Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
You’ve seen too many movies, man.
Or maybe not enough. My pulse spikes as I search the room, but then it slams hard against my rib cage in relief when I spot the vegan leather wallet on the floor by my side of the bed.
I kneel to grab it when I catch sight of a swath of black fabric. Is that…?
I grab it from under the bed.
I am not responsible for the smile that takes over my face. Fate is. Because yeah, it’s a motherfucking clue. This scarf she left. This note she wrote.
This scarf is a glass slipper, and I’m taking it. I know where she lives—in that yellow building on the block by the record store.
I check out of the hotel and walk several blocks to my car, which is littered with tickets, and I don’t even care.
I’ve got a damn good excuse to see my Cinderella again.
That afternoon, I’m racking the bench press next to Asher in the Sea Dogs’ weight room when Max comes in, all glower and attitude. The grumpy goalie travels with his own storm cloud. “You missed last night, Newman.” He grunts as he passes me, heading for the free weights.
At the start of practice today, Asher gave me a hard time for being a no-show at pool, even though I texted those jackasses last night while I was waiting for Josie outside her place. Told them I wouldn’t make it. But Max is wired to give me a hard time. And to use that awful nickname.
“I wouldn’t really say I missed it,” I remark as I add one more plate.
Like a dog who just heard the dinner bell, Asher sits up on his bench, pausing his preacher curls. He’s suddenly more interested in a story than a workout. “You ditched us for Hannah, again, Newman?”
I roll my eyes. “Fuck off.”
“Is that what you told Pamela last night?” Max goads as he grabs a couple barbells, pronouncing it like palmella.
“Yes. That’s exactly what happened last night. I told my hand to fuck off.”
"And your hand said oh, oh, oh,” Max says, pumping his hips, because we’re all immature like that. But it’s also impressive he can do it while holding weights.
Still, I scratch the side of my face with my middle finger, then lie on the bench, briefly flashing back to the convo with Josie last night when I said, I work out a little.
For a second, a sliver of guilt wiggles through me. Was it rude not to tell her what I do for a living? I mean, she didn’t really tell me what she did. Just said she was in the book business. Probably works for a publisher or at a bookstore. But still, I talked around my job way more than she did.
Was that misleading?
Of course it was misleading.
But was it wrong to hide it the way I did? Well, I can rectify that if she says yes when I figure out how I’ll return the scarf.
As I settle in and wrap my hands around the bar, I nod to Asher. “Spot me, Callahan,” I say, using his last name, rather than his nickname—Pretty Boy. Not that it isn’t fucking amusing to call him that. I’d just like them to stop calling me Newman for being the new guy. The less I say Pretty Boy, maybe the more he’ll call me by my last name—Bryant.
Asher comes behind the bench, standing watch. “I got you,” he says. He’s a winger, and he’s ferocious on the ice. The opposite of how he looks off it. He has the kind of smile that gets him all sorts of sponsorship deals.
As Max shifts into flies, his blue eyes scan the room, clearly looking for someone. “Hey, where’s Winters?”
That’s a good question. “I didn’t see him on the ice.”
“Me neither,” Asher remarks.
“He never misses practice,” Max adds, then his brow knits, like maybe he’s figured out the mystery of our missing captain. But he says nothing. I don’t either as I lift the bar again.
“Too bad you didn’t make it last night, Newman,” Asher remarks as I lift. “Max was off his game big time. Huey and I cleaned up.”
That’s Hugo, one of our top defenders. I saw him earlier when I arrived, but he hit the athletic trainer’s room after practice.
Max scowls. “It’s all part of my strategy. To take you for everything next time.”
I scoff. “Keep telling yourself that, Lambert,” I say as I lift the bar one more time, my muscles straining.
“So how was your night, Bryant?” Asher asks. Thank fuck we don’t use nicknames all the time.
“Don’t tell me a miracle happened and you actually found a woman in this city willing to sleep with your ugly ass,” Max says dryly as he sets down his weights.
Breathing out hard, I put down the bar, then sit up and meet my jackass friend’s eyes. I smirk like a cocky fucker as I think of last night. “I don’t kiss and tell.”