Again, a fib.The internet informed me.But the internet is also my friend.
“Yeah,” Griff says, which clarifies nothing.
I hold out a hand, encouraging him to go on.“So puck bunnies are real?”
He scratches at the back of his neck, eyes on the fire.“Definepuck bunnies.”
“I don’t know.Willing, fertile women who follow around professional hockey players like swarms of hungry mosquitoes?”
A laugh bursts out of him.“It’s not quite like that.”
To me, though, he’s confirming there are at leastsomehorny women following him around.How could they not?And now I count myself among them.“But the amount of hooking up must be at least above-average, right?I mean, isn’t that one of the perks of being a professional athlete?”
He grins like he’s hiding a secret and tilts his head noncommittally.“I mean…”
“You’re being so coy!”I reach over and slap his arm.“Look at you!Mr.Coy Keegan.”
His deep laugh sends electricity skating beneath my skin.“What do you want me to say?I don’t keep stats.I just…go with the flow and have fun doing it.”
He’s grinning while he takes another pull of his beer, and that’s all I need to know.He’s got to be a major playboy.
“Are there any puck bunnies in Bayshore?”My voice has notched up an octave by the end of the sentence.I need the tea, even if it hurts.
“A gentleman never reveals,” he says mysteriously, and I swat at him again.
“I didn’t realize there was a puck bunny code of ethics.”I drain my beer and set the can down on the ground.
“You’re making my life out to be a lot more interesting than it really is,” Griffin says, adjusting his position in the chair.His knees have spread apart, and his stance is so masculine and powerful that I could become a puck bunny on the spot, if he were even slightly interested.“All I do is eat, sleep, and—”
“Puck,” I finish for him.We both burst out laughing.
“I’ll give you that,” he concedes.
“I thought you’d be married by now.Some of our peers are starting families, Griff!With children!I can’t imagine.”
He shakes his head, taking another pull at his beer.“Nope.Not even slightly.I can’t handle kids right now, let alone a girlfriend.”
“Girlfriends are notoriously difficult to handle,” I muse.
“That’s not what I mean.I just…can’t focus on anything if it’s not hockey.Friends and family are great.Anything more…maybe when I retire.”
His words trickle into me slowly, reaching new layers the longer I stew on them.“You’re a committed man.”
He nods, his gaze scanning the yard.He’s flexing his hands around the beer bottle, making veins pop out each time he does.“One hundred percent.”
Somehow I feel a wall come down between us.Not that I imagine he sees me in a sexual way, or even a romantic way, but his priorities are clear.And I respect that.Even if it makes the horny teenager inside mereally sad.
“Thanks again for letting me escape my parent’s house for a night.Even if it came at the cost of my sexual orientation permanently changing to rubber-alien inclined.”
Griffin smiles devilishly.“It’s what I do.”
“Convert your regular heterosexual friends into alien-loving fiends?”
“You wouldn’t be the first.”
I burst into laughter.“There’s something suspicious afoot.I think this is your Big Alien Agenda.”
He sets down his beer and then holds out a hand, covering his heart with his other hand.“I swear this is not an extraterrestrial bid to lure earth women into outer space.”
