Chapter Six
“Tell me everything or there’s no way we can be friends,” Gemma demanded as they walked into Zara’s apartment.
Anchovy galloped inside, rushing around looking for his oversize tennis ball that was the size of a mini basketball. Like the smart women they were, they stayed out of the dog’s way. No one wanted to stand between Anchovy and his most prized possession.
“What’s there to tell?” She patted Anchovy on the head and scratched behind his ears when he came over, ball in mouth. “It was an obstacle course. We should go sometime; it was actually pretty fun.”
Gemma took a sip from her double espresso soy latte with half a shot of hazelnut. “The course was or the date was, because from what I saw when I picked you up, it looked like the second one.”
“We were just standing there.” Closely, so much so that Zara could feel him even though he wasn’t touching her. “You have an overactive imagination.”
Her bestie just gave her the you’re-full-of-it-but-I-love-you-anyway scoff as she walked to the corner of Zara’s apartment that was filled with gorgeous natural light and, therefore, had been designated as her art studio.
“What are you working on now?” Gemma asked, her hand hovering over the unassembled dolls but not touching them.
“It’s a piece for the Friends of the Library charity auction.” Zara crossed to stand next to Gemma. “It’s gonna be a house filled with influential female authors reading one another’s books.”
By the time she was done, the two-story dollhouse would be filled with twenty-five handmade and hand-painted dolls, dressed in custom-made costumes, reading at the kitchen table, in the bathtub, on a couch, gathered by the fireplace, and tucked into bed. All the books on the shelves would have individual pages, and the covers would be one-twelfth-size replicas of first editions of the authors’ books. Her Etsy store of individual miniatures other people used was making bank instead of her own artistic scenes, but it was pieces like this that she really wanted to do. Miniatures art wasn’t the most popular or sought after, but there was something that made her soul feel lighter when she created a piece of art showcasing a one-twelfth-size world that she’d love to live in.
“Your work really is amazing.” Gemma pivoted, the teasing upturn of her mouth gone, replaced by a tight concern. “You know I would have taken you to the charity ball as my plus-one anyway, right? I would never really stand between you and your dreams. I just really am worried about you.”
“I get it.” She did, sorta. They’d been friends for too long to get annoyed at her bestie’s pushy ways. “We both know what a softie you are.”
“It seems like the Bramble dates are going well, though.” Gemma picked up Jane Austen’s acrylic head.
“Let’s just say that Caleb and I have an understanding.” One with rules and structure.
“I hope that understanding involves orgasms.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Not yet, anyway. I saw the way he was looking at you. The man wants to carry you off and do the best kind of wicked things to your body.” Gemma put down Jane’s head and held out her hand. “I bet you that by date five, you’re banging him so good that your lady cobwebs will be knocked forever loose.”
Zara clamped her lips together before she did something she’d regret—like agree—and started futzing around with the mail on the counter.
“Our agreement didn’t preclude sex, but I’ll still take that bet,” she said, shaking her friend’s hand. “He is not the kind of guy for me.”
“Because he’s too oh-my-God-I-tripped-and-landed-on-your-big-cock hot?” Gemma tapped the tip of her nose with her finger as if she’d hit on the answer. “Yep, that’s totally it. You’re right. He’s totally not bangable.”
Zara fought to keep both the smile off her face and thoughts of a naked Caleb out of her head. She did not need to go there. Cobwebs or not, sleeping with a guy like Caleb who, according to his own words, hung out with people who couldn’t remember all the women they’d fucked was not something she was going to do. Ever.
“Very funny,” she said, trying to put into words the oh-honey-no alarms that went off around Caleb. “I mean, he’s hot and all, but he reminds me too much of my dad.”
Gemma let out a spluttering cough and almost dropped the coffee she’d been sipping. “Okay, that definitely went into ew territory.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She flipped off her friend. “He’s got this whole ‘let’s go for it’ vibe about him. I clocked it as soon as he threw this whole dating plan at me and today at the obstacle course when he let go of the rope and just went with the flow.” And he’d done both with a whole devil-may-care gleam in his eyes. If that didn’t scream out “run, you’re in danger,” she didn’t know what would. “You know how much I need predictability. Someone who runs on instinct is the last person I need in my life or between my legs.”
