Page 40 of Pucking Your Best Friend

“Other than crashing on the couch and then falling into bed, you mean?” she asked, yawning demonstratively. She kept her gaze fixed on a spot over his shoulder, probably because she didn’t want to be caught staring again.

“Are you sure? You could also…come.” Oh, fuck. “Um, come with me,” he said, catching himself. “To the Ice Lounge. I’m meeting the others there shortly. Lucy will probably be there, too.”

“Oh, yeah, she texted me. But no, I’d rather have an evening at home. To…” She cleared her throat and smiled. “Wind down. Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. You can do whatever you want.”With whoever you want, as often as you want, as naked as you want…

Dear God in heaven!

“Cool.” She cleared her throat and nodded. “Okay then, have fun.”

“Yup,” he said and hurried past her into his room. He needed to get dressed – and to wind down, himself.

Chapter 10

He couldn’t calm down because, damn, her look had made him hard. Just herlook. That was the thought that was still swirling around his mind an hour later.

Thank God it was damn chilly in the Ice Lounge! The older owner, Carl, had been adamant about making it the theme. That meant his counter looked like a high half-wall of ice blocks stacked on top of each other, the bar was mostly filled with dry-ice vapor, and he kept the air conditioning on full blast so that ice hockey players felt comfortable.

They had assured him several times that the Hawks also hung out outside the ice rink and that they liked lying on the beach just as much as they liked carving the ice. Carl had decided on a theme, though, and he was stubbornly sticking to it.

Unfortunately, it also meant that his beer coasters all had the faces of Hawks players on them, so Matt was currently flipping a picture of Dax over in his fingers while he went over the recent conversation with Maddie.

He tried to recall every look she’d given him. Was she acting differently? He groaned inwardly. It didn’t matter anyway! What the hell was he expecting?

“What’s wrong, Matt?”

He blinked and glanced up. Their defender, Leon Alvarez, was sitting next to him, eyeing him.

“Have you lost your voice, Arielle?” he asked mockingly. “You haven’t said a word tonight, even though the conversation is happening tonight.” He pointed to the rest of the group, which consisted of Jack, team captain Fox, and their goalie Lucas Moreau. Matt noticed they were all staring at him.

He snapped out of his trance. “No. Sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Yeah, fighting chickens is exhausting,” Jack muttered, smiling into his non-alcoholic beer.

“Ah, that’s all.” Leon appeared relieved. “I thought you were taking on Moreau as your new role model.”

Their rather quiet goalie, who had the charisma of a serial killer in custody, gave him a dark look that made Leon wince.

“Sorry,” he replied hastily. “I think it’s cool you’re so quiet. A really great quality!”

Moreau snorted loudly and Leon hunched over and added noticeably louder, “Have you heard that Darron Clark is retiring soon and wants to leave the team to his son?”

“No,” Fox disagreed, frowning. “I heard his daughter is going to get the team.”

“He has a daughter?” Jack replied, furrowing his brow. “I’ve only heard about the son.”

“Yeah, the daughter isn’t media-savvy. There were a few scandals surrounding her, so she left the country, and since then there’s been radio silence.” Fox shrugged.

“Oh, I don’t care who takes over,” Leon said, “I just tell the press I’m too scared of our PR woman to speak out.”

“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say, Leon,” a female voice said, impressed. Lucy and Dax had appeared behind him. “Maybe you’re slowly outgrowing yourself.”

Leon grinned. “I don’t have to grow more. Everything is already disproportionately large.”

Groaning, Lucy buried her head in her hands while the other players merely sighed. Leon would never learn to be sensible.

“Is there any truth to it, Lucy?” Jack asked, frowning. “Is old Clark really handing over the hockey scepter?”

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