Page 12 of Spiral
“What’s the second thing?”
“Whoever this brainiac loser is, distance yourself from him now.” I couldn’t meet her eyes. “Oh, Craig.”
“I know. I really didn’t mean to fall into this intellectual man trap again.” I waved my orange fingers in the air. “He’s just so cute, and smart, damn he’s smart. He uses words that I have to Google like they were sprinkles on ice cream.”
“Craig…”
“And he’s funny. And British! You know I love foreign men.”
“Craig…”
“And he’s sexy. So sexy. He wears waistcoats like someone from a Jane Austen book. Like Mr. Darcy! You love Mr. Darcy.Ilove Mr. Darcy!”
“Craig…”
My lips were sticky with cheese dust but that didn’t seem to slow the rush of words flowing past them.
“And yes, we might have hooked up a few nights back. And yes, it might have been the best sex ever, and yes I totally freaked out and ghosted him but now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have pulled that Casper routine because I still want to do him and maybe get to know him better while we?—”
“Craig!” The verbal onslaught skidded to a halt. “We arenotdoing this again. That is what you told me after Leon broke you into tiny bits. You told me to remind you of all the nasty shit that big-brained jerk did to you if you ever found yourself in this situation again.”
“I know but…”
“You told me to step in and virtually or physically slap you if you ever evenwinkedat a man with several degrees.”
“I know but…”
“Craig Lewis Beaulieu, do not make me fly over from Michigan.”
Man, for being so petite she was not one to be trifled with. “I won’t.”
“Good, then when we talk next I’ll be seeing you without the telltale signs of man problems all over your chin, right?”
I wiped the back of my hand over my lips and chin. Oo, cheesy. “You’re going to distance yourself from this guy before he can sink his academic claws into you, right?” I needed another bag. “You’ll not see this man in any way, shape, or form. Right?”
“Hmm, oh, right. Well, no, not right. I kind of agreed to work with him on a science project about spirals and sports.”
I winced at the huge, profane blast from such a sweet little woman. This call was going to be a lot longer—and louder—than I had expected. I totally needed more cheesy doodles.
The next few days were filled with worry and puffed cheese treats.
I’d eaten so many cheesy doodles I was beginning to fret over looking jaundiced. My mother liked to tell the story about when I was a baby I’d eaten so many bowls of strained carrots and squash over several months that she and my father thought I was jaundiced. That was going to be me soon. Craig Beaulieu, the pumpkin-faced player. I had no clue what Jamie was going to do to me in our first session. Maybe he would tie me down to a lab table and poke me with needles. No, that would be mean. Maybe he would tie me down to a lab table and have his way with me. He’d come in wearing a white lab coat and nothing else, then after I was secured to the gurney he would toss his lab coat asidebut keep those sexy-as-sin glasses on as he climbed over me and sat on my cock. I’d be naked too, obviously.
“Hey, Booboo, you are drooling on the ice.”
I crashed back to real life as the sound of Vlad Novikov’s thickly accented Russian taunt tickled my ear. I threw a glower at the man they called Iceberg for his cold demeanor. He knew I hated him calling me Booboo. The dumb Arizona Raptor always got in my face. Why did we have to play them so frequently?
“Fuck off.”
“Oh, such a clever tongue you have, Booboo.” Iceberg chuckled roughly before nudging me aside to pick up the puck that his boyfriend Tate Collins had won in the faceoff. Sure, the Russian was big, but I had speed. I juked around him at center ice, stole the puck by lifting his stick, and passed it to our captain who took a quality shot at goal on Colorado Penn. The Raptors fans cheered the nice save by their rock-star goalie as we went back to the bench for a TV timeout. We’d flown into Tucson last night, had a nice light practice this morning, and spent a few hours in the desert. I’d been told the heat and sand would calm me, but it didn’t. All it did was make me sweat and burn the back of my neck. When we returned to LA in three days—we had a quick trip down to Dallas for a game—Jamie would be waiting to do things to me. With me. With. Me.
I seriously needed to get my shit together. It was the middle of the season, and we were in third place. We needed every point we could get. Porn-dreaming about a scientist on the ice was going to get me benched for sure. Coach was not pleased with my plus-minus numbers over the past couple of games. I’d been on the ice for four goals against. Not good. And it was all because of Jamie Hennessy and his lab coat. Did he even wear one? And if not, if I asked would he consider it?
“Nice defensive work on Novikov,” our new associate coach, Mike Trayson, said as he pounded on my shoulder pads. Mikewas a good guy, firm but kind, with a solid background coaching both the pros and minor league teams. “That’s what we like to see. Speed and determination.”
“Thanks, Coach,” I panted, taking a mouthful of water then rinsing my mouth free of the lactic acid build-up. I spat on the mat between my skates. “He’s tough.”
“You’re tougher,” Mike shouted to be heard over the roar of the crowd after Cam and Colorado had a knot-up in the Arizona goalie’s space.
