AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ASTRID: The jar is still at the pub, and this is just a temporary trip back into hockey town for me.
CAL: You’d walk away without a second glance?
ASTRID: This game asks so much from everyone involved. For coaches, it’s a 24/7/365 job. For players, it’s all they think or dream about. For the owners, it’s that high of owning a winning team, I guess.
CAL: And they all know that going in. They sign up for it.
ASTRID: Well, their families don’t a lot of the time. No one wants to be forever in the support position.
CAL: That must have been hard growing up.
ASTRID: It was fine. And don’t get me wrong. My dad is great. I count some of hockey’s greats as friends and uncles. Bear would probably hide me from the feds if it was ever necessary.
CAL: Is that because you’re the Diet Coke Bandit?
ASTRID: Parvo is such a mess.
CAL: Did you hear the argument he and Bear were having today about best hockey biographies?
ASTRID: Like anything beats The Game.
CAL: Dryden’s book is canon.
ASTRID: You know book canon?
CAL: My sister owns the bookshop in my hometown. I guess it rubs off.
ASTRID: You ever think about moving back?
CAL: To Prairie Lake? No. I’m good without having to deal with a traffic jam caused by a moose taking a nap on Main Street.
ASTRID: Excellent point.
CAL: So are you going to yeet yourself into another supply closet tomorrow to avoid me?
ASTRID: Don’t mock. My plan is working perfectly. It’s been four days since I’ve lost my panties around you.
CAL: You make it sound like I’m collecting them.
ASTRID: That would be creepy. Correction: it’s been four days since I’ve taken off my panties around you.
CAL: I didn’t realize I was so irresistible.
ASTRID: Nope. I’m not falling for that ego boost. Try some other sucker.
CAL: Good night, Astrid.
ASTRID: Good night, Cal.
Chapter Thirty
Diet Coke can number five and a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were sitting on her desk when she got back from lunch with Nola and Thea the following day.
The lunch had been a last-minute get together at a nearby hotel bar for burgers before Thea left for a dinosaur dig in Wyoming. Astrid had whined to her dad before she’d left that it was a Pepsi-only hotel, so agreeing to eat there really did prove how much she loved her friends. He’d rolled his eyes and told her to “suck it up, peanut butter cup,” which made her laugh just like it had when she’d been a bratty teenager complaining about her curfew.
She picked up the candy with as much awe as someone who’d never seen the heaven that was chocolate-covered peanut butter. Her skin buzzed with the suddenly familiar giddy sense of anticipation that she most definitely should not be experiencing, and yet here she was smiling like a fool and holding an orange pack of candy to her heart.
Parvo stood up so the top half of his head was visible over the top of their shared cubicle wall. “You gonna eat that?”
