Page 37 of Good Vibes Only
She clicked her tongue. “You gotta tell me everything.”
8
Brett
Vulcanized rubber struck iron, a resoundingpingechoing throughout the empty practice rink, and the puck deflected into the net.
“You know, you guys arereallyamazing,” I said as I squared up for another one-timer.
“What makes you say that?” Brock asked. He was stationed along the half-boards with a bucket’s worth of pucks spilled on the ice by his skates. He scooped another one onto his blade and sauced another crisp pass at me.
I swung and fired. Dead on target, the puck hit the crossbar again,ping.
“When Tank read that article about my brewery, no light bulbs went off in your head?” I asked, my stick cocked and ready for the next one-timer.
Ping.
I continued to rant. “You didn’t think to yourself, ‘Hey, Sofia’s best friend owns a sex store. Maybe it’s the same one?’”
Ping.
“Or, ‘Maybe I should at least mentionit, just in case the world reallyisthat small?’”
Ping.
“Sorry, bro,” Connor said as he ripped a one-timer of his own into the net. “I guess it slipped my mind.”
“How does something like that slip your mind?” I asked, puzzled.
“My girl’s best friend’s sex store isn’t exactly something I think about often, ya know? Hell, I’ve never even been there.”
I turned to Brock. “I kinda expect it from Connor, but really, Brock? You too? The article had the friggin’nameof her store in it!”
“Sorry, man. I forgot,” Brock said, raising a gloved hand. “Would it really have made a difference, though?”
“Hell. I dunno,” I said, fully aware my spreading grin wasn’t exactly convincing anybody. “It might have.”
Connor sided with Brock (because of course he would). “Bullshit. You still would’ve gone in there with your guns blazing, trying to rile her up. Because that’s theonlyway you know how to get things done.”
Brock dished another pass to me, but instead of unleashing my one-timer, I turned around to face Connor and flung a soft wrister at him. He yelped when it struck him in the ass—more out of surprise than pain—then immediately spun around and fired a laser that wentwhistlingbetween my legs. He’d missed crushing my cup and obliterating my balls by a mere inch.
“Whoa!” I laughed, my balls retreating into my body. “Iloba gentle wrister at you, and you try to take my balls off?!”
“If I wanted to take your balls off, I would’ve,” he said. “That was a warning shot.”
“AndI’mthe crazy one?”
“Never said I wasn’t,” he said with a wink.
Brock slid to a stop next to his bud. “I agree with Connor.”
“There’s a shocker,” I mumbled.
“But,” he interjected, “when I asked if it would’ve made a difference, I wasn’t talking about how you met her. I was talking about how the night turned out between you two.”
I played dumb. “What do you mean? Did she say something?”
He and Connor both tried to hide their smiles.
