Page 2 of Game Changer
Kip’s mouth may have dropped open like a cartoon character’s. Possibly his jaw was on the floor, and his tongue may have rolled out of his mouth like a carpet. It just so happened that thehottest man he had ever seenwas standing in front of him.
“Um, what can I get for you?” Kip managed.
The man was tall, blond, and, well,ripped.And Kipknewhe was ripped because he was wearing a ridiculously tight Under Armour zip-up jacket thing and sweatpants. He must have just finished a run, the way his damp hair clung to his forehead and his skin glistened with sweat.
“Good morning,” the sweaty man said cheerfully. “Sorry to wake you.”
Kip’s cheeks flushed. He dipped his head a bit so the brim of the stupid baseball cap would conceal it.God, the hottest man in the world is standing in front of me and I am wearing an apron and a strawberry baseball cap.
“You didn’t... I wasn’t...” Kip took a breath.Pull it together!“Sorry. Had a bit too much fun last night.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “On a Monday night?”
“Yeah, well, you know the life of a smoothie maker...live fast, die young, right?”
The man laughed. Kip nearly fell over.
“So what’s good here?” the man asked, squinting at the menu.
“Um, there’s one with blueberries and pineapple and kale—but you can’t taste the kale, I swear! It’s good. I like it.”
“That would be the... Blue Moon Over Brooklyn?”
“Yeah. All the names here are kinda dumb.”
The man pointed a long finger at Kip’s name tag. “I likeyourname.”
Kip glanced at his own name on the tag, as if he didn’t know what it said. Like an idiot.
“It’s, like, a nickname,” he said, as if the hot guy had asked him for further information. Which he had not. But Kip kept talking because that’s what he always did. “I mean, everyone calls me Kip. So itismy name. But not, like, myrealname. It’s, um... Anyway. You want one of those blueberry smoothies?”
“Sounds good,” the man said, politely ignoring how fucking dumb Kip was being.
Kip got to work loading the blender with various frozen fruits and fresh kale. Fortunately it required focus, and then the machine was loud enough that he couldn’t talk over it. He glanced over it at the man, who was now standing with his hands on his hips, studying the uninspired photos of fruit that decorated the small space. Kip’s eyes didn’t know where to land, rapidly jumping from broad shoulders to ridiculously huge arms to a muscled back tapering into a trim waist to an ass that was frankly just—
Kip shook his head and turned off the blender. He fumbled for a plastic cup and filled it with blue smoothie. “Here you are, sir.”
The man turned, nodded, and handed Kip a folded, slightly damp twenty-dollar bill from the pocket of his sweatpants. He waved his hand when Kip tried to hand him his change. “Keep it.”
“Seriously?” Kip asked, watching him take his first sip. Watching his pink lips fit around the straw.
“Yeah.” The man smiled. “We’ll call it a finder’s fee. This is delicious.”
Kip smiled back. “Glad you like it. Have a nice day.”
The man toasted him with his smoothie cup. “You too, Kip.”
Kip felt a little giddy at the sound of his name coming from this man’s mouth. As his dream man exited, another man who was not nearly as attractive walked into the shop.
“Holy shit!” the new customer said, jerking a thumb toward the door. “That was Scott Hunter!”
“Huh?”
The man looked at Kip like he was very dumb. “ScottHunter.”
“You mean, like, the hockey player guy?” Kip said.
“What?”came a voice from behind him. Maria stood in the doorway to the back room. “Did I seriously miss Scott Hunter?”
