I would deal with reality later.
CHAPTER 22
Gracie:Tough loss tonight.
I grimaced as I typed out my reply.
Me:Yeah. Sucked.
“Not looking too positive there, Captain,” Jay pointed out as we stepped into the elevator to take us to yet another pair of generic hotel rooms.
I arranged my features into a totally fake smile and he chuckled. “There you go. That’s the face to inspire confidence in all the rookies.” He glanced at the rows of numbers on the control panel. “Shit, I forgot what floor I’m on already.”
“Twelve,” I told him, looking back to my phone. Grace had replied.
Gracie:You’ll get ’em next time.
I only just managed not to snort. Yeah. That’s what we’d been saying ever since the home opener. And yet we just kept on losing.
In fact, that first exhilarating game felt like it had happened two years ago, not two weeks. We’d dropped the next two at home, managed a regulation tie in our first away game, which we ended up losing in the shootout, and then lost the next two games on the road.
Frustrated wasn’t the right word for what I was feeling.
I typed out a quick response to Gracie before the elevator doors opened.
Me:Heading into the room. Call you in a minute.
“I guess I don’t need to ask if you want to grab a drink,” Jay said, rolling his eyes at the phone clutched in my hand. “Looks like you have another method of cheering up in mind.”
“I’d be a lot more cheered up if she was waiting in my hotel room.”
Naked, preferably.
The thought had me biting back a groan. It’d been way too long since I’d seen Grace naked and my dick was suffering.
We reached my door first and Jay slapped me on the shoulder as I pulled out my key card. “That’s the beauty of being a single man on the road,” he said. “The ladies just appear in every city.”
“Someday you’ll get tired of the puck bunny scene,” I told him.
He snorted. “What would you know about it? You’ve either been married or practically celibate your entire career.”
I held up my phone, offering him a smirk of my own. “Not so celibate these days.”
He snorted with laughter before continuing down the hallway. “Tell Grace I said hi.”
“I can guarantee we will not be talking about you at all.”
His chuckle echoed down the hallway as I let myself into my room.
I dropped my bags, looking around the space. Pretty much the same as every other room I stayed at in my career. At least in the NHL we got our own rooms. We had to share rooms when I played in college and Jay snored like a chainsaw.
Which would have made what I wanted to do next a lot more difficult.
I shrugged out of my suit jacket, already pulling my phone up to my ear. Gracie answered on the first ring. The thought that she might have been waiting for my call made me grin.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hey yourself.” Her soft voice in my ear was enough to send goosebumps up and down my neck, my dick twitching in my trousers. Good Lord, did I miss this woman.
