Page 23 of Bagging the Blueliner
“No, thanks. I can call a car. I just need my purse.”
Knowing better than to argue further with her, I gestured to where her dress lay folded on my dresser. Her purse was to the side, along with her heels.
Crossing the room, Hannah dug inside her purse, pulling out her phone. Tapping a few buttons, presumably pulling up a rideshare app, a small wrinkle appeared between her eyes.
“Huh,” she muttered.
“Something wrong?”
Shaking her head slightly, she brushed me off. “No. If you could give me some privacy, I need to get dressed. The walk of shame is calling my name.”
Keeping my mouth shut, I didn’t point out that I’d already seen everything. Leaving my bedroom, I latched the door behind me.
Venturing downstairs to the living room, I stretched out my body on the massive leather sectional.
Thankfully, Coach made today’s pregame skate optional. If I was going to play tonight, I needed a massage, stat. Texting my regular masseuse and requesting an in-home emergency appointment, I tried to take stock of what hurt the most. My body was one solid wall of pain.
Getting old was a bitch.
A door opened upstairs, and Hannah appeared in the hallway that stretched through the middle of the penthouse. Walking down the floating staircase, her heels clacked on each oak step.
When I didn’t move to stand, she held up her hand. “Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.”
Her sarcastic tone had me itching to bend her over my knee. Whoever ended up with her was going to have their hands full.
As she left my apartment without another word, I closed my eyes.
What a fucking night.
Chapter 7
Hannah
What were the odds?
Closing the door to thepenthousebehind me, I walked to the elevator, pressing the single button to travel down. The brushed nickel doors opened, and I stepped inside. Eyeing the panel of buttons, still in disbelief, I pressed the one marking the seventh floor.
Of all the apartment buildings in downtown Hartford, Cal Berg and I lived in the same one.
Pulling up my rideshare app, I thought it was glitching when I plugged in my address, only for it to kick it back with an error saying I was already at my destination. Switching to the maps app, the blinking blue dot confirmed I was indeed inside my own building, only fourteen floors up.
Cal was like a bad habit I couldn’t shake. Since taking my job with the Comets, he had become my shadow. Worse, he was a bigger cock-blocker than my dad.
Last night, I’d been livid when he stomped onto the dance floor, assuming the role of the overbearing protector. There were no words for the embarrassment that had flooded my body when he implied that I was minutes away from becoming the internet’s next porn star.
I hated that he was right. I had been reckless.
Being so close to claiming the ultimate prize had clouded my judgment, and I took a risk.
That still didn’t give him the right to drag me out of there like a petulant child.
Reaching the seventh floor, I shuffled to my apartment door, unlocking it with my four-digit code. The lock disengaged, and I pushed inside.
Bending, I slipped off my heels, leaving them in my entryway. Looking around, I was hit with the glaring reality of how my place was a shoebox compared to Cal’s.
Of course, he would have the penthouse. The size of it only rivaled that of his ego.
Slipping into my bedroom, I shimmied out of my dress. I needed a shower—badly—but there was a pressing need to hash out the details of last night while they were still fresh in my mind.
