Page 4 of Pucking My Grumpy Roommate
Get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.
I smiled, grateful for a friend who knew me so well.
I may have done something reckless. Tell you tomorrow.
Angel
Now I’m intrigued! Can’t wait to hear. Sweet dreams, future Nobel Prize winner.
I set my phone on the nightstand and tried to focus on organizing my research notes.
But my mind kept drifting to that text message. I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since Daniel, the doctoral student who’d used our relationship to access my research, then published it under his name.
Yet here I was, texting an old flame while tipsy in a hotel room.
Would he be shocked? Amused? Interested?
The wine was making me sleepy, my eyelids growing heavy as I stared at electron microscope images. I checked my phone one last time—still no response—before setting my alarm for early morning. I needed to be sharp for the apartment viewing.
CHAPTER 2
AUSTIN
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
I lowered the weight, exhaling through gritted teeth as pain radiated from my knee like lightning through a storm cloud. The physical therapist had told me to stop at twenty, but what the hell did she know about getting back on the ice?
“You’re pushing too hard again,” Jen said, her clinical gaze fixed on my form as I reached for my water bottle. “This isn’t the playoffs, Stone. Healing takes time.”
“Time is exactly what I don’t have,” I muttered, wiping sweat from my face. “Coach needs me back before the All-Star break.”
Jen crossed her arms. “Your knee needs proper rehabilitation or you won’t be back at all.”
I glared at her, but she’d grown immune to my iciest stares months ago. That was the problem with spending three hours a day, five days a week with someone—they stopped being intimidated by your game face.
My phone buzzed on the bench beside me. I glanced down, expecting my agent’s usual mid-day check-in, but it was just a calendar reminder for tomorrow’s appointment with Coach Martinez. As I dismissed the alert, my eyes caught on a notification I’d missed last night—a message from a random number.
The text preview made me blink twice.
I swiped open my phone, reading the full message from an unknown number. Definitely not my agent. Unless he’d dramatically changed his approach to motivational speeches.
Hey stranger. Remember that time in the supply closet when you showed me your...big talents? Minneapolis is freezing, but I’ve got some ideas for generating heat that would make even these winter nights feel like midsummer...
“Good news?” Jen asked, noting my expression.
“Wrong number.” I turned the phone away from her prying eyes.
“Must be an interesting wrong number to put that look on your face.”
I schooled my features back to neutral. “Just someone who’s going to be veryembarrassed soon.”
Jen smirked. “Ten-minute break, then we’re doing the electrical stimulation. And I mean ten minutes, not whenever you finish your sexting session.”
“It’s not—” I started, but she was already walking away, clipboard in hand.
I stared at the message again. Most people would ignore it, delete it, maybe have a laugh about it. But something aboutthe boldness mixed with obvious misfired intentions made my thumbs hover over the keyboard.
I think you have the wrong number. But now I’m curious about these “big talents” that apparently make such an impression in supply closets.
