Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Fucker got a birdie, and I was just as mad about it as I was when he outscored me in a game.
“Fuck you,” Carter said, shoving Vince enough to make him stumble. But now Jaxson and Will were laughing, too, and I wore an easy smirk. “Fuck all of you. One day, I’ll make you eat your words.”
“If you ever bag Liv, I promise you, I will literally get on my hands and knees and kiss your feet,” Vince said.
Carter shook his head, lining up for his first putt. I thought he would shoot some smart-ass remark back, but he quieted, missing the hole by just a few inches when he finally took his shot. He still hit par with the next one, but he seemed to be in his head now.
Poor kid. We were just giving him a hard time.
Then again, I’d rather him show even half the interest he had in Livia to getting better on the ice. We could use him, especially with the center on my line likely on his way out after this season. He was an older veteran in his early forties. Played like a monster, that guy, but our bodies could only do this shit for so long. Carter would play in the fourth line most likely, but he had the potential to move up quickly — if he focused.
“So, are we going to talk about the giant elephant in the room, or ignore it the way you ignore every call Coach makes?” Jaxson asked me as we loaded up to head toward the next hole.
“Yeah, Su Man, why didn’t you tell us you were hooking up with the biggest pop star in the nation?” Vince chimed in.
Ah. So that was the elephant.
I hoped my smirk came off as cocky and sly as I winked at them, not saying a word as Will took his first shot. But as soon as he did, even he wanted the dirt.
“You know, we all saw something when she came to that game in New York,” he said. “You had a hat trick that night.”
“And you didn’t get thrown in the box even once,” Carter added.
Jaxson shook his head. “I just can’t believe it. No offense, bro, but… you don’t exactly seem her type.”
My nostrils flared with that comment because I was well aware of that fact.
But I didn’t need this motherfucker to point it out.
“You don’t think so?” I asked, tapping my chin with one finger. “Huh. Maybe you should tell her that next time I have her screaming out my name from her fifth orgasm of the night.”
That made them all laugh. Carter tried to high five me, but I just stared at his hand before he sheepishly put it down again.
Fuck. I hated that I’d said that. It didn’t matter that Mia wasn’t here to hear it, it was a prick thing to say.
Why was that always my defense mechanism?
Everyone already thinks I’m a prat, so I just continue to play into it. That’s easier than trying to change their minds. And why would I want to?
I always felt one bad day away from ruining it all, always felt like there was a part of me born to ruin everything I touched.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, still pissed at myself for talking about her like she was just one of the many women who were desperate to get in my bed.
But this was who I was to these guys — to everyone.
Aleks Suter: the playboy, the asshole, the fighter.
“You two grew up together, yeah?” Carter asked, taking his shot before he turned back to me for an answer.
I spit in lieu of one.
Maybe I should have opened up, should have told my teammates about how I went from a poor foster kid in Switzerland to billeting with a rich family in Chicago. Maybe a better man would have shared his feelings and detailed how his fucked-up childhood shaped him.
But that wasn’t me.
I preferred to keep the past exactly there — behind me.
The only person who knew more than surface level shit about me was Mia, and even we didn’t talk about it much anymore. When we were teenagers sneaking onto rooftops or sitting by the lake that felt more like an ocean, those conversations came easy.
Well — with her they did.
But she never pushed me, never asked for more than what I was willing to give. Sometimes I’d talk about my biological parents — what little I knew about them, anyway, which was mostly that they battled drug addiction until they both died. Sometimes I’d tell her stories about my foster mom, Annaliese, who was an angel on Earth.
Most times, I’d just talk about hockey.
Hockey was the only thing that felt constant in my life, the only thing I could rely on other than myself.