Page 62 of You Had Me at Hockey

“Hey,” she says. “I was just having dirty thoughts about you.”

Every thought leaves my mind and my mouth dries up. I cough. “Oh.”

She laughs softly. “What’s up?”

“I, uh, forget.” I rub my face, thinking about naked Sara. Now I don’t just want to talk to her. I want to see her. “Are you busy?”

“Not if it involves you and me naked.” She infuses sexy innuendo into her voice, and I smile.

“Dinner?” Jesus. What is up with that? I don’t spontaneously issue invitations that I haven’t carefully planned out.

“Damn.” I can tell she’s teasing me. “IguessI could do that.”

My chest heats up just from hearing her voice. “I’ll come get you.”

“We can meet somewhere. Aren’t you supposed to be packing?”

“Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck and survey the hotel room. “I don’t have that much here, though.”

“I could come there and help, and we could order room service, and then have hot hotel sex.”

I bark out a laugh. “We could do that,” I agree.

“I’ll be there soon. What’s your room number?”

I give it to her and end the call. Then I dig out the room service menu.

Chapter 17

Sara

I’m surprised by the unexpected invitation. This is not like Josh. I hope he’s okay.

I don’t want to waste time getting ready to see Josh when I could bewithJosh, so I spend ten minutes fixing my hair and makeup and changing from leggings and a stretched-out sweater into jeans and a black turtleneck. Good thing I visited my wax salon yesterday and I’m all silky smooth.

About forty minutes later, after a subway ride and a short walk, I knock on his hotel room door. He opens it, looking big and buff and a little forlorn. “Hey.”

“Hi. What’s wrong?”

He blinks. “Wrong?”

“You invited me for dinner on the spur of the moment. I was so worried something happened. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He leans over and kisses my forehead—so sweet!—then steps aside for me to enter. “I just wanted to talk to you. To see you.”

“Whew.” I pull off my scarf and slip out of my jacket. “Okay, why?”

He takes them and hangs them in the closet near the door. “I had an…interesting day. Want a drink?” He gestures at the minibar.

“I do, but I have such a hard time paying the prices for the minibar stuff.” I stroll over and peruse the selection.

“Jesus. Don’t worry about that. Have what you want. Or if you don’t mind waiting, we can order a bottle of wine or something.”

“Fine, I’ll have something while we wait.” I pick a small bottle of wine and Josh cracks open a beer.

We sit on the love seat, shifting sideways to face each other.

“I went to the hospital today,” he says.

---