Page 14 of Blocked Score

“I bet that’s what you tell all the guys,” he quips.

I knee him in his firm butt, drawing a laugh.

Lane takes his shot and sinks the ball.

“Alright!” He pumps his arm, the angle of movement popping the boulder of his bicep. He turns to me with a satisfied grin on his face. “There might be hope for me yet as a pool player.”

I hold my thumb and index finger just a sliver of distance apart. “Some.”

“I’m finally on the road to not being a square.”

“Yeah. Just need to get you a fake ID.”

An excited glimmer lights his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d take that as an insinuation that you want to spend more time with me,” he drawls with a smirk.

A warm, fuzzy feeling fills my chest, and my stomach does a series of twists. I’m not used to this bubbly feeling that has me trapping a girlish giggle in my throat.

“Well, how else are you supposed to get better at pool?”

Flames lick at the edges of Lane’s eyes. His gaze elevators down my body shamelessly.

He’s not stealing a glance this time. His gaze drags over me slow and heavy like he has a right to it. The space between us thickens with electric tension, so much so that I feel if I just arced my hand through it, sparks would crackle against my skin.

My eyes latch onto his lips. My own lips thrum with the vivid, almost-real imagination of how they would feel sliding against his.

All it would take is to angle my chin just so. Tilting it up just a bit, swaying my body so slightly in Lane’s direction, and he’d seize the moment. I know it.

But instead, I step back and to the side, picking up my phone from the edge of the pool table. Stepping out of the heated moment that could have led to one of our beds.

I tell him that I’m tired and should be heading home. But first, we finally exchange numbers.

I like Lane. A lot. Too much. Even though we’ve just met.

Maybe it’s silly, but I want to know if he actually likes me enough to stay interested even if I don’t make it easy for him.

6

LANE

“Iheard he’s kind of an asshole, though.”

I’m on a FaceTime call with my best friend, Rhys, who’s in our hometown for summer break. He’s also my teammate and fellow first line D Man on the Brumehill Black Bears hockey team.

We’re talking about a huge move that’s been arranged in the off-season: Hudson Voss is transferring to Brumehill to be our new goalie.

“Yeah, well, lots of people have heard that about you, too,” I quip back with a grin.

Rhys shrugs. “They’d be right.”

I roll my eyes. Rhys has a brooding look to him, isn’t chatty with people he doesn’t know well, and has a rough style of play on the ice, so he’s developed a reputation that doesn’t match how big his heart is for the people he cares about.

“Honestly, I don’t care what Voss’s reputation is. You seen him play?”

Rhys nods. “He’s the best in the college game.”

“The goalie position is what’s been holding us back this year. And last. Our biggest weakness. Next year, we’ll have no weaknesses.”

If Voss plays as well for us as he has been in Boston, we’ll be one of the handful of favorites to go all the way to the Frozen Four. To win it.

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