Page 9 of Home for the Hockey-Days

Rowan: What does that mean? How do I owe you anything?

August: Check the piece of paper you got yesterday at the traffic lights on Edgewood.

It takes a few minutes but eventually, the dots move again.

Rowan: OMG! I’m so sorry!

Rowan: You’re right, though, I definitely owe you. Iwasn’t going to take any new tutoring clients after the holidays, but now... Well, we both know I need the money. Tell me where you’d like to meet, and we can start right away.

August: Later today? Our flight just got canceled so we don’t have a game later.

I don’t want to meet at my place. She’s going to pity me enough without needing to witness the sad state of my tiny room in the hockey house. I don’t want to go to the library either, that place scares the shit out of me, and I’m not easily scared.

August: Bitches Brew at four?

I want to go early so I’m done before whoever is left on campus gets up and needs their caffeine fix from Taryn and the gang.

Rowan: Sounds like a plan. See you there.

Rowan: Sorry again. Really. I’ll make it right.

I’d rather eat dirt than have some know-it-all geek tell me everything I suck at in great detail. Never mind some know-it-all geek who destroyed my cherished vehicle.

Ugh. I already know how much I suck, fuck you very much. I know I’ve next to no chance of passing my final year, I should have undertaken an easier degree. Guess hindsight is twenty-twenty.

But I really have no choice. Coach says it’s this way or the highway, and having seen where the highway leads for people like me, it’s got to be this way.

CHAPTER 4

August

When the boys first said they’d found me a tutor, for some reason I expected an eighty four year old grandmother with a lifetime of math under her belt.

Not... this... this... stunner.

I also expected to wait until next semester to get stuck in. But considering my failings from the tests we just sat are on my permanent record, I need to get the jump on making sure those scores aren’t repeated in the new year. That means meeting her to have a chat about where I’m at, where I’m going, and let her see just how bad it is.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to do much more than drool at her, because she really is striking to look at.

I didn’t pay much attention to her the day we first met, I was too busy trying to pull her from the brink of passing out in the middle of Casey’s gas station’s parking lot. But Rowan is all of five feet and a splash, with shiny auburn waves that course down the front of her chest, resting on her ample cleavage. She’s more than curvy, her body nips in just a little at herwaist, and my mind-of-its-own dick already wants to bury itself between her lush booty cheeks.

If she wanted to crush my skull with her thick thighs, I wouldn’t be mad about it. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to die.

I’m a big dude, and more often than not when it comes to women, I’m afraid I’m going to break them. But this... Rowan... Wow. Despite being a short ass, she’s a formidable fucking woman, and it’s taking everything I have not to sweep our laptops onto the floor of the cafe and fuck her right here on the table for all to see.

Woah. Down boy.

It helps to remind myself that I’m still pissed at her. It hasn’t even been a couple days. And it wasn’tcompletelyher fault that she hit a patch of ice and bowled into the back of me, but she still ruined my ride.

Something about this pint-sized vixen has me smothering a growl. If she didn’t think I was a meathead when she first sat down, she probably does now.

We’re in Bitches Brew, there’s a hot pink Christmas tree at least eight feet tall decked out with simple white lights. I have to give it to her, Taryn, the owner of the cafe, sure does like the color pink.

The weight of Rowan’s hazel eyes on my face demands I make eye contact. “August?” She shifts her weight like she’s not sure.

I nod. “I guess I look different when you’re not crashing into me.” I didn’t mean that to come out as clipped and barbed as it did, and she flinches.

She puts up her hand. “I really am sorry about that.” She approaches the table I’m sitting at and gestures to the chair facing me.

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