not the entire day. Just during my break. I want to be prepared.”

“If you want to be prepared, I can help you out with that. Here’s a little something I picked up for you.” Aubrey reaches a hand into the back seat, fishing around, then grabs something, and tosses it onto my lap.

A bottle of lube.

This is much better than a plant.

But I still have the cake problem to solve, so I start a group chat with the guys and ask:Do you happen to know any place nearby that sells pound cake?

Well, they’re competitive. Maybe they’ll get on my new pound cake problem as fast as they handled the O drought issue.

13

A VISIT FROM THE DRAGON

Chase

I’ve traveled around the world. Played pro hockey in Budapest, Vienna, Toronto, New York, and Rio de Janeiro.

At twenty-seven, I’ve had a big life in five years in the NHL. But this, right here, is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Trina’s pup is tearing up a seesaw, then racing down the other side, and the little guy is doing it while missing one of his back legs.

“Mind blown,” I say, cheering on Nacho under the glow of outdoor lights in the evening.

Trina too. Because look at her go. She’s guiding him through the agility course at a nearby dog park I scoped out in advance. It’s a busy park, with families pushing strollers and joggers tearing up the path even as dusk settles in. When Trina and Nacho arrived at my place a little while ago, I hustled them right out of there to take the little guy here for a treat.

Bonus? It’s a perfect distraction from my incessant thoughts of her all day. From texts from my cousin, Lisette, too, telling me about every single friend she wants to set me up with at her wedding. It’s like the singles table is her personal buffet of options for me, and I’ve run out of evasive emoticons to reply with. Last time she set me up with someone, it petered out after a few dates, but Lisette kept asking me over and over what went wrong. The answer? I don’t have room for romance in my life.

Most of all, though, the dog park is a distraction from all my thoughts about the possibilities of tonight.

I home in on the man of the hour. So does a jogger from many feet away, craning his neck to watch the small dog soar over a little jump. He lands gracefully, then Trina points at the weave poles a few feet ahead. “Weave, Nacho,” she says, eyes only on him.

That little tripod waggles his butt back and forth in a black and tan blur all the way to the end of the weave poles before he darts through a tunnel at Mach speed.

She runs along the side, chestnut hair flying, platform sneakers slapping the dirt, then waits for him at the end, arms thrust high in the air. “Good boy!”

Barking enthusiastically, he jumps up and down on one freaking back leg, eager for her praise.

Trina scoops him up and slathers him in kisses.

---