“You’ve thought a lot about Caleb Stuckey,” Gemma said.
Zara shrugged, not wanting to admit the truth of that statement. “Okay, a little.”
“You know, I think you just might be misjudging him. He could surprise you. What won’t surprise me is when I win this bet, because you are so gonna sleep with him.” Gemma strode to the door. “And now I have to trek all the way over to Waterbury to meet with that wedding planner everyone at work raved about.”
A quick hug and she was out the door. Then it was just Zara and Anchovy, which was how everything usually was. Normally, she’d do one of three things: binge-watch old episodes of Law & Order, fall into the latest urban fantasy romance she’d grabbed at the store down the street, or work. Okay, the last one was what she did nine times out of ten.
Shit. Maybe Gemma was right. Maybe it was time she shook things up a little bit in her life.
Slipping out of her strappy sandals, she put on her Keds. “Leash?”
Anchovy dropped his slobbery mess of a ball at her feet and sprinted off to go get his leash out of the basket by the door.
Her phone dinged, and she glanced down to see a notification from Bramble come through. Caleb had accepted date three. Oh boy.
…
The next morning, the Ice Knights weight room was nearly deserted when Caleb walked in for a preseason workout session with the other guys on the first line. Along with the line’s other defenseman, Zach Blackburn, he and forward Alex Christensen, center Ian Petrov, and forward Cole Phillips had settled into an unofficial off-season workout schedule.
Today, though, the team gym somehow magically managed to smell like melted chocolate and warm vanilla instead of sweat and funk. There was only one explanation for that. Petrov.
“Why does it smell like cookies?” Caleb asked the forward, who was obviously on another one of his weird kicks in his efforts to get off the injured list faster than the team doctor expected, even though the dude was pretty much unofficially healed already.
Sure, his methods were bizarre, but Caleb was starting to think the man was on to something, because Petrov was ready to get out on the ice in time for the season way before he was supposed to. All he needed was the team doc to sign off on him.
Sweat ran down the other man’s forehead as he stood with a fifty-pound dumbbell held close to the center of a weight vest that Caleb knew from personal experience clocked in at forty-five pounds. “It’s this new thing.” Petrov lifted one leg off the ground and executed a single leg squat. “I can’t eat them according to the nutritionist, so smelling them pisses me off.”
Caleb moved his head from side to side, stretching his neck and then rolling his shoulders, waiting for Petrov to explain what in the hell that had to do with anything. When he didn’t, Caleb prompted, “And…”
Petrov cut a glare his way while Smitty, the team trainer, laughed as he set up the agility ropes on the Astroturf across the gym.
“That means,” Petrov said, his voice coming out strained as he did another single leg squat, “I lift harder and longer when I’m mad.”
What did it say about him that Petrov’s latest theory kind of made sense? Nothing good. “Why can’t you just have one cookie instead of a dozen?”
“I have to do whatever it takes to get back on the ice. Anyway, who can stop at just one cookie?” Petrov asked as he switched legs.
Caleb raised his hand, holding it aloft and smirking at his line mate as he walked over to the elliptical to warm up.
“Fuck you, Stuckey.”
He blew the other man a kiss and cranked up the incline on the elliptical. This part of the near-daily routine he didn’t have to think about. Smitty varied up the rest of the off-season training so it wasn’t the same every day, but it was always some form of weight lifting, agility training, stretching, and biometrics.
Unlike athletes in other sports, they couldn’t afford to show up to training camp at anything other than tip-top shape. Their camp only lasted a few days, with rookies going in two days early for athletic testing and on-ice skills. After that, the returning lineup had two days that followed the same pattern. Then the team went straight into seven preseason games spread out over two weeks before the puck dropped for real.
