Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
I knew you liked that.
I liked it, too.
“Give me another,” I said.
“No.”
“Another,” I repeated, and even though he was still glaring at me, he clicked his tongue, then obliged. He picked up the other cherry, and I watched it slip a little the first time he tried to grab it, his fingers just a little shaky.
All at once, I realized something:
Wait a minute.
We actually are going to fuck tonight, aren’t we?
It was like a sudden intuition—like when I spotted the perfect play on the ice from a mile away, and I already saw myself scoring before it had happened.
You still totally, completely want me to fuck you, Hot Mess, and you’re not even good at hiding it.
He held the cherry over me.
But just as he was moving it toward my lips this time, I saw someone walking out the back doors of the patio.
A moment later, Kane stepped out, looking over at us. Kane’s eyes traveled down in an instant, seeing Mason about to lay the cherry onto my tongue.
Mason turned to see Kane and jumped like he’d seen a goddamn bear.
“Holy fuck, Kane—”
The cherry fell out of his hands and he lurched backward, his back hitting the pinball machine. The drink in his hand tipped.
“Oh—”
I reached a hand out to help steady him, but he overcorrected, and the glass fell out of his hand. It hit the pinball machine, sloshing the whole drink all over the top. Half of it drenched the front of Mason’s shirt in a big, wet splotch, and half landed on the wood planks of the patio, forming a pool below our shoes.
“Fuck me, that is cold,” he said softly, his eyes wide as he looked down.
“Hey, look at that,” Kane said, grabbing the glass. “It didn’t break. What’s with you, Hot Mess?”
Pink slashes had formed on Mason’s cheeks.
“Sorry,” Mason said.
“Don’t sweat it,” Kane said. “I’ll go grab you a refill, if you can handle it this time.”
“No refill,” he said. “I, uh, didn’t need it, anyway.”
“Never heard you say that before,” Kane said.
He looked between the two of us. I wondered if he was going to say something. There was no shot he’d seen me grabbing Mason’s wrist earlier, right?
But before he could say anything, one of the younger bartenders stepped out the back doors and tapped his shoulder from behind. He was saying something about a pisssed-off customer who thought he was getting the wrong price on a drink special.
“The special was two-for-one, not four-for-one,” Kane said, turning to the guy, instantly switching back into bar-owner mode.
He nodded at us before heading back inside, leaving us alone on the patio again.
Mason looked at me like a guilty puppy. “Okay. I’m going to head home.”
I turned my head. “What? Already?”
He looked defeated. “It’s about time to head back.”
An hour ago, I would have given anything to get out of having to talk to a stranger, but now I was disappointed that he wanted to leave.
I’d been looking forward to… I don’t know what.
Maybe I’d just liked his company.
“What happened to beating my ass in pinball?”
“My shirt’s soaked. And you probably have the highest score in pinball this bar will ever see, anyway.”
Shit.
Maybe Mason was embarrassed. I didn’t have a clue what my brother thought about Mason popping a cherry into my mouth, but at the end of the day, I didn’t give a fuck.
I did whatever I wanted.
Kane could try to judge me, but I wasn’t a kid anymore, and his protective parental vibe wasn’t going to fly now that I was 21.
But Mason likely felt different about the prospect of Kane’s… very strong opinions.
“There’s plenty of spare Hard Spot T-shirts inside,” I told Mason. “I’m sure I could get him to part with one of them.”
Mason gave me a polite smile, but something in his eyes had changed. He’d made up his mind.
I looked him up and down, realizing that he wasn’t going to budge.
Well, I wasn’t going to push him, either.
I gave him a nod. “Let me at least help you call a cab home?”
“I’ve got it covered, but thank you.”
We grabbed fistfuls of napkins from the tables nearby and blotted up the rest of the spilled drink. I walked back inside with him and before he left, he dropped some money on the bar, gave me a wave, and headed out the front doors.
“Later, cowboy,” I called out, but he’d already walked outside.
Most people don’t realize that hockey is almost all about observation.
Watching the other players’ tells. Watching the puck. Watching the way a guy might juke left right before he goes right, or watching the micromovements of the goalie.
Being an observer came as naturally to me as skating itself, both of them honed skills, but also pure instinct.
I couldn’t exactly turn all of that off.
I always felt like an observer. On the ice, in a classroom, or at a bar. Once Mason had bounced out of here like a scared animal, I took my place at the end of the bar, watching it all go by. I could almost feel the fog of my normal life settling around me again like a heavy shroud. Watching. Waiting for some long-lost fire to hit my blood again.