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"Dude, what's wrong with you?" Peters hissed as he slammed me into the glass.
I shook my head at him, going through the motions of team drills as we practiced power plays and penalty kills.
What was she doing at that moment? Was some guy talking to her? My fingers itched to grab my phone and check where she was. She was usually at the doctor's office at this time of day, but I was desperate to make sure.
Practice finally ended, and I was the first off the ice, ignoring the grumblings of the coaches as I practically sprinted back to the locker room to check my phone. She’d sent me a text thanking me for last night, and I quickly responded, asking how her day was going. What I really wanted to ask was where she was, who she was talking to, if she was ready for me to sweep her off her feet.
It was everything I could do to try to play the fucking long game.
I groaned when my agent texted me, reminding me that I had a photo shoot tonight. That was the last thing I wanted.
Ari slid onto the bench next to me.
"Fuck, Linc, I think that was the worst I’ve ever seen you play," he said dryly.
"It’s still better than your ass,” I quipped back.
He rolled his eyes. "So are you going to meet her? Fuck her out of your system? Because I need your ass in the game. Half the team was still sucking balls out there."
I reached over and punched him in the shoulder, grimacing at how sweaty he was.
"I got this. You know that," I scoffed, while grabbing my stuff out of my locker and heading towards the shower.
Now, I just needed to set the plan in motion.
* * *
I was in a fucking bad mood when I got to the magazine shoot. I’d worked with this photographer before, so I tried to paste on a smile, but I already knew it would be a long night.
One of the things that my stardom brought with it was modeling gigs like this one. People loved to see me in a tight pair of underwear. Understandable, but still fucking weird that this was my life.
I was shown to my dressing room and took a minute to shoot a text to Monroe. I already knew she was in class, and that it wasn’t the class she shared with Mr. Douchebag. But she'd barely talked to me today except for her thank you text, and I was like a junkie needing my next fix. I was already furious that I was at this shoot and that I’d had to miss waiting outside her apartment and seeing her as she came home from work and headed to class.
What are you doing?
Only a few seconds passed, but I was pacing impatiently, desperate for the time when I could talk to her constantly without coming off as clingy.
Dream Girl: Having my soul ripped out in calculus. You?
How should I answer her? I couldn’t exactly explain that I was about to have oil rubbed all over my chest, and people were about to take pictures of me in my skivvies. But it was a good chance for a photo op. I stood and strolled to the mirror, angling my phone so it caught my chest and the top of my bulge.
I sent it to her.
There were dots on the phone for at least two minutes, and I could picture her typing and erasing something over and over.
Finally, one word came through, right as the makeup artist and hair team arrived.
Dream Girl: Wow.
I was a pretty confident bastard, but thewowhad me wondering. Was it a good wow? Was it aholy shit, that’s the hottest fucking thing I've ever seenkind of wow?
This girl had me tied up in knots.
They started to pull and tug at my hair, and I kept my gaze averted from the mirror. It was one thing to snap a shot of myself for my girl, but another thing to have to stare at my face and be reminded of my brother for an hour straight.
She would've liked him better than me. He was always the one doing the right thing, sacrificing his hopes and dreams to make the family happy.
And I was always the one doing everything to disappoint them.
