He also hated being called “Cally,” so the guys did it every chance they got.
Mitch snapped his towel in the kid’s direction. “Get lost, Cally.”
He turned on Mitch and opened his mouth.
Mitch stood. At six-five, he towered over the five-eleven forward.
Cally backed away and turned to exit the locker room, looking like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Gabe looked at Mitch. “We really gotta teach that kid a lesson about that mouth of his one of these days.”
“I’m in,” Mitch said.
Gabe barked out a laugh. “That easy, huh?”
“That kid is a nuisance, and it’s going to be our asses on the line when he says something stupid on the ice and can’t defend himself.”
Gabe nodded in agreement. “I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
Mitch held out his hand and bumped his fist against Gabe’s.
An hour later, Mitch was freshly showered and dressed in an outfit he probably would not have been caught dead in back in Detroit.
Especially not in October.
But his change of scenery had also necessitated a change of wardrobe, and he had always loved shopping for clothes, even if he favored flannels and jeans. He was now the proud owner of approximately ninety percent of the men’s clothing Bonobos offered, having quickly discovered that their clothing fit his oversized frame well, and he looked good in it.
Today he was sporting a pair of their heather azure blue performance link shorts and a Riviera cabana shirt that was a light linen material with a little palm tree where a breast pocket would be.
He bumped fists again with Gabe after they exited the arena and reached the player parking lot, agreeing to meet early tomorrow to go over a game plan before their season opener in Anaheim.
When he walked into his apartment, Lizzo was filtering through the television speakers, there were bags of God only knew what on his kitchen counters, clothes strewn along the floor in the hallway, and the bathroom light was on.
Which could only mean one thing: Kiera was here.
He dropped his bag by the door and stalked forward, taking a deep breath before peeking his head around the bathroom door. There Kiera stood, in a pair of soft gray shorts and a white sports bra, a chunk of hair wrapped around her curling wand, the counter in front of her littered with cosmetics.
“Hey babe!” she said, stepping up to him and raising on her tippy-toes to give him a quick peck on the lips. “How was practice?”
“It was good,” he said slowly. “How did you get in? Not that I’m not happy to see you…”
Kiera giggled a stupid, vapid sound that grated on Mitch’s ears. “You gave me a key like a month ago, silly.”
Mitch raised an eyebrow, but she had already turned away. He knew he hadn’t given her a key, but because she was his real estate agent, she had probably sweet-talked his super into making a copy.
Kiera Lawrence was also Mitch’s sort-of girlfriend.
Sort-of because things weren’t that serious, and he had been thinking about breaking it off with her for a while.
Kiera and Mitch had met during his third month in LA. The Knights had been knocked out of the playoffs the week before, and hotel living was growing old. The Knights’ management set him up with a real estate company, and Kiera became his agent. They went out for drinks to discuss what he was looking for in a place, and because Mitch was still nursing his broken heart over Lexie and needed the distraction, he didn’t turn down her advances.
She went home with him that night and never left.
Kiera was the opposite of Lexie in every way: short, blonde, even-tempered, gave her affection freely from the beginning, but also incredibly high-maintenance.
He was dreading this evening of apartment hunting with her. He only hoped that she had actually taken his list of must-haves to heart and not selected listings based on what she thought he wanted.
Kiera finished getting ready minutes or hours later—Mitch stopped paying attention—and emerged from the bathroom looking like a totally different person.
