“Nope. Just stating facts. Or at least the way I saw things. It’s pretty easy for a nineteen-year-old guy wearing an NHL jersey and making bank to start believing his own press.”
“Apparently, it’s just as easy for a twenty-seven-year-old man,” she said, pointing out that he hadn’t changed much. At least not until lately.
“Touché, Mouse.” He lifted his glass of water in a playful toast.
“So are you planning to hold on to your bachelor status forever?”
“Nope,” Tank said, shaking his head. “Just until I hang up my skates.”
“You realize you can play the game and be in a relationship, right?” McKenna gestured toward the table of his friends. “Blake, Coulton, and Preston are all making that work.”
“It’s not a question of ability. Just desire. I like my life the way it is. Like my freedom and being unencumbered.”
She snorted. “What you like is the ability to remain a slob without some woman telling you to pick up your dirty socks.”
Tank chuckled. “You read me like a book, don’t you?”
“It’s not hard when it’s more primer than great literature,” she joked.
Tank laughed so hard and loud, more than a few heads turned in their direction.
“So what about you?” he asked, once he settled back down.
“What about me what?
“Have you left a long string of broken hearts in your wake?”
McKenna put her fork down, too full to eat any more. When Tank realized she was finished, he reached over and snagged the last bit of her salmon. “No,” she replied. “My dating history isn’t much bigger than yours.”
Since day one of his redemption tour, Tank had been asking her questions about herself. At first, she was determined to remain professional and keep her distance. She hadn’t been thrilled about having to work so closely with him, given his obnoxious attitude. She figured anything she told him would be twisted and used against her somehow, so she’d kept her mouth shut.
She was kind of shocked when she starting viewing him as someone she wouldn’t mind having as a friend. Which meant she didn’t mind sharing some personal details about her life.
“I’ve had a whopping three boyfriends,” she admitted.
Tank’s eyes widened as if in surprise. “Why so few? Did you go to all-girl schools growing up or something?”
McKenna blinked a few times, trying to figure out if he was kidding. Because if not, that was a sweet compliment. “All my schools were co-ed.”
“Were they long-term relationships?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I started going out with my first boyfriend, Camden, toward the end of junior year of high school. He was on the yearbook staff with me and one day after school, we were both talking about how neither of us had a date for prom. He suggested we go together, and I agreed. We had a great time at the dance, so we kept going out. Right up to graduation.”
“When you say first boyfriend…”
She rolled her eyes. “Not everything is about sex, you know.”
“I’m just asking if he was the one to pop your cherry.”
McKenna pretended to vomit. “Jesus, what are you? A high school cheerleader?”
Tank winked, making it clear he’d chosen his words specifically to irritate her. He had way too much fun teasing her. “Just answer the question, Mouse.”
She crossed her arms, huffing out a breath, then decided fuck it. She was enjoying this conversation. “He was.”
“I didn’t lose my virginity until I was seventeen either.”
McKenna hadn’t expected him to reciprocate, or for him to be so old. The guy was a total hound dog these days, so she’d assumed he’d started having sex two minutes after he hit puberty.
