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Ballistic’s eyebrow lifts. “Sharing your contact list with the newbie?”
“He can consider it my welcome gift.”
“Best gift I ever got in my life. They gave me their numbers, said anytime I wanted to hang out just to call one of them.”
I snort, but inside I feel hollow. Here’s this kid from buttfuck nowhere, and I’ve managed to taint him before the official start of the season.
Miller blows out a breath. He’s been different with me lately, not hanging around as much. I have to wonder if it’s about more than his becoming a dad.
“Me and a couple of the guys are thinking about hitting Paris Club tonight. You guys wanna come?” Rookie asks, looking around the room.
“Nah, man, I’m staying in with my girl tonight,” Miller says.
“Same,” adds Randy.
“I’ve got an appointment for a massage, so I guess it depends how late that goes.”
Miller’s brow furrows. “You mean Poppy? From the clinic?”
I nod. “Yeah. She’s doing me a favor and treating me at home ’cause she didn’t have any openings and Smart and Coach won’t let me play if I don’t get one.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” Miller looks from me to Randy, his expression incredulous.
Randy shrugs, because this is the first he’s heard about it.
“Dude, you fucked her friend,” Miller snaps.
Rookie barks out a laugh.
I don’t know what Miller’s problem is. I can’t get a gauge on him. “I apologized, and she was cool about it.”
“You apologized?”
“Well, yeah.”
“For fucking her friend?” Miller looks like he’s about to have a brain aneurism.
“Not exactly, but I told her a censored version of what you said, about knowing her, and then I apologized in case I was an asshole. She said it wasn’t a big deal, so—”
His mouth drops open. “Jesus, Romero, you’re fucking clueless.” He shakes his head and turns to Randy. “I gotta go. Sunny’s having some kind of craving. I’m gonna cook burgers so she can huff the barbeque smell out of my shirt.”
“I should probably go, too. I’m taking Lily out for dinner when she’s done at the rink.” Randy looks to me. “You good if I catch a ride with Miller?”
Miller’s already halfway across the room. “I’ll meet you in the locker room,” he calls over his shoulder to Randy. The door slams into the wall as he opens it with extra force.
“What’s his problem?” I ask.
“He’s got a pregnant girlfriend, and we have to go away. He’s stressed.”
“Well, yeah, but why’s he so pissy with me?”
Randy runs his fingers through his beard. “Do you remember that night you screwed Poppy’s friend?”
“Nope. I got nothing on that except what he’s told me.”
“Yeah. Other than the shots, it’s vague for me too. Maybe you should talk to Miller more about it, ’cause he’s the only one who seems to remember much of anything.”
I look to the door. “You think I should do that now?”
“Probably not. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Sure. Right.”
Randy leaves, and it’s just me and Rookie. Rook then goes into great detail about the events that took place in one of my spare bedrooms the other night. It really just makes me feel worse.Once I get home, I spend an hour stretching and another hour in the hot tub trying to relax the muscles in my back, but they’ve gone into spasm, and no amount of ibuprofen seems to be helping. I could go for something stronger, but then getting to Poppy later could be a problem. There’s no fucking way I’m going to miss having her hands on me for another hour.
At seven I take another shower, shave, and get dressed. At seven twenty, I whack off. At, seven fifty-five I whack off again. It only takes ten minutes, which is twice as long as the first time. At least I’m killing time, and it would be really nice to avoid the hard-on part of the program this evening. I’ll be at her house, for God’s sake. Stressing out about that, I wander around my house until eight twenty.
At that point I’m too antsy to wait any longer, so I get in my car and follow the directions to Poppy’s place. She lives in Bucktown in one of the little row houses. It’s a familiar area, not too far from where my aunt’s house was when I lived with her. It’s a cute little neighborhood. Poppy must make a solid living as a massage therapist, or maybe she has a boyfriend she lives with. I don’t particularly like that idea.
I park a couple of houses down and look for her Mini, but I don’t see it anywhere, which makes sense since it’s only 8:41.
I’m already semi-hard again, which is crazy since I’ve whacked it twice in the past hour and a half. I drum on my dash while I wait. At eight fifty, she finally shows up. I cut the engine, check my reflection in the rearview mirror, and get out of the car.
