Page 46 of Zero Pucks Given
Up ahead, Manny waved to get our attention. “Good job! Now just walk together a bit more and we’re done!”
Grayson removed his arm, and I did the same. But as we took a few more steps, our hands brushed together. Then his fingers grasped mine until we were holding hands.
“Make it convincing, right?” he said.
“Right,” I replied, trying to ignore how warm and strong his fingers felt laced into mine. It reminded me of the way they had felt laced in my hair at the game, when he pulled me into a kiss…
“If I everdowant to cover up my bruises,” he added, “your channel is the first one I’ll check.”
“Thank you in advance.”
But as we walked hand-in-hand, an idea came to me.
“How long is this date supposed to last?” I asked.
“Another half hour. They want us to get ice cream. Why?”
“I have a better idea,” I said. “But we need to go back to my place.”
23
Josie
The team car drove us back to my place. “It won’t take more than an hour,” I promised the driver.
“Don’t rush things on my account,” he said, winking at Grayson. “I’ll wait here until you’re done.”
“No, it’s not…” I started to protest, then shook my head. I knew what this looked like, and there was no point in trying to convince him otherwise. If I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t have believed me, either.
“So what exactly are we doing?” Grayson asked as we took the elevator up.
“You’ll see.”
He made a noise deep in his throat, but said nothing.
I was grateful that I had recently cleaned my apartment—it was onlyslightlymessy, compared tofilthy slobmessy. Grayson stood in the entranceway and looked around.
“Go ahead. Make fun of it,” I said.
He frowned. “Why would I make fun of it?”
“Because it’s not a mansion condo penthouse suite, or whereveryou live.”
“The house I grew up in was smaller than this,” he answered.
“Yeah right.”
“I’m serious.” His green eyes cut in my direction. “Calling it a house is generous. It was basically a two-bedroom shack. A storage shed someone converted into a rental unit. It was all we could afford.”
He flashed a smile. The real one.
“But we were happy. When you have nothing, everything feels like a treat. I still remember the summer Dad brought home my first computer for my birthday. It was a used piece of junk, running a version of Windows that was old enough to buy liquor, but I was so excited. I used it to play Minecraft.”
Several teasing comments were on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t voice them. He was showing me a little bit of who he was, and I liked the glimpse of therealman beneath all the layers of clothes, pads, and scowls.
He cleared his throat and pointed at the corner of my living room, where a circular ring light stood on a tripod. “It looks like you run an OnlyFans account from here. I bet you’d make a lot more money than doing makeup videos.”
“Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind,” I muttered while rearranging chairs next to the light. “I have a friend in Albuquerque who does that and makes six figuresper month.”
