Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
“I’m going home if you don’t drop it.” I almost mean that. Keeping stuff from my daughter and my best friend is high on the list of things I don’t enjoy. But there’s someone I want to see tonight more than I want to forgo the frustration that comes with Peggy and Hollis trying to set up online-dating accounts on my behalf.
“Don’t be such a grump.” Peggy pokes me in the side.
The elevator doors slide open, giving me an escape.
Tonight is the Terror’s annual holiday party. Everyone on the team attends and brings their significant other, if they have one. Even the guys without serious girlfriends usually bring a date. But there’s only one woman I want on my arm, and I can’t have her.
As soon as we’re through the doors, Peggy kisses Hollis on the cheek and tells him she’ll find him at dinner. She flounces off, her gold dress billowing behind her as she rushes across the festively decorated room to be enveloped by her friends. My little girl is all grown up.
“They were together almost all day getting their hair and nails and makeup done,” Hollis grumbles.
“They’re not having a slumber party tonight, so you’ll survive.” It comes out with more bite than I intend.
Hollis turns to me. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah. I’m great.” I’m the opposite of great. I’m on edge. It’s almost five thirty, and I haven’t seen Lexi since practice yesterday. I love practice as much as I loathe it these days. I can’t escape her when I’m sleeping. She’s on my mind every waking moment of the day. I’m jonesing, and I need a fix. I can’t escape her, and I now know I really don’t want to. The future possibilities hold too much allure.
“We gonna talk about this?” Hollis asks.
“Huh?”
He arches a brow. “Dude.”
“What?” I wish I could shove my hands in my pockets, but I’m wearing a tux and that’s impossible.
“You gonna tell me what happened in New York?”
“We beat them, but it wasn’t clean.” That lead weight is back in my stomach, but still, I try not to be obvious as I scan the room.
“Not what I’m referring to, and you know it.”
The second I find her, I’m utterly transfixed. She’s a fucking vision. Her hair has been braided and weaved into an intricate knot at the base of her elegant neck. Her dress is a pale, blush pink with a matching lace overlay that drapes across one shoulder and frames her cleavage, dipping low enough to be seductive, but still modest. The slit in the side shows off her toned leg from long days on the ice. It’s very reminiscent of the dress I had delivered to our room during our weekend in New York. I took her out for dinner and dancing, and then brought her back to the hotel, peeled her out of the dress, and kept her in bliss for hours. The next morning I woke alone.
“Dude, you’re as subtle as a fart in an elevator.” Hollis pats me on the shoulder and walks away.
I barely spare him a glance, though it’s highly problematic that he’s noticed the way I look at Lexi. I don’t know what she was thinking, bringing her dad to the Watering Hole last week with the whole team there. Hollis asked about it the next morning on the way to practice. I pretended I had no idea what he was talking about and switched the subject to holiday plans, all the while feeling like a hypocrite for doing exactly what he and Peggy did last season. I wonder if this is how he felt when he was hiding what was going on with Peggy at the start of their relationship. I’m not sure how I missed his caginess, or the way he looked at her. Maybe I didn’t want to see it.
Lexi crosses the room, heading for the bar, so I do the same. I need to be in her orbit for a minute. Her head turns, as if she can sense my approach. Her throat bobs with a nervous swallow, and her tongue sweeps across her bottom lip.
“Hi, Coach Forrester.” I prop my elbows on the bar top and try not to look directly at her.
“Hello, Goalie.” Her gaze locks with mine in the reflection behind the mirrored bar. Her fingers flutter around her collarbones before she drops them and clasps her hands.
I order a scotch, neat. I need something stronger than beer with her looking the way she does. “Where’s your date?”
“He’s not available tonight. Yours?”
“Can’t have her.”
Just because we’ve acknowledged our mutual attraction doesn’t mean she sees what we could be the same way I do. How I could be the one she spends her nights and mornings with. Though I can’t imagine she’s had time to date anyone since she arrived in Toronto. Not with an eight-year-old and a seventeen-year-old to take care of, on top of coaching a professional hockey team.