Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
I’m taking a late flight tonight to give myself enough time to take care of any last-minute things at the Seattle Rockwell.
It’s not until I’m at a restaurant in the airport that I finally breathe a sigh of relief. There’s been no stories online, no Jilted Exes’ Club Member Blows Man in Bar. Believe me, I’ve checked.
Hockey is on the television in the crowded sports bar, but I can deal with that. I sit down at a table and pull out my laptop. The waitress brings me a menu, and I order a burger and fries before pulling up a profit-and-loss report.
I don’t like to wear earbuds in public. I always feel like I’m missing something going on around me or like someone is going to attack me from behind. Clearly, I have trust issues. Why didn’t Malcolm ping them?
But anyway, I do pretty well tuning out what’s going on around me and working. Part of that comes from the fact that for most of my life—okay, and maybe even now too—I fade into the background. People never paid attention to me, so I learned not to pay attention to them.
The waitress brings me my food, and I’m mid-bite into a hamburger I really need, when a sentence breaks through my concentration. “Why the fuck couldn’t Rylan Pierce play this bad against Seattle the other night?”
My head snaps up to the three men at the bar, watching the game. My stomach twists up, but I tell myself it’s for no reason. There are likely a lot of Rylans in Seattle. It’s absolutely impossible that I hooked up with a hockey player. Are NHL players even out? Is that a thing? If they are, they’re definitely not sleeping with men like me.
I laugh at my ridiculousness and try to ignore the tightness in my chest. This is just one of those moments where I’m being me and freaking out over nothing. Hockey players would be missing teeth or something, right? Rylan had all of his, and they were beautiful…maybe unnaturally white and straight, which is exactly what this hockey player probably is—straight.
I take another bite of my burger, but the nausea sweeping through my gut makes it hard to swallow.
“Jesus, he just let Smith right by him. Two nights ago the guy could do no wrong, and tonight he’s playing like a joker,” Loud Hockey Fan says.
Two nights ago…
Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence.
Flashes of Hot Body Rylan’s chest play through my mind…how big he was…how hard… The guy hadn’t seemed real. I exit out of my work, heart racing, sweat beading on my brow.
I’m being ridiculous. No way it’s him. I’ll simply look up Rylan Pierce and see that it’s someone completely different from my Rylan, and then I’ll be able to get back to what I was doing.
I type in his name and hockey and…dark hair…blue eyes…mischievous grin…large pecs that I can’t see beneath the hockey uniform but know they’re there. The airport spins around me. How in the hell did I score a hockey player? I hate that sport. I didn’t like it before The Malcolm Incident, but now I despise it.
Even so, that’s not what has my attention now. My heart nearly beats out of my chest. My hands fist as my gaze holds fast on the team name: Los Angeles Rebels. They have a contract with the Rockwell, which I knew, but I didn’t put two and two together when I saw him. Why would I?
A scene from Carrie flashes through my head, and I imagine them all laughing at me the same way Carrie’s mom told her they would. He knew. He must have. Why would he do that? Did he get off on hooking up with one of the guys from the Jilted Exes’ Club? Did he sit around and laugh with his teammates about getting the guy who was humiliated at his game to suck his cock?
I slam my computer closed, not wanting to look at his stupid, sexy face, his smile that looks so sincere and earnest when he’s nothing but a lying liar who lied.
Jesus, I can’t even be a slut right—a word I mean in the most sex-positive way possible.
I stare daggers at the TV. Hockey players are doing hockey things I can’t pretend to understand or care about.
“Rylan Pierce is really off his game tonight,” the announcer says. Ha! Serves him right. “He played one of the best games in his career in Seattle. It just goes to show that these guys are human, with good days and bad, but man, tonight is really, really bad.”
And though I try to be glad he’s sucking tonight, I feel bad for him. I’ve only had people talking about me publicly for a few months, and I already want to burn down the internet. Rylan has a job where every one of his mistakes is highlighted on TV, online, and—no! I will not feel sorry for him. Malcolm gave me sob stories, and that’s how he got under my skin. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.