Page 47 of Dirty Pucking Player

Shit.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You know who Sean reminds me an awful lot of.”

“Let me guess. Bash?”

“Yep.”

How could I not have seen it?

Sure, Bash plays hockey while Sean was an accountant, but they are so much alike in so many ways. I definitely have a type. Jill called me on that before, and she was absolutely spot-on with her assessment.

“Greer, you’re wrong. Sean was the guy who should’ve been stable. The kind of guy you spend the rest of your life with. The fact that he turned out to be a total player had nothing to do with the type of guys you’re attracted to. He was the polar opposite of Bash. Just because they might look a little alike doesn’t mean you should be pushing your feelings about Sean on him.”

“I’m not. It’s just hard not to compare the two when he was my last serious relationship.”

My only one, in all honesty. There were other guys in high school and college, but with constant practices and traveling, maintaining any sort of relationship was nearly impossible.

Until Sean.

He seemed to get it. He understood why my career was so important. Or so I thought. Turned out, he just liked my being gone from town all the time because it meant he could fuck around more easily.

“Seriously, Greer. You’re overthinking this. You need to just have some fun. See where it goes.”

“Or I need to leave it in the rearview mirror and get back to just being his coach.”

“As if you can really do that…I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

The line goes dead, and I toss my phone onto the bed.

Jill made a few good points. Maybe I am overthinking this thing with Bash, but it’s hard not to when the stakes are so high. If I let myself actually develop feelings for him, it’s only going to get worse.

So, don’t get a case of the feels for the guy.

It sounds easy. Maybe if I concentrate on reminding myself of the things about him that I don’t like, it will be easier to discount the things that I do.

Yeah. I can do that.

But if I’m going to go down this path with Bash, there have to be some ground rules.

One—no public displays.

Two—no feelings.

If he can live with that, so can I.

* * *

BASH

“Dude, you just love to get yourself deep in the shit, don’t you?”

I take a bite of my burger and glare at Caleb across the table. “You know, when I came down here to Phoenix to see you during this forced vacation, it wasn’t to have you be a total jackass.”

He grins and takes a sip of his beer. “I’m just telling it like I see it. I mean, to be fair, you’re only here because you’re suspended for beating the shit out of someone.”

I growl and shove a handful of fries into my mouth.

And here I thought an eight-game suspension would be a decent time to go see Caleb and Tara. I, apparently incorrectly, believed seeing my best friend would help kill the downtime and also give me a chance to sort out my feelings about what’s going on with Greer. Now Caleb’s kind of being a dick, and I wish I was back in Vegas, preferably with Greer underneath me again.

---