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I mean, I assume telling her Alexsei wasn’t asking her out because of a head injury was not a cool thing to say. Fuck if I know, actually. I'm only thirty-six years old, but I spend all of my time either with my sixteen-year-old son and his friends, or the young, hot, cocky, rich hockey players who can’t sneeze without dozens of women falling over as if it’s the sexiest thing they’ve ever seen.
There is no way I'm going to feel cool with a teenage son and hanging out with hockey players.
Not that I give a shit about being cool.
Until this moment with this girl, I haven’t really thought about it in a while.
Since Brady, I'm just a dad and a coach. That's all I need to be. I barely date.
Well, that's not true. I spend time with women. I go out for coffee, or even dinner sometimes. I sleep in other beds than my own from time to time. But…I accidentally date.
I get hit on a lot by single moms. Or by friends of single moms.
It took me a while to figure out what was going on when a mom of one of Brady’s preschool friends would ask if I could stop over and take a look at a malfunctioning water heater for one of her friends, and then I’d suddenly find myself having dinner at that woman’s place and then having a drink on her back patio. And then suddenly my clothes are on her bedroom floor and I’m sneaking out of her house at the crack of dawn.
Or something like that.
Sometimes the women were Brady’s friends’ moms. And it wasn’t always a water heater I was checking out.
And sometimes I got hit on at the playground, or the grocery store, or even at Brady’s hockey games. It happened often enough that my needs were met and I never had to pursue women or think about it much and years have just slipped by.
I haven’t actually asked a woman out on a formal date in a really long time. Longer than I can remember.
Not that I'm complaining, exactly. I’m fine.
But I definitely have no idea how to flirt. And I realized that thinking about flirting, dating, one-night stands, and even relationships while I am five feet away from Luna McNeill, is all very inappropriate.
Luna is the sister of one of my players. She is easily ten years younger than me, if not more. She is wildly out of my league. And she is apparently interested in another one of my players.
Alexsei Ryan is a dumbass, though. This girl wants him to ask her out, and he's not?
She's gorgeous. She's also bold and feisty. We've never actually spoken directly to one another before, but she's around a lot. She’s at a lot of the games, it's hard to miss her sitting in the second row behind the glass. I've also seen her in the back hallway. It doesn't surprise me that she's not really ever noticed me, but I've noticed her. She's got this white blonde hair, tipped in purple, a killer body, a bright smile, and some kind of—I guess people call it an aura—about her that makes people look. Makes people want to linger. Draws people to her. She has a light laugh, sassy comebacks, and loves to tease.
It's clear that she's been around hockey players all her life. Their locker room talk and stupid jokes don't phase her.
And she definitely knows how to flirt.
It always seems fairly unserious, but she can make more than half of my team of big tough hockey guys blush.
"Well, thank you," she says to my stupid statement about hockey players' head injuries.
I nod. "Alexsei is a good guy." Ryan is probably perfect for her. Young, energetic, earnest. He is one of our best players and is infinitely coachable. He’s cocky, but he has reason to be. He always takes direction and critique, and plays his heart out.
Everyone on the team likes him. Hell, I think most of the players on the other teams like him, too.
“Yeah," she nods. "He is a good guy. He's just…a lot."
I study her. She seems a little confused about Alexsei. Which is interesting. Luna gives off a vibe that makes you think she's always in charge.
"Is he?" Yeah, I can see that. If she means it in the way that a brand-new puppy is a lot. Energetic, happy, eager to please. But he wasn’t pleasing her a minute ago. "I thought he wasn't even asking you out."
She meets my gaze. "Right. He isn't asking me out.” She takes a breath and blows it out. “He's just a lot when we’re together."
I feel a jab of disappointment I wasn’t expecting. They'd been together. Of course, they had.
Alexsei Ryan isn't quite as stupid as I think he is.
But why the fuck isn’t he asking her out? All I'd heard him say as I walked into the kitchen was, Just needed you to know all of that.
