Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Oh, honey.” She flinches. “At least the scenery is top-notch.”
“In every possible way,” I point out. “Forget his abs. The view from his apartment made me feel weak in the knees.”
Her eyes widen. “Wait—you went to The Lair?”
I take a sip of my wine. “You realize that’s a stupid name, right?”
She waves away this objection. “We’ve been over this. There’s too much testosterone around here to call things by ordinary names. I was up there just once, when all three of them hosted a holiday open house and invited all the front office staff. It’s wild, right? Chase’s bedroom has a view of the Empire State Building.”
“I didn’t spend any time in that room. We talked.”
“You talked.” She gives me a cheeky smile. “You went up to The Lair, where Chase has a sofa the size of New Jersey and a bed the size of New York. And you just…conversed?”
“We also ate some fantastic enchiladas and went over our rehearsal schedule.” I don’t mention the hug, even if it’s playing on repeat in my brain. Or the way Chase implied that he still liked feeding me. Those details are confusing, and they really shouldn’t be. “We’re colleagues working on a charity event. What about this is so hard to understand?”
She shakes her head. “Devil’s advocate. Why didn’t you meet at, say, your desk? It’s a nice spot, which I know because I kitted you up with a Legends pencil cup and an ergonomic chair. Just curious.”
“Oh, I would have. But it was his idea to have dinner.”
“Mmm,” she says with a sly smile. “I wonder why? And at his place, too?”
“Stop it,” I say, poking her in the arm. “You’re going to confuse my dumb little heart. And the game is back on anyway.”
We stop chatting to watch our boys play. They took last night’s game against Philly to overtime but then lost it on a freakish rebound. Tonight looks good, though. We’re up by a goal against Pittsburgh.
“Let’s go!” Darcy claps her hands toward the television. “One more! Let’s seal the deal!”
Chase has the puck, and as I watch, he outskates a defenseman to move the puck down the ice to Tremaine. “He’s skating so well,” I murmur after I watch his whole shift.
“You should know. You only have eyes for him.”
“It’s my job to watch him skate,” I insist, and she laughs. “Like you should talk.”
“I have no idea what you could mean.” But at the next commercial break, she turns to me and asks, “Did you see Tremaine’s place, too? He’s right next door.”
An image of Tremaine and his date mauling each other bursts into my brain, and I give my head a quick shake. “I didn’t speak to him.”
Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t speak to him. But did you see him?”
I shrug, but my face flames, because I’m the worst kind of liar. “I passed him on my way into the elevator. He was with some people.”
“People,” she whispers. “Like Mona?”
“I don’t know who Mona is.” That’s not even a lie.
“Aw.” She leans over and squeezes my shoulder. “You are a good friend. You weren’t going to tell me, were you? Was Mona there? Brown hair? Six feet tall? All legs?”
I nod. “That does sound familiar.”
Darcy lets out a small sigh. “She’s an underwear model, for fuck’s sake. Who could compete with that? But I almost feel sorry for the girl. They started off as fuck buddies, but he keeps breaking it off. Then a month or two will pass, and she’ll start texting him again. He always gives in eventually.” She lets out a little sigh. “Hell, Mona is responsible for my little crush on our fearless captain.”
“How’s that?”
She sips her wine. “I’ve always thought Eric was just the greatest guy. Mature. Kind. Smart. Gorgeous face. Perfect, right?”
I nod.
“But I assumed he was just too nice for sexytimes. A girl likes to be thrown around a little, you know?”
Again I nod, even though I don’t actually know. I’ve been to bed with exactly two men—one of them was teenage Chase, so I can hardly remember the sex itself. I was too caught up in the emotions.
The other was my husband. He never threw me around, however that’s supposed to work. I used to lie there and think about choreography while waiting for him to finish.
“Then, this one time, I was on a road trip to LA with the team? And Mona turns up at the team hotel. I went up to the rooftop pool to swim a few laps, and there was nobody else up there but me.” She grins. “Or so I thought! On my way out, I heard a strange banging noise coming from this alcove full of potted plants. And when I peeked in there, I saw them, up against the wall.” Darcy puts a hand to her chest and takes a shaky breath. “He was magnificent. Who knew a guy could be so nice and also so nasty? My mind was blown—I haven’t been the same since.”