Page 75 of Hockey Player Seeking Fan

“I don’t know what I might want you to do, kind sir,” I say, looking back at him like an innocent woman from Kansas.

He wraps his hands around my legs. I bite my lip, nervous. He moves his right hand up, and I think he’s about to cup my breast, but he doesn’t.

“There are many things that a woman like you can do to pleasure me. And I don’t want to make this all about me.”

“Oh, yeah?” I say softly.

“You may not be as innocent as you appear. But maybe there are things that need to be said before we continue with anything.”

“Things like what?”

“I… You have no idea what I mean?”

“You’re not upset about a certain incident? You mean you didn’t see me a couple of weeks ago, outside a bar with a redhead I didn’t know and didn’t want?”

“Tyler,” I say, glaring at him. “I’ve never seen you a day before in my life.”

“Do you want to remember that?” he says, tugging on my earlobe and kissing the side of my neck. “She meant nothing to me. I didn’t kiss her, didn’t touch her. I didn’t want her. In fact, I only went to meet because…” He frowns as I shake my head.

“Know that I don’t want to know.” I’m about to get angry with him and tell him exactly what I saw. But as I think about what I saw, it had been him against the wall, not looking exactly turned on, and her all over him. Maybe I hadn’t really seen anything.

But still...

“You’re mad at me,” he says.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But if we’re pretending to be two other people, it’s because the real world’s really mad at you.”

“The real world,” he says.

He turns me around slightly so I’m still on his lap but looking at him.

“I’ve missed you, Erica.” Then he pauses, like he doesn’t know how to continue.

“And?”

“Why did you leave that morning?”

“What do you mean?”

“We made love, and you left—and then you didn’t pick up my call. Was I really that bad?”

I think about pretending that it was bad. I think about saying he was the worst I’d ever had. But he already knew I was a virgin, so that wouldn’t make sense. And joking about it in a moment like this would be immature.

“I was overwhelmed,” I say honestly, because that was true.

I was overwhelmed because I loved him—but he didn’t need to know that part. Because he’d been my first. And taken my virginity and I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“You hate me.”

“Why would I hate you? It was amazing.”

“It was so amazing that you didn’t speak to me again. It was so amazing that I about lost my mind, and I didn’t know how to process anything—because you’re you, and I’m me. And we’re two very different people.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a hockey player with a bunch of fame, and I’m just me—a college graduate trying to figure out life and not be so fucking privileged and completely unaware.”

“But you’re not that person. You keep putting yourself down, Erica. But you’re really good. And you’re really sweet. And you’re really beautiful. And I’m more than just a hockey player.”