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Hockey MVP Scores Off the Ice with Old Flame!
Back Together, Prince Playboy and His PR Princess!
Beck, Marry, Kill: Hockey Star Beckett Daniels Caught Mixin’ with a Vixen!
I drop to a seat on the bottom of the stairs. My stomach hurts. My head hurts. My heart hurts worst of all. I do the only thing I can do: torture myself. I scroll through every article, look at every picture in every slideshow. It doesn’t make the pain go away.
When there’s nothing left to read, I lock my phone and stare at my reflection in the blackness of the screen. A single tear splashes down onto it and lingers there like a sad, lonely diamond.
I wish I could love him.
I wish he could love me back.
I wish Vivian and the Bloodhound were both gone forever.
And most of all, I wish I had another cupcake.
17
BECK
I hate this shit.
Prior to Sloan, I wasn’t much of a discriminating man. A puck bunny was a puck bunny. An easy lay was an easy lay. Each as interchangeable as the next.
Now, I can’t see anybody but her. I don’t want anybody but her.
So Viv hanging on me like she’s trying to become a part of my wardrobe is grating on my nerves.
I extract my arm from her manicured clutches yet again as we enter the restaurant. “I forgot how good you smell,” she whispers, lifting on her tiptoes as she stops in front of me when I hold the door for her. “You smell fuckable.”
I clench my jaw because if I say what I want to say, we’re going to fight, and I don’t want to fight. I don’t want her to jeopardize my endorsement deals and I don’t want to have to find and train a new management team.
But if this night gets much worse, that’s where I’m headed.
She leads us to a booth in the corner. Every step back into this place is making my skin crawl, but seeing the table… It's just too much.
Viv cocks her head. “What’s the matter, Beck? You used to love this table.”
Sheused to love this table, is what she means. This was our spot, back when “we” had “our” things.
“It’s fine,” I grunt.
There isn’t going to be any south-of-the-table footsies going on tonight. Swallowing back my discomfort, I slide in and stay a good distance away.
She either doesn’t get the memo or doesn’t care about it, though. She scoots all the way over to meet me in the middle. Her hand finds my knee and squeezes. “I miss you,” she croons. “I missus.”
I lift her hand and put it on top of the table where I can see it. “That's enough, Vivian. If you want to talk to me about your job, then let's do it. If not, Sloan's waiting for me at home.”
The sweetness evaporates from Vivian’s face. “Of course she is. Perfect little Sloan. Does she get on her knees for you when you walk in the door?”
That’s enough. I jerk upright, knocking the table askew in the process. Silverware clatters to the floor and people gasp and look over, but I don’t give a damn.
“Whatever you think this is, it isn’t. Whatever you’re trying to make it, stop. You work for me. If that’s not enough for you, then maybe you don’t need this job at all.”
Vivian sidles over, not-so-accidentally letting the friction of the seat pull her dress up high on her thigh. “Come on, Beckett. We both know she isn’t the right kind of girl for you. She’s too vanilla. Too… low class.”
I pull her closer and lower my head so my mouth is beside her ear. To anyone else we look like lovers having a private moment in a public place.
