Page 63 of Good Vibes Only
We got out of his car, and I walked Brett up to my building.
“Just so we’re clear,” I began, “I don’t sleep around on the first date.”
Brett snickered. If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “I mean, if you wanna know the truth, I was kinda hoping to repay the favor, if anything. But hey, if not, that’s alright. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Did he mean he wanted to go down on me?!
An excited laugh bubbled out of me as I opened the door. “Oh? Well, clearly, oral on the first date is allowed.”
“I thought so,” he said, and gave my ass a swat as he followed me inside.
16
McKayla
“Soo, that’s the kitchen, and that’s the living room,” I said, my pointer finger sweeping the short distance from one side of the apartment to the other. “The bedroom and bathroom are down that hallway. And um, that’s pretty much it. Amazing, right?”
I never thought I’d be showing a multi-millionairearound my little one-bedroom apartment, decorated almost entirely with Ikea furniture. I was a little embarrassed at how small and shabby the place felt—I’d been inhishome, after all, and the two couldn’t even begin to compare.
He looked around, his hands on his hips as he surveyed my place.
Oh God he hates it,I worried.
But then he said, with a simple smile, “It’s really cute. I like it.”
I laughed dismissively. “You’re just being nice. Compared to your place, I basically live in a hovel.”
“Ahovel?” He reared back, taking exception to my word choice. “C’mon. You gotta be nice to yourself, Mac.”
“It’s just so small …” I said.
“It’s small, but so what? There’s plenty of room for one person.” He shrugged. “And itfeelslike a home. It’sclean,and it feels all lively and comfortable in here. You can tell a woman lives here because you’ve got plants and actual art on the walls.” He drew in a deep breath. “And it smells amazing in here, too. What is that?”
I laughed. “Oh, just the lingering medley of my scented candle collection, I guess.”
“Ah. See, athletes don’t have a lot of candles,” he said with a snicker. “But yeah, after having my teammates as roommates, lemme tell ya, your place feels like paradise. There isn’t a pile of beer cans and pizza boxes everywhere you look. Hell, I would’velovedto live in a place this nice when I was younger.”
“Wait, you had roommates?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Uh, yeah. For most of my adult life.”
“I totally wanna hear more about all that. But first—” I circled into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine. “Should we open a bottle?”
“Sure,” he said.
I resisted the urge to apologize for it being an eight-dollar bottle, even though I knew he drank the good stuff. When I struggled with the bottle opener, Brett swooped in with an offer to help and got it uncorked in no time.
We ended up on the couch, sipping a fruity cabernet sauvignon.
“Okay, so why do millionaire athletes have roommates?” I asked.
“Because we don’t all start as millionaires,” he said.
Brett explained that his road to the NHL wasn’t exactly easy. He was always a skilled player who put up good numbers on every team he played for, but he was constantly fighting an uphill battle to get noticed and get to the next level. He led his Junior team in scoring during his draft year, yet he wasn’t even drafted in the NHL.
“Which sucked, because the two guys who played on my line that year got drafted,” he said. “Nothing against them; they’re both really good guys. But they’re both retired already. Imagine that; they weren’t good enough to hack it at the pro level.”
“Wait, if they weren’t good enough, how come they were drafted but you weren’t?” I asked, confused.
