“I won’t… as long as you keep your goddamned mouth shut about Hall.”
He pushed out a harsh breath. “Christ, Calds. You take the fun out ofeverything.”
“I know. I’m such a dick.”
“You really are.” He paused. “And a hundred bucks plus three steak dinners on the road says you screw him before the season’s over.”
I barked a laugh that seemed to echo through the rolling golf course. “What? I told you I don’t do teammates!”
“Uh-huh.” He flashed me a toothy grin. “But you also said this one was an exception. So, are you chickening out of the wager or not?”
I scoffed. “I’m not going to bang a teammate. Especially not if it costs me a hundred bucks and three steak dinners.”
Leif made a quiet sound, and as it crescendoed, I recognized it as a chicken noise.
“Oh, fuck you.”
More chicken noises.
“For fuck’s sake—fine! You’re on.”
“Ha! I knew it.” He extended his hand, carefully keeping the other on the golf cart’s wheel. As we shook hands, he asked, “Does it still count if I?—”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”
“I know you. So no. Whatever it was… no.”
He huffed and rolled his eyes. We exchanged glares, then laughed as he continued driving toward the next hole.
This wasn’t over, and I knew it. I trusted Leif not to tip my hand far enough to make me or a teammate uncomfortable, but he was an expert level troll. His subtlety borderedon magic both on and off the ice. When he played hockey, those little moves he did to protect the puck or sneak it past a goalie were mind-blowing. Off the ice, he was amasterat deadpanning the perfect line to make us all choke on our drinks. A tiny upward flick of his eyebrow could scream sarcasm, amusement, or “that’s what she said.”
And when there was a wager involved, well…
Oh God. What did I just sign up for?
Yeah, he’d be discreet enough to keep my cards facedown, but I knew without a doubt that next season would be peppered with more chirping than I’d ever experienced in my life. For as long as he and I were on the same roster as Peyton Hall, Leif was going to be merciless.
What could I say?
I was looking forward to it.
That evening, Luis Abadiano gestured with his beer at the empty stool at our high top table. “Is Early coming or not?”
“I don’t know, Baddy.” I smirked. “If you have to ask him, you’re probably not doing a very good job of?—”
“Oh, fuck you!” He kicked me under the table as our other teammates howled with laughter.
“You kind of walked into that one,” Willie—Henri Ouellet to everyone else—snickered.
Baddy rolled his eyes, shook his head, and took a deep pull of his beer.
I sipped my own beer, then checked my phone. I’d texted Leif about fifteen minutes ago to see if he was still coming. He was the most punctual of all of us by far—his nickname, Early, didn’tjustfit him because his last namewas Erlandsson—so it wasn’t like him to be late, never mind forty-five minutes late.
He hadn’t read the message, which probably meant he was on the road. He never so much as glanced at his phone while he was driving, and if he was on his motorcycle, he wouldn’t hear it anyway.
Maybe he’d parked and was on his way in? Maybe he still hadn’t heard his phone?