When it came to hockey, there really was no off-season—just a slower one, which made the fact that it was just him, Petrov, and Smitty in the gym that much weirder. Sure, it wasn’t official, but it was usually the entire Ice Knights first line here at the crack-ass of ten in the morning.
“Where are the rest of the guys?” he asked as he jogged.
Petrov put the dumbbell away on the rack and then took off his weight vest. “Blackburn is doing some charity gig with Fallon, Christensen just left a little bit ago, and Phillips is buying enough flowers for a funeral to try to get back on Marti’s good side.”
“I thought they were done for real this time?” Of course, he’d thought that every one of the sixty billion times the coach’s daughter and the star forward had broken up.
Petrov shrugged. “Give it a couple of weeks; it’ll change.”
“So much for our regular preseason workout today.” He was supposed to be running agility races with Christensen, which was pretty much an advanced course in getting his ass kicked, but he wasn’t about to give up until he won.
“You feeling lonely, Stuckey?” Petrov moved over to Smitty, who had his stopwatch ready and was standing next to a metal sled loaded up with close to five hundred pounds of weight plates. “Need me to set you up with a hot date?”
Caleb hit the stop button on the elliptical with more force than necessary, got off, and made his way over to the free weights. “You’d be better than my mom.”
“How’s the lovely Britany?” Petrov asked, just like he did every time his mom got mentioned.
“Shut up, asshole.” Now it was his turn to flip off his line mate as he strapped on his own weight vest and picked up a dumbbell to do a round of single leg squats. “She’s my mom.”
Petrov shrugged and got set behind the sled, readying to push it the forty-eight yards down the turf. “Your mom is hot, deal.”
“She’s also in control of my dating life in the world’s stupidest play for public redemption.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted it. Petrov had been with him in the Uber that night, but he’d been smart enough to not run his mouth insulting the female half of Harbor City’s population when the video none of them knew about was rolling. Neither had Phillips. It had just been a couple of rookies acting like asshole players, but that didn’t matter. In the player hierarchy of the team, it had been his responsibility to set the rookies straight. It had been up to him to set the example for the other players to follow. He was the one who wanted to be a leader on the team, to get that A for assistant captain on his jersey. To make that happen, he had to act like a leader—a good one.
And he’d fucked up like a dumb-ass. Maybe his middle school teacher had been right. Maybe without hockey, he wouldn’t be able to be anything more than what that asshole voice in his head had decided was: a barely literate loser.
“Better you than me.” Petrov snorted. “I’m trying to imagine who my mom would pick out, and it scares the shit out of me.” He got set again behind the sled. “But I also don’t spill a metric shit-ton of BS.”
Then Petrov started pushing the sled, grunting with effort and bitching about “motherfucking cookies” with each agonizing step, effectively ending the conversation, which was fine with Caleb. It wasn’t like he wanted his current dating hellscape analyzed. He was here for the muscle burn and to sweat out the memory of yesterday’s almost-kiss with Zara.
Tomorrow, he’d be back at the TV station for the date number two recap video. He’d get to do a play-by-play breakdown for his mom then. Only a root canal could be any better than that.
He was halfway through the first round of right leg squat reps when Coach Peppers and a short guy in an expensive suit walked through. It took a second to place the other guy—what with never seeing him outside of a very limited number of team meet and greets—but once he made the connection, he didn’t have a single doubt. Herbie Dawson, principal owner of the Ice Knights, stood, scowling, just inside the doorway in what had to be a custom-made suit. He didn’t have a single close-cropped white hair out of place. Peppers, on the other hand, was in Ice Knights workout gear and his black hair was going every which way. Whatever the two had been discussing, it must have sucked balls, because Peppers had been through the wringer.
“Stuckey,” Dawson said, his trademark wheezy voice doing nothing to soften his harsh tone as he strode across the gym to where Caleb stood. “I understand your situation is being handled.”
A cold sweat broke out at the base of Caleb’s neck, and his heart rate picked up enough to get a little beep notification from his smart watch. “Yes, sir, Mr. Dawson.”
“And we’re not going to have to deal with any more problems on your watch?” Dawson asked, his gaze as sharp as the blades on Caleb’s skates.
