Page 27 of Dirty Puck

“If you take me to the bar, I’ll follow you home.”

“What every man wants to hear.” He winked again. This man with his smiles and his winks. How did a woman fight the power of the wink?

When I had him in the truck, I thought about what things a real girlfriend would know, I mean, to make it believable. But also, I just wanted to know. “If you hadn’t ended up in the NHL, what would you have done?”

The man kept his eyes on the road as he answered, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

He shook his head. “Hockey is all I ever wanted. Failure wasn’t an option.”

“Okay, what if you decide to retire because of injury?”

Whoa. He gripped the wheel, jerking his head to look at me. Eyes wide. “You jinxing me? Don’t say that shit to an athlete.”

“Reece, when people say words have power, that’s not how they mean it.”

“You’ve got your beliefs and I have mine. Don’t hate on what you don’t know.”

“Is the big, bad Copperheads goalie superstitious?” I teased.

“You bet your fine ass. I got a brand-new pair of socks before our first championship. The last time we didn’t win, I couldn’t find them. New cleaning lady put them in a different drawer. She knows to never make that mistake again.”

“Will I get to see these winning socks?”

Reece glanced over at me out of the corner of his eye. “You want to see my socks?”

“Well, your dick is impressive, but been there, done that. Gimme fresh, new, to keep this relationship alive.”

The laugh from that man when he threw his head back roaring—I had no words, although I joined the hilarity alongside him. We were a couple of idiots.

As he settled, he said, “I’ll show you my socks when I have you at my place.”

“It seems like the kind of thing a girlfriend would know about.”

Yeah, he agreed with a head nod.

The conversation eased a bit. Comfortably, not awkward at all. We spent a few more minutes listening to the radio until we turned into the parking lot of the bar and he rolled to a stop in front of my car. “Meet you back at the apartment,” I said as I hopped out.

He waited for me to climb into my car before taking off,and I followed right behind him. One of Benny’s favorite songs started playing on the radio and I bopped my head, singing along, not paying attention to Reece running the yellow light. I stopped because who had the money for a ticket, besides maybe Baker Reece?

Just before the light turned green, the lead car in a long funeral procession drove through the intersection forcing me to sit through another whole stoplight by the time they all passed by.

As I reached the complex parking, I turned into a spot right next to Reece’s truck, and opened my door to hear, “What the ever-loving-fuck?” I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the poor, disgruntled man, but he just kept going. “Do you need a fucking Ph.D. in mechanical engineering to hook this thing?”

At that point, my mouth moved on its own accord, popping out a loud laugh. He kind of wasn’t wrong. You had this hook that needed to be inserted just right in the space between the back and seat cushions, you know, the part only a small child could fit their hand into. Then there was the latch at the top to keep the seat from tipping and the small, very thin area to weave the car’s seatbelt through in order to click it into place, that again, an adult hand had no business being near. That didn’t even count the superhuman effort it took to pull the seatbelt tight enough to make it secure.

He grumbled something foul at my approach.

Whatever. Hissy fit neither welcomed nor necessary. “Go”—I tried pulling his hand away from the hook— “get Benny while I get it situated.”

Reece yanked the seat back so I lost the grip on the hook. “Yougo get Benny andI’llfinish here.”

I yanked the seat from him in a power play that’d make any hockey player proud. “You ever install a car seat before?”

As the goalie, he deflected my hit. “I think I can handle it.”

Handle it? Not with my boy in that seat. When I didn’tmove to leave, the man-baby started grumbling again and making these faces where I knew he was contemplating how to end me andpossiblymake it look like an accident. The look in his eyes made it hard to discern. He could always make an insanity plea or go straight for IDGAF and accept the second-degree charge.

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