Page 21 of Scoring Slater
A fresh drink landed in front of him. He nodded his thanks, tipped the glass back, and drained it. Liquid fire burned a path to his stomach. Licking his lips, he contemplated ordering another.
When his phone beeped, hope shot through him. Slater?
Nope.
A message from Vince:There's an awesome photo on the league's site of you poised to take your shot in the competition. They created it as downloadable wallpaper too, in case you want to save it. Great job tonight!
Vince was awesome like that, giving him a heads up. Of course, Slater used to do that too.
The league's site took a minute to load. The image of the shot was pretty cool. He saved the wallpaper, then scrolled through the rest of the images. The one of Slater, wearing a beaming smile, his hands raised in triumph when he'd completed the obstacle course, looked amazing. Before he could stop himself, he downloaded it too.
A gallery of more photos from the night appeared in the next section. He enlarged the one of him and Slater and his throat thickened at the words below the picture:Best friends, teammates, roommates, and now All Star participants.
Three of the reasons he'd given Slater for why they couldn't be together were staring at him in black and white. Mocking him. Daring him. He wanted Slater so much, but taking that step felt like jumping from a plane without a parachute. Too scary to attempt.
He wanted to jump.
Badly.
Staying still meant staying safe. But it also meant losing Slater.
He closed the site and opened the only social media app on his phone. Slater's most recent photo was at the top of his feed. A selfie taken from the stage, along with several other bachelors in the background, and the captionLet the bidding begin.
Picturing Slater with someone else gutted him. No one else would appreciate the strapping redhead like he did. He wouldn't be able to stand watching Slater fall in love with someone else. He'd have to pretend to be fine with it. He'd have to move out. He'd have to ask for a trade.
Jealousy at the nameless faceless man who'd stolen Slater's heart flamed as bright as the neon shamrock over the bar's door.
What if he met that someone tonight at the auction?
Panic streaked up his spine. He jumped from his stool. The leather and chrome chair tipped and landed with a crash loud enough to silence the bar.
Waving an apology, he righted the stool and told the bartended to settle his tab.
He had an auction to get to.
One that was already in progress. He jabbed his finger on the auction's hashtag, urging his phone to update with realtime results. Relief rushed out of him in a breath. Slater hadn't gone yet. But with eleven bachelors down, there were less than half to go.
He ran out the door and into the night. Stark cold and gusting wind and not a cab to be seen. Damn it.
No time to waste searching for one or pulling up the car service app. The hotel wasn't that far away. Maybe fifteen city blocks. He could run.
Frenetic energy filled his limbs. He took off, shoes pounding on concrete, dodging pedestrians, racing across streets, groaning when a red light and traffic forced him to pause.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Every stride he took brought him closer, but every second that passed meant he was running out of time.
Gasping for breath, he pushed through the hotel's doors and ran into the lobby. Several heads at the reception desk snapped in his direction.
One woman jumped up and circled the desk. "Sir, do you need help?"
"Bachelor auction." He panted, dropping his hands onto his knees. "Where is it?"
"I recognize you. You're one of the hockey players. The event is in the Atlantis room."
Blinking at her, he shook his head. His blood was buzzing too much to make sense of hotel's layout. "What? Where?"
"The room where we serve breakfast."
