Page 55 of Lucky Shot
“Okay. I’ll ask him.”
Laughter from downstairs draws our attention.
“I should get back. I didn’t mean to interrupt your party,” I say.
“It’s their weekly poker game.”
“Sounds fun.”
“I’m sure they’d let you join if you want.”
I hadn’t really meant that it sounded fun, more that it was nice that they had a weekly thing. It’s only been six days, but I miss my family, our dinners and hanging out. I miss socializing.
“They were talking about you earlier,” Aidan says with a sheepish grin.
Well, that’s ominous. Nothing good, I’m sure.
“I have things to do, but thanks.”
He eyes the bottle in my hands as if calling my bluff.
I backpedal. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not.” He steps forward and takes my hand, then pulls me with him.
I barely have time to do anything except glance down at myself. I’m still wearing my swimsuit from sitting out by the lake earlier, but I managed to put on a tube top and shorts with flip-flops before I walked over for cleaning supplies. Which I realize I’m still holding in one hand as Aidan hurries down the stairs, tugging me along by the other.
Six men are seated around a circle table in the middle of the room and all eyes turn to me. Aidan drops my hand and runs to his dad’s side. Nick scoots back to let his son on his lap while not taking his gaze off me.
“Hi!” I lift a hand in a wave. The rag whips through the air with my fingers. “I came by for cleaning supplies. Thought I’d do a deep clean of the cabin.”
No one says anything and I shift awkwardly.
“Cleaning on a Saturday night?” Mike asks finally, then scoffs. “Take a seat, darling. We’re not much company, but we’re better than what you have planned. You like poker?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never played.” I don’t move because Nick is shooting red lasers out of his eyeballs. They seem to be directed at the inches of bare skin at my midsection, like he’s never seen a belly button ring before.
“Grab a chair and pull it up. I’ll show you.” Travis motions at me, then picks up his cards.
“The only thing he can show you is how to lose,” another guy mutters, then gives me a sly smile. His arms are covered in tattoos, including his hands.
“That’s Danny,” Travis tells me. “But everybody calls him D-Low. You can’t trust anything he says while sitting around the poker table.”
“All’s fair in poker and hockey.” Danny grins at me.
“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes,” the guy to his right says. He looks at me with a shy smile. Holy mother of…hotness. “I’m Conrad. Nice to meet you.”
Conrad is possibly the most attractive man I’ve ever seen in real life. Like stunningly so. Very pretty boy type, which isn’t really something I’d normally be into, but it’s really hard to tear my gaze away from him. And his face just gets redder the longer I stare. For his sake, I force myself to look away but OMG.
“And that’s August Penn but we just call him Penn,” Travis says, tipping his head to the only man at the table not staring in my direction.
At his name he briefly glances up. He wears a polite, if not bored expression. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
He’s broad and sits taller than the others. A black baseball cap is pulled down low on his face. Light brown hair sticks out on the sides and in the back. He’s wearing a faded Moonshot hockey T-shirt that pulls at his arm muscles. He and Nick are competing for grumpiest man alive, and I can’t tell who’s winning.
They are a lot to take in. I scan the circle of hockey players and Mike before my gaze lands back on Nick. I’m not sure what it says that among this group of extremely hot men, he’s the one I feel most drawn to.
