Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 80930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
"We can’t do this," she says, shaking her head and reaching for the door handle. "We need a reset."
"We had sex twenty minutes ago," I remind her. "So I guess we can do it tonight, too?" She slams the SUV door in my face.
I watch her walk to the front door, and she never looks back. "She is going to fight this all the way," I mutter to myself before leaving, and if I didn’t have to be at practice, I would park the SUV and chase after her. But I know she needs time. She has to work this out in her head.
The drive to the rink is uneventful, and I pull into my parking space. Getting out of the SUV with my protein shake in my hand, I can’t fucking help the smile that fills my face. "You look too happy for a Monday." I hear as soon as I lock the door and see Ralph getting out of his SUV with Manning. Both of them are dressed in the same thing as I am—sport shorts, Dallas shirt, and matching baseball caps.
"Yeah," Ralph says. "Why are you all smiles and shit?"
We stop when we see Miller arriving, and he gets out of his SUV with a smile on his face. "See, I’m not the only one." I point at Miller, who gets out and stretches. His outfit is exactly like ours.
"I got laid this morning without interruption.” He holds his hands in the air as if he just won a game in overtime. "Full-on four minutes of uninterrupted sex." He closes his eyes. "And it was fucking amazing."
"I don’t think I would be celebrating that," Manning says, and I roll my lips to stop from laughing.
"Yeah?" He puts his hands on his hips. "When’s the last time you went longer than four minutes without a kid yelling for you?" He stands there waiting for his answer.
"Saturday night and Sunday morning.” Manning shakes his head. "Rookie. Get your woman right after the kid falls asleep and get up at the ass crack of dawn."
"Whatever," Miller says. "You say that when your kids climb in bed with you at all hours of the night." We walk toward the door. "Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and I don’t even know what bed I’m in or who is beside me."
"So," Manning pushes, looking over at me, holding the door open for us, "is that why you look so happy? You got laid." I walk in and shake my head.
"Can’t I just smile to smile?" I ask as we walk into the locker room.
All three of them answer at the same time. "NO."
"Well, I am," I say, not ready to share what happened in the last two days. I walk to my spot on the bench, put my keys away, and then walk to the gym and get on the bike. My mind goes straight to Erika. And the smile I wore before comes back in full force. Watching television while I ride, I look over to see some of the guys coming in and warming up before we have to get on the ice. Some do their workout before and some after; I like warming up and then skating.
The door opens, and I see Nico coming in. He’s wearing jeans and a sweater. He looks around the gym, talking to a couple of players.
"Good morning," I hear from beside me and see Nico coming to stand beside me. "How you doing?"
"Good," I say, not lying. "Actually, I feel fucking great."
"I can’t believe the season is over, and we start playoffs in a couple of days." He looks at me. "Another year complete. Thought we would end up better in the standings."
"I think the beginning of the year was what fucked us up," I answer him honestly. "Manning having the knee surgery. Mika having a groin injury. We had so many injured. People coming up to play with us, and then people getting sent down. It was hard to build up that confidence we had at the end."
"Well, we face the number one team in the league first round," he says. "That should be fun. We won against them twice this whole year."
"You never know, stranger things have happened," I say, but even I think it will be a five-game series, at best. They just have a better team than we do. If we had another month, it would be a different story.
"Next year," he says, nodding. "Next year, we smash it. Don’t forget tonight." He looks at me, and he must see the confusion on my face. "Ticket holder dinner."
"Oh, yeah," I say, grabbing my phone and texting Erika.
Me: Ticket holder dinner tonight. Are we going together?
She gets back to me right away.
Erika: In a meeting. I’ll meet you there.
I put my phone away, shaking my head as I warm up on the bike. Then I head over to the treadmill before getting up and walking to get my equipment on. We train hard for over three hours, and when I get back into the dressing room, I sit down and drink some water.