Page 34 of Puck King
But he was acting. He had to be.
There had been two home games since our walk, but I’d chosen not to attend, even though I wanted to see Colton and his shoulder in action. Attending his games was later on the schedule, and I wasn’t going to do anything to mess up this deal with the King family. My family needed me.
That didn’t stop me from watching them on TV, though.
“When will you admit that you two are a couple?” Hollie had melted some cheese on nacho chips and draped a kitchen towel over the coffee table. She set down the hot baking tray of sizzling cheese. If it wouldn’t have caused a third-degree burn on the inside of my mouth, I would’ve shoved one of those chips into my mouth to avoid answering her question.
“A couple?” I crunched a naked chip and washed it down with a sip of beer. “We’re just hanging out.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Hollie cracked her beer.
“You tell me.” I laughed. “I haven’t dated in years.”
“Ha!” Hollie leapt to her feet, crouching beside me on the sofa like a karate master. “You said date. I knew it!”
I wished I was drinking red wine, which made my face flush, so it could take the blame for the burning in my cheeks. “We’re…friends.” It felt weird to say it, but in a way, it felt like the truth. Colton and I had gotten close.
“Have you banged?” Hollie returned to a normal person’s seated position.
“Hollie Sanger! Oh my God. Of course not.”
“BJ? A little hands action?”
“No.” I shook my head. “None of that.”
“How big is his…”
I held up my hand. “Remember? No butts or dicks.”
“Huge.” She grinned and nodded, her eyes wide.
“Maybe you’re the one who needs to get laid.” I tried to take the focus off the size of Colton’s package. I was ninety percent sure I’d felt it through his jeans, pressing into my belly, and it was huge, even on a cold day.
Holly cast a glance at me and took a sip of her beer. She gave a coy smile and a slight shrug.
“Who?” I had been so wrapped up in my own life that I hadn’t noticed what was going on with Hollie.
“Nuh-uh.” Hollie pulled a chip from the pile and let the cheese stretch two feet high, swirling it over the chip before popping it into her mouth. The warm up to the game played in the background as she crunched her chip, washing it down with beer. “I’ll tell you who, if you tell me what the hell is going on with you and that man.” She pointed to the screen and I hoped she didn’t notice my gasp.
Colton was leaning against the boards, adjusting his helmet. Someone said something funny and he tilted his head back in a laugh. His hair looked wet, maybe sweaty from the warm up or from his water bottle. As though he read my thoughts, he squirted water into his mouth and then onto the top of his head before putting his helmet back over his chestnut-brown hockey flow.
I was lost for words. The man was gorgeous.
“He’s got great hair.” Hollie’s eyes were glued to the screen. “Almost as good as Gunnar’s.”
“It’s called a hockey flow.” I laughed. “And, Colton’s got a wave in his.”
The camera panned the audience and up to the private boxes. Everleigh was in the King box with an older man next to her, who I assumed was William King. Everleigh was on her phone and the sportscasters reluctantly admitted that under her rule, the team had come up two spots in the rankings.
“Look at you with the hockey lingo. I’m impressed.”
For the first time, I felt a little sorry for Everleigh. The woman looked stressed. It couldn’t have been easy taking over the GM position, and I doubted that the announcers would have been as critical with a man, as they currently were with the Princess of the Puck - their words, not mine. “Is it Gunnar?” I asked, hoping to trick Hollie into spilling the beans without giving up any of my own information.
Hollie smiled and pumped her eyebrows. “You’ll never know.”
The cheese looked a little less molten and I braved a bite. “Almost as good as the pump cheese at the rink.”
“It better be. It’s thirty dollar Irish cheddar.”