His grip tightened on the weight he was still holding to his chest like an asshole. “No, sir.”
“The Ice Knights have a code, Stuckey.” Dawson had to tilt his chin up to look Caleb in the eye. “We don’t make fools of ourselves or one another. We do not embarrass the team. Ever.”
For half a heartbeat, he was back in sixth grade, standing at the front of the class, the piece of paper shaking in his clammy grip as everyone stared at him, their whispers sounding like shouts to his heated ears. Then he was back, staring down at the pissed-off man who was telling him in no uncertain terms that he was fucked if he didn’t make this Bramble thing work.
“I understand, sir.”
“Good.” He paused, just eye-stabbing Caleb for a few eternity-lasting seconds before turning and leaving the gym.
Caleb’s breath came out in a whoosh, and he slammed the fifty-pound weight down onto the rack. This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. He’d worked too long to freeze in those moments, to fall back into shitty habits now. If he locked up on the ice, forget a viral video that made him—and the team—look like a bag of dicks, he’d never lace up again.
“What the hell, Coach?” he snarled at the one person in the room who had just as much on the line as he did.
“Don’t start with me, Stuckey,” Coach grumbled as he marched to the treadmill and began punching in an incline level before starting to run at a fast pace. “Just make this PR fix Lucy came up with work. Whatever it takes. Do not fuck this up.”
…
Zara had finally slid under the covers for the night after finishing up the costume for Maya Angelou for her current art piece when her phone buzzed on the bed. Anchovy laid his head on top of it, obviously casting his vote that it was too late for texts.
“You’re so bossy, dog,” she said as she slid her hand under his heavy head and retrieved her phone.
The three dots of a typing box appeared, disappeared, and reappeared several times before the message came through.
Yeah, she could see that after Asha had put him on blast last time.
Okay, she’d credited his tension during the interview to the video, but maybe there was more to it.
She had considered running for the dating hills after she’d seen the video of him in the Uber with his hockey buddies. The Bramble app allowed for an emergency out from the five-date rule if needed but tried to get everyone to give each person they matched with five dates. She hadn’t been able to do it, though, and it hadn’t just been because she needed to be Gemma’s plus-one or because her dad was hilariously and somewhat bizarrely working to get his acting chops recognized. There was just something about Caleb that made her feel like there was more to the story than what the Uber driver had posted.
She gave her guy a good head rub, and he answered with one of his signature talky growls that almost sounded like words—and in this case a complaint that they weren’t both asleep by now.
She scrolled through her phone, found one where he was standing with his front paws on the island holding one of her shoes in his mouth, and hit send. Obviously annoyed at her, Anchovy jumped down from the bed and padded over to the light switch. She knew what was coming next.
“Anchovy, don’t—”
Too late. He reached up and turned the light off before coming back to bed.
“You are such a pain in my butt, dog.”
Anchovy’s only answer was a talky growl as he flopped down next to her.
After making sure she’d set her alarm, she plugged in her phone and put it down on the nightstand. Then she closed her eyes. And opened them. And closed them. And tossed. And turned. And opened her eyes. And yeah, it was gonna be a long-ass night, because she knew that tonight was going to be just like last night. Her subconscious was going to play a game called Let’s Have Sexy Times With Caleb, and in her dreams she’d have the best toe-curling orgasm ever—because that’s the only place where all her orgasms with other people happened.
She never should have made that bet with Gemma. All it had done was rouse the oh-yeah-that’s-what-you-think part of her brain, and it had doubled down on images of shirtless Caleb that she may or may not have found while doing Google searches for purely scientific reasons.
Sticking her foot out from underneath the covers, she inhaled a deep breath and gave in to the mental image of Caleb’s bare chest with its dusting of dark hair across his hard pecs, his chiseled abs, and those V lines that drew a person’s gaze to the bottom edge of the picture. That was okay. She had all night to imagine everything below where the photo had been cropped.
And hope like hell her dreams didn’t make her turn fifty shades of red for the cameras when she saw him tomorrow.