Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Because if there’s one thing Maddox and I both are, it’s strong. Not physically, although we’re that too, obviously, but mentally. Yeah, I’ve been through some shit and done the hard work to address it, but as professional athletes, if we crumbled every time a coach told us off, we would’ve never made it. I can handle Kayla at her worst. Hell, I welcome it.
“Girl, I like it when you tell me straight out. I can take it,” Maddox vows, thumping his chest. “Good, bad, ugly, dirty… bring it on.”
“Nothing bothers you, does it?” she asks, laughing lightly as she shakes her head. “Alright, Mr. Tough Guy, we shared our dark and dirty pasts. What’s your story?”
She leans toward me, like it’s the two of us against him, and I instantly wrap my arm around her shoulders and grin at him cockily. “Yeah, we’re trauma bonding here. Whatcha got?” Considering I already know the answer to that question, I’m taking twisted delight in making him admit it.
Ducking his head, he confesses, “Is it shitty if I say, nothing? I’m boring as fuck. I’ve got a good family and had a non-damaging, storybook sorta childhood. I’m an only child, my parents are still together and love each other in disgustingly adorable ways. Now that they’re empty nesters, they like to travel around in an RV I bought them with my signing bonus, ‘seeing America’, as they call it, from various national parks. I think they’re in Yellowstone right now?” He shrugs like he’s not one hundred percent sure, but I know he has an app to keep track of their location, always making sure they’re safe.
“They send me pictures of trees and trails and sunrises like each one is completely different from the last ten they sent me. I’ll most likely get one tomorrow saying that the picture doesn’t do the clouds and colors of the sky justice, but it was ‘just so pretty’ that Mom had to share it with me.” He chuckles like his mom is so silly for that, but it’s obvious that he can’t wait for the message to come through. He’s even shared some of the better ones around the locker room. “I think it’s their payoff for all they went through getting me through youth hockey. Dad coached my hockey team when I was little, both of them came to all my games through high school, and now, they watch from wherever they are. Dad sends me a ‘good game’ text after every one, and Mom asks if I had fun and if I’m eating enough.”
“I forget how much I hate you sometimes,” I grumble. My family is good too, both my parents and my sister, and I’ve helped them out too, but Maddox truly won the parental jackpot.
“Same,” Kayla agrees with a wry smirk.
“There are no romantic skeletons lurking in my closet, unless you count being thirty and never having actually had a serious relationship?”
“I do count that as a character flaw,” I offer, holding up a hand helpfully, and Kayla laughs at our comfortable teasing.
“Me too. Definite red flag,” she agrees.
Unbothered by our verdicts on the matter, he continues, “I dated here and there. Had a few casual girlfriends in my younger days, but basically, my whole life has centered around hockey. I made playing professionally my goal on my eighth birthday and never broke focus. Me and hockey, we’re like this.” Maddox crosses his fingers. “Always and forever.”
She looks to me for confirmation, and I nod. “He’s telling the truth. Bor-ing!” I deadpan.
“Then I return to my original question, which you so deftly attempted to side-step. How’d this happen?” Kayla asks, swinging a pink-tipped finger from me to Maddox as she sits back in her chair, still close but not touching either of us. Her eyes have gone shrewd, her face stoic, and I recognize that we’re entering the interrogation part of the evening.
If Kayla has questions, which I’m sure she does, well then, we’ve got answers. I already told her the worst of it, and I’ll tell her whatever else she wants to know to get inside her again. My PIN number? 1230. My biggest fear? Roller coasters, and not being able to play hockey anymore. My most embarrassing moment? Tripping over my skate lace and missing the game-winning goal when I was in the Pee-Wee leagues, because while sprawled on the ice, crying my eyes out, I’d looked up and realized the most popular girl in school, the one everyone had a crush on (including me), was looking right at me. I’d been eleven, and it was catastrophic as far as I was concerned.
Not trusting my ability to say the right thing, I stay quiet, giving Maddox the floor.
“Yeah, about that…” he says slowly, “we told you we’ve done this before, but to be clear, not this.” He waves a hand at the three of us around the table, his confidence cracking for the first time. “Dinner dates and swapping life stories? Totally virgin territory here.” He means he doesn’t do those things, but he also checks in on me to see how I’m handling all this.