“Shay, is it really that big of a deal?”
“I can never come back to that Dunkin Donuts again! She’s going to spit in my coffee every time!”
I laugh. “Not if you’re with me. I’ll just have to come with you every morning.”
She has both feet out of the car now and she’s just reaching for her bag, about to jump out. I reach over and grab her arm. She flinches. “I’m not going to get coffee with you again because we aren’t going to be together again.”
I blink. “Why?”
Her face contorts with something dark. Something I really do not understand but that makes my stomach grow cold despite the hot coffee in it. “Well, for one thing, you lied to me, which I would have expected if you’d told me you were a hockey player. And I will not date a hockey player. I won’t. Ever. So bye.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I blurt out as she yanks her arm free and slips out of the car.
“Nope. Not kidding,” she says firmly and shoves her sunglasses back into her hair. “So thanks for the memories…I guess…but forget my name, okay?”
“Shayne!” I call out as she starts down the street.
She ignores me completely and turns the corner up ahead, disappearing into the bustle of morning pedestrians. What the hell just happened?!?
Chapter 15
Shayne
It’s amazing I’ve made it through most of the day. This morning I had two nutrition classes to lead and then I covered a shift at the juice bar. I was like a zombie throughout all of it. My brain was all Frenchie, all the time, and the bomb a horny drive-thru girl dropped on me this morning. He is a fucking hockey player. One who hides it so he can get in my pants. And he got in my pants. How the hell did I not know? The Winterhawks players are treated like celebrities around Seattle. He’s probably on the news and in newspapers all the time. How did I not recognize him?
I bet Trey knows he’s a hockey player. And if Josh knows that, then Audrey probably knows it and didn’t tell me. And if that’s true, then a potential boyfriend isn’t all I’ve lost. Because Audrey knows exactly why I feel the way I feel about hockey players. She is supposed to understand and support me and my decisions. Instead she stood there and let me hook up with him. Twice. Oh my God, I slept with a hockey player, not once but twice. I had four hockey-related orgasms. I hate myself.
There’s more than one reason I promised myself from a young age I would stay away from professional athletes, and hockey players in particular. Even now, in my twenties, I still feel they’re valid reasons. That sport alone has ruined my life and the lives of people I love. And it, like most professional sports, breeds a self-entitled, arrogant, insensitive type of man who is incapable of loving anyone but himself and his equally dickish teammates. I know how unreasonable that sounds to people who don’t know me—and haven’t lived my life. When I first explained my all-encompassing hate to Audrey, she didn’t understand it either. But then, our first year of college, she came home with me for a weekend and came to one of Trey’s hockey games with me and met my parents. She’s understood ever since. Or so I thought.
Maybe none of this matters anyway. I mean, heisa hockey player. And despite his little hints that he wanted to see me again, he’s already had me—twice—so he’s bound to be at least halfway over it—over us. My firsthand experience tells me hockey players don’t have long attention spans when it comes to females.
On my break I head to the garage where I had the car towed. They tell me they still don’t know what’s wrong with it. Just the news I need to put the crappy icing on a craptastic day. The whole seven-block walk there and back I do nothing but think of Sebastian. Why did the sex have to be so good? Why did he have to make me come? Why did he have to be so perfectly flirty? Why does he have to wear skates for a living? When I get back to work, I head to the large staff lounge. There’s a wall with a sink, cupboards, fridge and microwave to the left. In the center of the room there’s a table with chairs. At the back of the room on the left is a couch and a chair facing a flat screen on the wall. Next to that are two small workstations with laptops. I head there to do some research on green power foods to bulk up my next presentation. Somehow, though, I start googling Sebastian Deveau.
He’s been with the Winterhawks his entire career. He was drafted in the first round. He was a superstar in juniors. He had the most penalty minutes and the most short-handed goals in the league his first year. A defenseman. If there are levels of hockey hate in my heart, the deepest one I have is for defensemen, soof coursethat’s what he plays. Just like my father. Of fucking course. He went through a contract negotiation last year and now makes three and a half million dollars a year. There’s the fuel that sparks the fire of greed, belligerence and insensitivity: the money. Hockey players make so damn much that they don’t have to be accountable for anything. They can just buy their way out of—or into—anything they want. I know because my father made the highest salary of any NHL defenseman when he was playing ten years ago.
I read a few new articles with playoff predictions, since the season ends next week and apparently the Winterhawks have already secured a playoff spot. Sebastian is mentioned a lot. One article is about how he fought too much in the conference final last year and spent too much time in the penalty box. I frown. Another says Sebastian leads the league in points by a defenseman this year and is poised to set a new Winterhawks record. Beating the old one set by…Glenn Beckford. There is some sick joy in knowing my dad’s record, which he still boasts about, will be erased, but it’s matched by the horror I feel knowing that it’ll be broken by a man I’ve seen naked.
I find a blog that talks about how he used to live with Jordan Garrison when Jordan first joined the team and how it was like a frat house. I can’t imagine the women that have traipsed through there. Then again, I can. I wonder if I should get tested. I mean, yes, we were safe, but…
My eyes wander to the menu at the top and my hand, as if acting on behalf of my hormones, clicks the images button. Hundreds of photos of him on and off the ice fill the screen. Man, he’s pretty.
“Whatchya doing?”
I jump and quickly close the laptop, spinning in the chair to face Audrey, who is standing by the door.
“You know I thought you were dead or something,” she tells me, stepping into the room. “He’s athletic. When you didn’t call me this morning I thought maybe he had accidentally fucked you to death.”
“Classy, Audrey.” I roll my eyes. “Remember this wasn’t my first naked Sebastian rodeo.”
She laughs and flops down on the couch. “Oh, I remember. You walked around for a week with that goofy smile on your face.”
“Like you said, he’s athletic, which makes him fun to be naked with. But do you know why he’s so muscly?” She averts her eyes. She knows! “Audrey! How could you let me do that?”
She leans toward me from her position on the couch, her eyes pleading. “I didn’t always know, I promise! I found out the other night. But the first time I had no idea. I thought he was a weight-lifting accountant, just like you did.”
“But when you knew, you didn’t tell me!” I’m honestly upset.
My best friend gets off the couch and walks over to me, pulling me up from the chair I’m sitting in and hugging me. “I’m sorry. I should have. It’s just…you already liked him.”
