©Mira Lyn Kelly
Chapter 1
Greg
“NO GAG REFLEX, you don’t say?”
This is what I get for coming to the rookie’s housewarming party. Preseason’s barely started and already I’ve lost interest in the puck bunnies. Cracking the cap on the water I pulled out of the built-in fridge, I take a long swallow. Should have stayed home to catch up on the The Walking Dead.
The bleach blonde with enhanced everything leans into me, pressing her tits against my arm.
“Uh-huh.” She plucks a wad of gum from between her lips, stretching and twisting it around her finger, before blinking up at me with a promise-filled smile. “I could show you.”
And in case I’m somehow missing the deeper meaning, she goes for my junk.
Dodging out of reach, I give Grabby Hands a look that assures I’m both surprised and delighted by her incredibly thoughtful offer. It comes with the wink and smile that have been getting me in and out of trouble from as far back as I can remember… and a hard pass. But a nice one.
I’m not a dick. I’m just not interested in the bunny my right winger backdoored last week. Sweet as I’m sure she is.
Grabby heads off in search of her next box to check, and my teammate Ruxton Meyers strolls over, eyes glued to her swaying ass.
“What I wouldn’t give not to know where she’s been.” He rubs his mouth with a scarred knuckle.
“Or that Vsevolod didn’t wear a rubber?” I offer with an evil smirk.
Rux’s head snaps around.
“I think my dick just crawled back into my body, dragging the boys along.”
I laugh. “Probably the safest place for them.”
Vsevolod’s a good kid and a fucking great hockey player, but at nineteen he’s got even less sense about women and self-preservation than I did at that age. I’ve tried to warn him, like the older guys tried to warn me. But he’ll have to figure it out on his own. I just hope it happens before his dick falls off or some bunny in a three-inch skirt “accidentally” gets knocked up for the sole purpose of hitching herself to his bank account.
“What the hell?” Rux asks, distracted by the roar from the front room. “Baxter, man, he put on football.”
Football? “Et tu, Vsev?”
Only then, I get a better look at the screen, and it’s not actually the game he’s got on, but the sideline interview. Or rather, the reporter. He’s paused the feed so her face fills the screen.
Like always, I recognize the twenty-four-karat shine of her hair, the full lips that launched a thousand dirty high-school fantasies, and the heavy-lidded eyes that seem to be perpetually gleaming with some kind of private joke. Julia Wesley. The coolest girl at Bearings High, and one of the few with the good sense to shut me down.
That good sense is why, ten years later, we’re friendly enough that I’m pulling out my phone to grab a shot of Vsevolod pointing to her lips.
Little pervert.
She’s going to love this.
Me: He swears he doesn’t actually watch the games… he just beats it to the interviews.
It’s less than ten seconds before her message pops up.
Julia: You ass! Is that Vsev? God, now I need a shower.
I grin. Of course she knows who he is. Football is her bread and butter, but Jules knows her sports and is privy to more locker room gossip than I am. So her disgust at making it into his spank bank is based on information above the average joe’s pay grade.
Me: Absolutely, you should take one. Send me a picture.
Five seconds this time.
Julia: In your dreams.
Me: More than once.
It’s been a few years, but I’m serious. We might be friends of the just variety, but Julia Wesley’s a stone-cold fox. Wood-worthy in all the best ways—most of which have less to do with her slamming bod and more to do with her mouth and, specifically, what comes out of it. The girl’s sharp as fuck, knows more about sports than anyone I’ve ever met, and her confidence. Damn. I adjust my fly, sending a silent reprimand to the man downstairs. We’ve been through this before. He knows better.
Regardless, the big guy’s got his back up, and I can’t blame him.
Me: Ready for the reunion next week?
I imagine her shaking head and a huff of breath tossing a bit of blonde from her eyes. Maybe some muttering. She’s working a game, so no dirty four-letter words.
Shame.
A full minute passes.
Julia: The reunion, yes. The rest? You can’t seriously think that’s going to happen.
I don’t, but no way am I going to tell her that. This is way too much fun. Instead, I fire off the picture I took from my yearbook two weeks ago, my chicken scratch “contract” taking up a page in the back:
Presuming we are both still single, I, Julia Wesley, agree to let Greg Baxter kiss me at our ten-year reunion.
Beneath is her curvy signature underlined with Xs and Os.
Julia: Yeah, about that… I think I feel a fiancé coming on. And umm… a really painful cold sore. That tingle. Something’s definitely going on there.
Liar. I grin and pull up Amazon to overnight her a tube of Abreva. I love Prime.
Me: See you next week...
