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The Ottawa fans are knocked silent as they show my fist connecting with Lyon on the replay. My teammates all grin and laugh as they watch. They’re energized.
A new face-off drops in the neutral zone and I laser my focus there. The battle rages on and I’m here for it.
CHAPTER 8
Kiera
Iarrive atPrimanti’s fifteen minutes before my scheduled time to meet Danica for lunch. We’ve eaten here a handful of times since Brienne introduced us a couple of months ago, so I order for both of us.
We’ve become close pretty fast. I’m new to Pittsburgh and Danica was the first female friend I made. Sure, I’ve got nice relationships with a few players’ girlfriends and wives, but we don’t hang out often. Danica, however, I talk to almost every day either via text or call, and we get together at least once a week for lunch, drinks or dinner. The beautiful widow of one of the players who died in the crash, Danica is so easy to talk to and laugh with, and we have the same irreverent humor.
I’m just settling at a corner table when I see Danica walk in. I wave to get her attention and she lifts her chin as she winds through the tables while unbuttoning her coat. I’ve got my sandwich unwrapped and to my mouth when she reaches me. I try to mumble a hello, but she’s not paying attention. Lured by the smell of fresh pastrami, she tears at the wrapping.
Studying Danica, I realize she cut her hair. I swallow my food, rub a napkin over my lips and take a quick sip of water before exclaiming, “I love what you did with your hair.”
Danica blushes and ducks her head slightly as she tugs on a lock. “It doesn’t look stupid?”
I send a massive eye roll her way. “Not even going to justify that with an answer. Someone as obnoxiously beautiful as you has no right to be asking such stupid questions.”
She waves a french fry at me like it’s a sword. “Easy for you to say, Miss You Should Have Been a Supermodel.”
I snicker. “Okay, okay… I get it. We’re both stunningly beautiful. Which also makes me wonder why we’re both depressingly single.”
But I’m not depressingly single. In fact, I’m quite happily single now that I’ve got this friends-with-benefits relationship going with Bain. Although, I’m not sure I do have anything worth buzzing about.
Bain had a there-and-back trip to Ottawa last night and he was supposed to come over when the plane landed. He never showed so I went to bed. I got a text this morning with a quick apology saying they landed too late and he had an early-morning team meeting. He then asked to get together today but I had work and plans with Danica for lunch. I suppose I could have invited him over tonight, but I didn’t. Maybe I was a bit miffed he didn’t come over as we last planned. Plus I needed to show him I have my own life too.
Bain’s got a game tomorrow and plans with the guys after. In comparing calendars for the weekend, he said he had loose plans but would see if he could squeak in some time. I didn’t have any plans but didn’t want to sound like a loser, so I told him I was busy. Tuesday of next week, the team leaves on an extended road trip with games in San Francisco, Anchorage, Edmonton and Calgary.
So yeah… this has probably fizzled already.
“I don’t have time to date,” Danica says, and I jolt out of my thoughts. “What’s your excuse?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact I have a full-time job and look after three nephews?” That clearly leaves little time for dating. Hell, it’s apparently not even enough time to sneak in a quickie with Bain this week.
Danica grins. “Oh yeah. I guess we’re in the same boat.”
Part of me wants to blab all to Danica right this minute and get her thoughts on Bain, but I’m hesitant. We’ve gotten close but we’ve never discussed our sex lives. Danica was widowed ten months ago and sex isn’t something she’s ever brought up. I don’t advertise my carefree, bang ’em and leave ’em ways because she might not understand.
Still, I should test the waters. My sandwich hovering before my mouth, I ask, “It doesn’t mean we can’t have booty calls, though. A little wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am is truly all we need.”
Danica starts choking and the fact I shocked her tells me what I need to know. “Booty calls? Seriously… who even says that?”
But I do know Danica is neither a prude nor judgmental, so I own it. “Me. I think booty call is a fabulous term.”
“Well, that’s not exactly something I would understand. Mitch was my one and only.”
A stab of pain hits my heart for her. “That’s right. He was your first boyfriend so that makes him your first…”
“Yep. I have never been with another man other than Mitch. Thus I’ve never had a booty call.”
I decide to poke at her, because Danica is most definitely not conservative or without confidence, so I would think she probably had a healthy sex life with him. “Did Mitch, like, ever come home from the arena for a quickie?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes go dreamy as if she’s recalling just such an occasion. “He did.”
I grin at her. “Then that was technically a booty call. A monogamous one, mind you, but a booty call all the same.”
Danica laughs as she sets down her sandwich and pulls a fry from under the bread. “I feel so progressive.”
