Page 26 of The Final Draft

“Is he handsome like me?” Jetsy asks. He turns his head and makes a model pose.

“Is he smart like me?” Harvard asks, tapping his temple.

“Is he a hockey legend like me?” Mac asks, cracking his knuckles.

“Is he great in bed like me?” Zac asks, giving me that classic head nod that says it’s fact.

They’re so ridiculous that my eye roll could be a contender for a world record.

“Honestly, he’s a little of all of you. He has Jetsy’s charm and manners, Zac’s humor, Mac’s accent, and Harvard’s adorableness.”

Zac gets up, jumps on Harvard, gives him air kisses, calls him adorable, and pulls him to the floor. I transition into a child’s pose.

“And you’re writing this with another person you’ve never met. Isn’t that hard?” Mac asks.

“Surprisingly, it hasn’t been bad yet. I’m sure once we get to the plot, we could have creative differences.” Like ourdiscussion of love at first sight. I’m fearful we may have several disagreements before we finish this.

“What’s the plot? Or is it just sexy time all the time?” Harvard asks.

“Those books have plots?” Zac asks.

“You don’t think our girl writes porn, do you?” Mac sounds offended on my behalf. Our girl? Am I living in a harem novel?

“Of course not,” Zac snaps back. “CJ has a master’s degree, for fuck’s sake. I’m just saying what kind of love story do hockey players have? We meet a girl, if she’s exceptional in bed she’s our girlfriend, if she gets pregnant, we marry her. Where’s the story there?” To him, it’s that simple.

“For argument’s sake, let’s say that’s the storyline. How did you meet her? Did she fall into your bed?” They all smirk at that stupid question. Yep. Instalust is a real thing. “What makes her exceptional in bed and in life? And pregnancy is not the only reason to get married.”

“True,” Jetsy says. “But if I got a girl pregnant, my mother would kill me if I didn’t marry her.”

“Facts,” Harvard adds.

I shake my head in disbelief. “What about when you meet the kind of girl you marry?”

“And she’s not a buddy’s younger sister?” Zac stares me down. He’s reviving our conversation from this morning.

“Yep.”

“Then I’ll go scorched Earth to get her to say yes.”

“Exactly. There’s your story. The push pull of it all. The motivations. The insecurities. See?”

“I guess,” Zac shrugs. “But I’d rather bang it out.” The guys all laugh at Zac’s ability to bring it all back to sex.

“I’m sure you would.” I should have known better. It’s silly of me to expect anything different from them. They haven’t met theone yet, but when they do, I’m curious what Zac’s scorched earth looks like.

My phone buzzes on the coffee table. I stand up to take it into the other room. They’re all watching me.

“What?”

“Be careful,” Zac says in a serious tone. My imagination must be going wild because I swear his voice dropped two octaves. All playfulness is gone from his expression. His abrupt change of demeanor—the way his easy-going smile vanishes, replaced by a stony glare—throws me completely. I feel a pang of worry, wondering what I've done.

“With writing a book?” I’m beyond confused. We went from fun banter to a hard stop faster than a slapshot hitting the crossbar.

“With Decker,” he says, like this turn of conversation makes sense.

“What?” I look around the room for an assist and get none. They all have their game faces on.

He tosses my phone at me. The text is on the home screen for all the world to see.

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