I equal his movie-star grin with a wicked smirk of my own. “Since you’re so smart,youfigure it out.” And I slam the door in his face.
CHAPTER 7
Tate
That woman is a force of nature. And the more she pushes me away the more I want to win her over.
I’m not an asshole, no means no. But I don’t think sheactuallymeans no.
Again, she says it, so I won’t force my presence on her or anything, but something’s holding her back, something made her do a one-eighty on me after the party.
People don’t just announce they’re going to make you fall in love with them and then flee. I’ve seen how she looks at me, how she undresses me with her sassy stare, how her pulse flutters frantically at the base of her neck when we talk. Something made her change her mind.
Hopefully it’s something I can change right back.
I step into the rink, my kit bag hanging over my shoulder. It’s morning practice. Rico and Mikko are fucking around in the locker room. You can smell the rookie energy from a mile off. They’re young, naive, and it’s just a matter of time before their delusions of NHL grandeur are crushed into tiny little pieces.
I’m not saying Coach is an asshole, but he’s kind of a dick. He brings us in, breaks us down, figures out how we work, whatmakes us tick, our weaknesses, our strengths, and then presses every button we have.
Once he has all the data, he presses some more, gets us to almost breaking point. He loves studying us while we work under pressure, and then the magic happens.
It’s a grueling process, but his methods work. And he has a higher percent of his players getting scouted by the NHL than any other person in his position.
Just sucks at first.
Correction, it sucks for a while. Then it sucks more.
Thenit gets better.
Know what’s not getting better?
This dumpster fire with my neighbor. I thought perhaps letting her keep my dinner last week would make things a little more amicable between us.
It’s almost made things worse.
She’s noticeably and aggressively louder, slamming doors, playing loud music, and generally... well, I guess she’s just being me. I didn’t realize how loud I was being until she started returning the favor.
Not true. Turns out a few other people have brought it up to our RA. Seems I’ve been pretty obnoxious. But that’s not the point.
Getting my gear on in the locker room takes longer than usual. I can’t get Penelope Pitstop out of my mind. Why does she hate me so much? How did we go from kissing like we were made for each other to her wanting to claw my eyes out?
It wouldn’t bother me so much if it was dislike. Dislike I can accept, I can deal with. Not everyone is going to like everyone else. But this? The vehement, blood-curdling loathing that radiates from her in waves? I need to know where that comes from.
And why does she wear our opposition’s shirts to the games?
That’s weird and driving me more nuts than I care to admit.
Her ire eats at my skin like leeches in a murky lake draining my energy. And apparently, my higher brain function, because when I stumble over the puck on the ice, the rookies snort and snicker to each other.
I’m almost one hundred percent sure one of them called me grandpa.
I’ll fucking grandpa them.
I didn’t get drafted to the NHL by being a slow-assed fossil.
I get back to the scrimmage, my body present on the ice, but my mind? It’s consumed with thoughts of the pretty girl next door with bigger balls than most of the guys on this team.
I should have known better than to think she wouldn’t have followed through on her threat. When she swung that door open and was eating my pad Thai, I almost laughed. She has a steel spine.
