Page 85 of Behind the Net

He wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Hey,” he chirps back, and they laugh.

I hate this.

“Players from the other team aren’t supposed to be in here.” My tone is sharp, and my chest feels tight. They shouldn’t be smiling at each other like that. She’s mine, not his.

He rolls his eyes and tilts his chin across the room, where Calgary’s goalie is talking with our second line forward. “Thurston’s basically trading plays with your guy. No one cares.” He beams down at Pippa and throws his arm around her shoulder, and rage surges in my blood. “How ya been, kid?”

She snorts. “You’re two years older than me.”

“Yeah, but you’re short.”

“I’m a normal height.”

I hate the way she’s tucked into his side like that. She should be tucked intomyside. Not his. Never his.

“You’re just ridiculously tall,” she tells him.

My jaw hurts from clenching. I swallow past the knives in my throat as my pulse beats in my ears. Why am I so fucking worked up right now?

Hazel appears at Pippa’s side, giving me a cool nod. “Hi.”

“Hazel.” I nod at her.

Her gaze goes to Miller, with his stupid arm still thrown around Pippa, and she makes a face of disgust.

I knew I liked Hazel.

“Hi, Hartley,” he says. He’s looking at Hazel with a confident smirk, but something predatory flashes through his eyes. “Remember me?”

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

Hazel’s distasteful expression intensifies. “Nope.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Pippa glances between them. “You know each other? You were in different years.”

Miller’s looking at Hazel like she’s dessert. “We had a couple classes together. Hartley’s a real brainiac.”

“Right.” Pippa nods at Hazel. “I forgot you took summer classes to get ahead.”

He lets Pippa go and takes a step toward Hazel, still wearing that confident smirk that I want to wipe off his face. At least he’s not directing it at Pippa anymore. “How you been, Hartley? Pippa says you’re working for the team.”

Hazel regards him over the rim of her beer as she takes a sip. “Yep.”

“You always did have a thing for hockey players.”

Pippa winces at me. My eyebrow arches, and she mouthstell you later.

Hazel stares at him like he’s a squished bug on the floor, and if he wasn’t hitting on Pippa moments before, I’d have the urge to laugh. I see the hockey gossip. Women don’t usually look at him the way Hazel’s looking at him.

From the gleam in his eye, it doesn’t seem like he minds, though. “You grew up well,” he tells her.

She just stares at him, and he gestures at himself.

“Aren’t you going to say I grew up well, too?” His eyes glitter with amusement.

“Congratulations. You now seem like the kind of guy who owns a really expensive sex doll.”

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