I felt my eyelids blinking rapidly. “What do you mean?”
“Is your English as bad as mine?”
“No, but…you don’t even know him.”
There was a beat of silence, then, “Yes I do.Youdon’t know him.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to be pissed off. But he wasn’t wrong. My dad hadn’t given me much choice in the beginning, but I’d made the decision for myself the moment I was old enough to. I hadn’t tried to understand the person he was.
I hadn’t wanted to.
I still didn’t.
“It’s complicated, but it’s still my problem. And anyway,” I added weakly, “don’t you have work? Your brother said you were heading to the arena.”
“It was a meeting. We don’t have a game tonight since your team does.” He did not say that with kindness. “It can wait until tomorrow.”
I wanted to argue with him, but I also didn’t want to fuck over my team, especially with Chessy out for the week. “Normally, I’d say fuck you and stay, but?—”
“You’ve said fuck you several times tonight. It didn’t get you anywhere.”
My chest burned with anger, and I wanted to punch him. Or…something. I licked my lips, and he made a soft grunting noise. “Your superiority complex isn’t cute. Whoever told you it was lied to your face.” I pulled out my phone and began to scroll my apps for Uber.
“How do you understand that? That thing is speaking a million miles an hour.”
“Years of practice and better processing than you,” I said with a tight smile. I ordered my ride, then shoved my phone back into my pocket. “One of the many ways I’m better than you.”
“Hmm.”
I lifted my brows. “Am I lying?”
“You don’t think you’re lying.”
“Right. You wouldn’t last five minutes on my team. Shit, you wouldn’t last thirty seconds. You’d set a skate on the ice with compromised vision and piss your pants and cry.”
I heard him take a step closer. Then another. Then another. His chest bumped mine, and I lost my breath as my back hit the wall. Fuck, he really was huge. It took everything in me not to put my hands on him from shoulder to ass, but he’d made it clear how he felt about me touching him.
Though apparently, that didn’t extend to him touching me.
“You need to tell yourself that to sleep? Go ahead.”
“You’re fucking lucky we don’t play your bitch-ass team, or…”
There was a buzzing sound that made me jump, and I threw my arm around him to steady myself before I realized what I was doing. He went stiff, and I wrenched away.
“Sorry. Sorry.”
His big hand fell on my shoulder to steady me, and when he spoke, he leaned in to do it right against my ear. “Your ride is here.”
In spite of myself, in spite of everything, I shuddered. “Uh. Thanks. I’ll be back after the game.”
He grunted a quiet assent, then let me go and didn’t offer to help when I turned around, realized I was lost, and had to feel my way to the door. When it closed behind me, I let out a heavy breath, then realized—against all odds and all better judgment and everything else I thought I knew about myself—I was half-hard.
