Page 33 of Top Shelf
Boston had several community leagues and what felt like more ice rinks than churches, so I wasn’t missing out whenever I got the itch. But something in me had shifted since my night with Ferris. It was like a sudden and profound moment that I really was moving on, and the younger, better generation was taking my place.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the draft or the trades in the last few years, but after leaving the chat—and after it was obvious Ferris wasn’t going to try and contact me through text—I looked up his collegiate stats.
He was going to do well.
He was going to do more than well. He was going to win trophies. He was going to hoist the Cup and press his lips to that cool metal and feel the rush through his bones. He was going to be a fucking champion, and it gutted me a little to know I wouldn’t be there to see it.
Ferris still felt a little bit like he was mine, even if that moment had only lasted a few hours.
Sometimes, when I dreamed of him, I could feel him like he was really in my arms. I’d wake up cold and more lonely than I expected to. It was one fucking night. How did he have such a goddamn grip on me after this long?
“Yo. Quinn? You good, man?”
I blinked and realized I’d been hovering with the stylus over the tablet for way too long. Glancing up, I saw Cal staring at me with a raised brow. He was the one who’d finished up mytraining. The one I was half taking over for since his wife had just had twins and needed extra help at home.
He’d gone from five days a week to two, and today was his Friday. Though it was actually a Thursday.
“Sorry.”
He shook his head and leaned on the counter. “You look like you need a vacation. Or a drink. Or a drink on vacation.”
“I don’t drink,” I told him quietly. That was a half lie. I drank a little, but I had to be careful because drowning out both inside and outside pain with whiskey was a little too tempting some days.
“Vacation, then. Syd and I went on one of those adult-only cruises last year. Six days in the Caribbean. Most gorgeous shit I have ever seen.”
“I’m not really a boat person,” I told him. I finished adding my notes, then looked up to see Lisa—the receptionist—flipping the Closed sign on the door and locking it. Halle-fuckin-lujah. It had been a week, and I only had one more day to get through.
“You’re not really much of an anything person, are you?” He pushed away from the counter and stared me up and down. “Seriously, what do you like?”
“My fish.”
He stared blankly. “Fish are basically living décor, man.”
Not true. My fish was weird as fuck. Which was probably my fault for naming him Fish. He was a betta—bright blue with a huge fantail.
“Also, my cat.” I hadn’t planned on getting one, but then Ferris happened, and I found myself at the shelter two weeks after buying my brownstone. She was a flat-faced, part Persian, garbage cat. Literally. She’d been found in a garbage dumpster behind a restaurant and was missing half her tail.
I loved her with every fiber of my being, even if she hated all people and only came out from her cushy cat bed to eat, use her litter box, and hiss.
Though she did sleep with me every night.
“I’ll have to give you that one. I would die for my cat. I would kill for him.” He flashed me his phone screen, which was his twin daughters on the floor with a big orange cat between them.
I didn’t have photos of Clawdine. I didn’t really have photos of anything, which was probably some kind of personal failing. “Mine’s kind of a dick, but I love her anyway. She’s a princess.”
Cal sighed. “We have to find a way to dislodge that stick in your ass, bud.”
“Trust me, there’s nothing up there.” I might not have been so grouchy if there had been in recent days. I hadn’t thought much about sex after the accident…and then Ferris came along and fucked that all right to hell.
And me along with it.
Now I wanted it again, but with him. Or with someone as good as him. But the few times I’d ventured out to see if I could get laid, no one sparked interest. They were all too…average. Too fucking basic.
Too…not Ferris.
“Why don’t you come out with?—”
“I don’t go out,” I said quickly.
