“You’re dating, right?” Duncan asks out of nowhere. “It’s not just fucking, right?”
I sigh. “I feel like you should be writing this on a note and passing it to me in history class.”
I just called him immature, which makes me an even bigger asshole, because I already regretted being an asshole in the first place. Levi frowns at me, in case I’m not catching that I’m an asshole, because he’s great like that. But something about sharing me and Zoey with these guys is making me uncomfortable. Like I’m covered in honey and wearing a sweater made out of bees uncomfortable. I don’t know why. I’m having the best couple of weeks I’ve ever had in my life. She’s not just a childhood wet dream come to life, she’s a friendship rekindled and an ally in my life, which is something that I feel like I’ve been missing since everything went to shit with Levi. She’s letting me talk about my dad, and I’m helping her forget a shitty time in her life. Maybe that makes it feel scary. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never felt so close to someone before.
Either way, though, Darby doesn’t deserve to be shit on. I give him a friendly shove and a smile. “She’s got plans tonight. Girls’ night.”
“Oh. Okay.” Duncan still seems a little miffed as he shrugs and skates away to talk to one of our equipment guys about his glove or something.
“I’m going out for a little fox and hound,” Eddie tells me, skating up beside me in his heavy goalie gear, his mask perched on top of his head. “Fox and hound” is his way of saying picking up women. He thinks it makes him classier than just saying, “I’m going out to try to get laid.” The jury’s still out on that, though. “Me, the new kid Payne, and Noah.”
“Where?”
“Abbey Tavern, probably. SFU is back in session.” He grins. “Time for a new college experience.”
He’s in his midthirties, so I realize how absolutely gross that is, because even I have started to feel pervy around college girls, and I’m only twenty-eight. He doesn’t, though. And neither do two out of five college girls he hits on, because I’ve yet to see him leave a college bar alone.
I have no place to be tonight, and unlike Levi I’m not whipped. I can go out and have a good time without Zoey. It’s not even that type of relationship. She hasn’t tried to have the talk yet. My rule has always been that if it’s not defined, I’m not confined. I actually thought about putting it on a T-shirt once.
“I’m in,” I tell Eddie as Coach announces it’s scrimmage time.
I skate toward center ice, and Levi skates beside me. “Really?” Levi questions, and I turn and start skating backward so we can face each other.
“Is this the part where you tell me what to do with my love life?” It’s a challenge, as in I fucking dare you to lecture me after you fucked my ex.
His lips press together as if he’s got to do that to keep himself from talking. Typical Levi. He likes to scowl and brood rather than say anything that might make him appear like he has a heart. I thought Tessa was getting him over that annoying personality trait, but I guess not. Not with anyone other than her, anyway.
I turn and skate faster. The scrimmage is high-paced because everyone is excited to be together again. Instead of using my energy to try to hit Eddie with slap shots, I focus on showing up Levi, because my frustration has been redirected. I actually play better than him, but it’s a hollow victory, because I know his shoulder is still kind of wrecked. We hit the weight room next and then some cardio before the day is over.
I take an extra-long, extra-hot shower, because my back is still a little achy from Zoey’s damn air mattress. We must have put a hole in it, because by the time I woke up this morning my ass was pressed painfully into the floor and my legs and head were wrenched up in the air. I had to get her that mattress. Not just to save my own back, but because I like fucking her in a bed. I discovered that when she slept at my place earlier this week. That was our first mattress experience, and it deserves repeating. Plus, I hate the idea of her on that cold, leaky air mattress whether I’m there or not. I get that she can’t afford a decent mattress right now while the money from the divorce is still in limbo and her career, although picking up, hasn’t taken off, but that’s not her fault and she shouldn’t be punished for it. That’s why that prick took all the furniture. To punish her. My dad always said living well is the best revenge, and if I can help her get revenge, I’m going to do it.
I get out of the shower. Eddie is videotaping himself in front of the mirrors waxing his mustache. He’s obsessed with videoing things. I usually don’t care, and have even been known to mug for his camera, but today I ignore it completely. “So tonight is going to be great! I feel like I haven’t gone out with you in forever.”
“Yeah, it’s been a while. Summer’s been busy and everything,” I mutter and give him a quick friendly smile. I walk out into our dressing area and Levi is tying his shoes on the bench in front of his stall. Eddie follows me out, still videotaping, and I’m about to drop my towel so I scowl at him. “Stop filming shit, okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He puts his phone down. “I won’t put that one on Instagram. Just the one of me grooming my mustache. Women love that shit.”
I don’t say anything as I continue changing.
“They also love a good dick pic. Honestly, every chick I meet asks me if that one of yours is real. I wish I’d had some chick post my peen,” he jokes, and I give him a tight smile.
Levi gives him a glare. He hates that that happened to me, but he hasn’t told me outright because of the rift between us.
I bet he feels he and Tessa are the reason I went on a bit of a sex bender and ended up with a girl who would put my dick on the internet. I sleep around a lot—I mean, I did—but I wasn’t a total idiot about it. I never allowed cell phones to even enter the bedroom. In fact, I always made a conscious decision to make sure the phone stayed in her purse, and the purse was in a different room than the one we were fucking in. If it was road trip hotel sex, I always made sure she left it by the door with her shoes.
But the girl in Toronto, well, I wasn’t thinking. It was a rough week. My dad took a fall and was in the hospital. My mom was a bit of a mess about it. I had spent three days after that comforting the sorority and my mom, and once we got Dad settled back home again, all the heavy talk about when to move him to a care facility started up again, and I was still pissed about Tessa and Levi. So I went out with Eddie, who also lives in Toronto in the off-season, to blow off steam. Her name was Jennifer, and Eddie said he knew her, and she was a regular puck bunny. She made the rounds and she knew the rules. I wanted a quick and easy lay. I got my dick on the internet instead.
“Eddie, can you give us a minute?” Levi says. Like a lot of things that come out of his mouth, I don’t think he means it to sound as serious and foreboding as it does, but his voice is so deep and rough that he always kind of sounds like the world is ending.
Eddie looks at Levi and nods, then turns to me, his eyebrows raised behind his captain’s back. “I’ll meet ya in the parking lot.”
I nod and reach for my jeans, pulling them on. And then I turn back to Levi. He’s standing now with his hands shoved in the pockets of his own jeans. “So listen, I know you’re still upset about everything that happened, and I’m not about to tell you that you should be over it because I don’t have any right to do that.”
Fuck, are we really going to do this? Now? Here? He’s the one who wanted so desperately to keep it out of the locker roomlast year, and now he’s bringing it in. And the thing is, I don’t even think he gets what the real problem is. That’s why I can’t get over it. That’s why the rift between us is getting bigger instead of smaller.
“You don’t have any right,” I agree, and grab my shirt and pull it over my head way more aggressively than is required. I run a hand through my damp hair and sigh. “So can we stop having these types of conversations where you tell me you know you should shut up and you don’t fucking shut up?”
“Jude, all I want to say is that if you’re not over Tess, that’s fine. It really is, but then don’t screw around with Zoey,” he says, and my blood begins to boil. “Tessa told me about her rough divorce, and she seems like a really nice person who really does like you. I—”
