AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I stared at them in confusion. Neither Kingston nor I had paid, too distracted byMs. Frey.
“Thank you, Nicole,” Ms. Frey said then turned to me. “Don’t think you will get away with paying in here, missy. They’re on the house, of course.”
I smiled. “Thank you,Ms. Frey.”
“Yes. Thank you, Ms. Frey,” Kingston echoed. It looked like his mouth was finally working.
She jabbed two fingers at her eyes then thrust them toward Kingston in the international sign of “I’m watching you” as she headed back around the counter and intothe back.
“Well, she’s terrifying,” Kingston said then paused. “Why isn’t Mason like that onthe ice?”
I snorted and went up to the counter to collect our treats. “Because Mason isa puppy.”
I took my milkshake, and Kingston plucked his cone from its little holder.
Kingston took an experimental taste of his cone, and his eyes lit up. “Damn. That’samazing.”
“Worth thecalories?”
“Definitely.”
We took a seat at a purple macaroon to avoid going out into the February chill. However, despite the cold weather, the ice cream hitthe spot.
“Why did she throw an orange at you?” Kingston askedsuddenly.
I stared at him in confusion for a second before I understood. “Oh. Well, she usually throws tennis balls. It’s a game I started playing as a kid. I was training my hand-eye coordination with some tennis balls, but I was getting bored. So, I asked my brother to chuck some at me, but the little asshole didn’t stop after I was done. He kept on pelting me with them out of the blue. Sometimes he would wait weeks to give me a false sense of security before he attacked. Eventually, Mason and my family got into it—although my parents didn’t throw as hard as the boys. I had to keep my head on a permeant swivel. I still do. Sometimes I feel like a Navy SEAL, checking every room I walk into for flying projectiles, but it’s fun and one of the reasons my reaction time isso quick.”
“Have you ever gotten hit inthe face?”
My face heated slightly. “Oh, yeah. More than a few times.”
He chuckled and ate more of his ice cream. I sucked on my milkshake to hidemy smile.
Most people would look like a little kid when licking an ice cream cone, getting food around their mouth and on the tip of their nose. But Kingston, with all his self-control, on and off the ice, ate with military-like precision. Not an ounce of ice cream landed on his face or dripped onto his hand. Still, as his pink tongue flicked out to get more of the sweet cream, I couldn’t help but think itwas cute.
If she were here, my mom would pinch his cheeks and call him a littlegospodin. I’d seen her do it to Mason and Drew enough times when they acted like little gentlemen. She had always appreciated good manners.
She would probably try to set me up with him, I thought randomly, then immediately froze in horror at the fluttering in my stomach. Shit. I knew that feeling.
Chill out, chill out,chill out.
I exhaled slowly, keeping my feelings from spreading onto my face for Kingston to see. I took another breath in and released it.
This was no big deal. I was an adult, and I could deal with this. I knew I was attracted to him, but I’d already decided last night to ignore it. So what if it wasn’t just physical like I’d thought and I actually liked him as a person? It didn’t change anything; nothing could happen. We were teammates and friends, nothing more.
Air flooded my lungs with a stutter as I struggled to keep mycomposure.
Fuck.
Chapter 7
“Do you think women can do everything men can do?”
Okay, I was done with this shit. I slid out of the small swarm of reporters that had been hounding me with questions for the last five minutes and shouldered my duffle. I had three hours before the team got on the plane, and I hadn’t packed anything. I didn’t have time to waste answering bullshitquestions.
I was about to go on my first road trip with the Blizzards and had just been leaving the arena after an early morning team meeting when Garza, a rookie forward, asked me to block some of his shots. Since I was trying to make more friends on the team, I couldn’t say no.
After working with Garza, just when I thought I was free to run to my house, I was surrounded in the hallways by these guys. There wasn’t as much press as usual, as we weren’t playing a game here today and it was only eight in the morning. Their questions went off the rails quickly though.
