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But I don’t want just anybody. For some stupid reason every time I touch myself it’sherthat I see. That I smell. I’ve touched myself, imagining what it would feel like to make her come on my tongue. To keep doing it until she’s wrung out and as empty as I am.
Okay. That’s it. I’m officially messed up. And I’m going home. I skate over to remove the goal because it’s the least I can do to make our rink keeper’s life easier tomorrow morning when he has to clean up the ice. Then I step over the boards and take off my skates, sitting on a bench to pull on my shoes.
It’s only then that I feel a weird sensation. A prickle on the back of my neck. I reach up to rub it, and then I turn my head to see that she’s there.
In that fucking dress. Her hair curling down around her shoulders instead of up in that bun she always wears. She’s standing in the center of the tunnel, her heels in her hands as though her feet hurt from wearing them, her legs bare and glistening in the harsh light radiating from the overhead strip.
“Hey.” I stand, confused because she’s supposed to be in a wine bar. Pleased because she’s not.
Scrap that. I’m fucking jubilant.
“Hey you,” she says. Then she starts to cry.
CHAPTERTEN
MACKENZIE
“I’m not crying because I’m upset, I’m crying because I’m mad.” It’s mostly true. I’m also mortified and disbelieving but the overwhelming emotion is dry.
“Okay,” he says, looking at me carefully. He’s wearing sweats and a t-shirt which is plastered to his chest. His hair is damp from perspiration. He balances his hockey stick against the board and gives me his full attention.
“Why are men such assholes?” I ask him, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. It comes back sheared with mascara. Ugh, I must look a distressed state in my messed-up makeup and try-hard dress.
“What did he do to you?” he asks, his voice thick with some kind of emotion I can’t quite fathom.
“It’s not like that,” I say quickly. “He didn’t hurt me.” Well other than my feelings. But that’s bad enough. “He just wasn’t who he said he was.”
“Who was he then?”
“An asshole,” I growl and the faintest of smiles pulls at his lips. And I feel this need to unload on the only other person in this building who seems to get me.
We’re like the two grown ups constantly marshalling the kids around. There’s a kinship in that. The loneliness I’ve been feeling pulls at my chest.
“It was a blind date,” I tell him. “Through an app.”
I expect him to tease me but he doesn’t blink an eyelid.
“With a lawyer. Or at least that’s what I thought.” I clear my throat because the embarrassment is starting to wash over me. “I’m doing it for a friend. Her boyfriend designed the app. It’s for… ah… older people.”
“Older people?” His brows knit. “Why are you using it then?”
I want to hug the guy. “Allison, my friend, doesn’t know many people over thirty. So I agreed to beta test it.”
He says nothing, but it feels good to talk. Yes, I could call Rachel but I want to talk to a real live person. I want to get it all out and feel better.
“So I arranged to meet this guy – Andrew Casinger – at the wine bar. Except when I walked in there was only a young guy waiting in there.”
“How young?” He looks interested now.
“I’m not sure. Twenty-five tops.”
Eli lifts a brow.
“So I’m about to leave and this guy – the young one – comes up to me and says my name. So I assume maybe he works for Andrew or something and is there to tell me that he can’t make it.”
“But he didn’t?” Eli guesses.
I shake my head. “He insisted on buying me a drink and then told me he was using the app to find older women who might invest in his business.”
