LYDIA DTF:Then I’ll be your consolation prize. But there’s no way the Yolks will lose tomorrow. Not with you on the team.
Her sweet answers to Hanson sliced across Yom’s chest.
“Mr. Rustanov, you are aware of our no phones policy in the classroom, no?”
Yom looked up to see the strategic management professor, who’d been droning on a minute ago, now peering over his reading glasses with a disapproving look.
What was he doing?
Yom angrily stowed the phone and resumed paying the utmost attention to the lecture.
But his stomach turned every time his watch notified him of a new message.
By the end of the class, Lydia and Hanson had set their plan in stone.
That afternoon, at the last practice before Friday’s final game, Yom had to listen to Hanson brag to the other players about how he was having the perfect double week.
That meant he’d slept with two girls every day since Sunday.
“Tonight I got a double date with two bi-girls I met at Rustanov’s place, and I just got Friday all lined up with one honey right after the game at my house and another one at the party Lars’s girlfriend is throwing for us at Tri Kappa,” Hanson announced loud enough for even the assistant coaches to hear in the back offices. “But I’m still looking for Saturday’s hoes. Too bad Rustanov’s not throwing another after party on Friday. That got me pussy appointments all week. Know what I’m saying?”
Apparently, most of the other players did. They snickered and gave him daps like Hanson was on his way to winning the Stanley Cup.
Did Lydia know she was just a number to Hanson? That he’d sleep with her and then hie away to stick hiskhuyin the next girl like she was an appetizer he’d decided to order before moving on to the main course?
A sickly green acid threatened to corrode him from the inside. Was she truly planning to give her virginity to thisgandon?
Perhaps he should...
Do not act the Rustanov,his Uncle Alexei warned inside his head before he could finish that thought.
And Yom knew Uncle Alexei was right.
That virginity stuff had been a lie anyway, Yom reminded himself as Hanson and his friends tossed around some possible names for Saturday. Everything that came out of Lydia Carrington’s mouth was a lie.
She didn’t deserve his protection.
Much less his obsession.
Yom jammed his earphones in, vowing not to give Lydia Carrington another minute of his thoughts.
But he still didn’t delete the spyware app.
LYDIA DTF:Did you leave the key??? I’m sooo excited to hook up with you.
TOMMY:Yeah, girl. I just put it under the mat. Here’s my addy...
Don’t think about it...Don’t think about it... Don’t think about it...Yom chanted to himself the next day as he watched Hanson text with the former girl of his dreams right before the game.
Forcing his mind to shift gears, Yom locked his focus on winning this match and maintaining their perfect streak.
What felt like only seconds later, the ref blew the whistle for the start of play. Yom busted across the ice, channeling the rage tearing up his chest to put three points on the board by the time the Yolks returned to the locker room for the first intermission.
However, that rage also earned him three penalties for cross-checking, boarding, and unnecessary roughness in the first period alone, and their head coach wasn’t too happy about that.
“What’s going on with you out there?” Coach laid into him as Yom bent down to retighten his skates. “You’ve got to stopraising H-E double hockey sticks in the second period, or you’re going to be ejected from the game before the third… Wait, what are you doing, Rustanov?”
Yom didn’t even realize that instead of tightening his skates, he’d begun taking them off, until the Yolks’ head coach demanded to know why.
