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I blink. His married banker? “Have you?”
I hear a muffled grunt and what I’m guessing is the sound of my teammate propping himself up in bed. “Not really.”
“Axe, you’re missing the point. Iwanther to catch feelings.”
“Huh, not following.”
“I don’t know what it is about her. Yeah, she’s gorgeous and smart and sexy. But it’s more than that. When I talk to her—hell, about anything—it just clicks. Like she gets what I’m saying, and I can’t wait to hear what she thinks. Axe, this girl makes me laugh.”
He grunts the grunt of the unimpressed. “Everybody makes you laugh.”
“No. Not like this.” Not where I feel it deep in my chest. “It’s different with her, man. It’s like I want to stay up all fucking night to see how much I can find out.”
“She know how bad you got it for her?”
I stare out over the dash, see Sunday-morning Enderson coming to life. “Nah. I don’t think so. I mean, we spent the night together, but… she’s not like the other girls.”
He huffs out one of those chill laughs. “Not chasing your ass, you mean?”
“Not even fucking close.” I stack my arms over the wheel. “You know what she told me? I’m not her type. She’s not into jocks, which is pretty fucking funny considering she’s sort of one herself and just doesn’t realize it.”
“Hmm, so you’re good enough for one night, but you can’t talk this chick into an actual date?”
Glaring at the speaker, I can practically see his shoulders shaking. “Fuck off. This isn’t funny.”
“The way you’re always talking people into stupid shit they don’t want to do, it kind of is.”
I’m about to hang up, but then he comes back. “So there’s chemistry, yeah? You’re not the kind of guy she goes for… but she did. Describe it.”
“Axe, you can fuck right off.”
“Dude, not her ‘O’ face. Jesus. I’m asking if this was one of those ‘fuck it, why not’ moments. Or was she serving up those looks? You know the ones. They’re all about more and deeper, but in thefeelings, notfeelin’ it, way.”
“Yeah, I know the looks. But there’s a problem. She’s faking being my girlfriend. My sexy, long-term, serious girlfriend. And she’s super intense about getting shit right. So yeah, she’s nailed the looks. But—” I think about that moment in the bathroom after the bachelor party, and when I’d been holding her in my arms on the dance floor—before fucking Tommy broke it up. “Hell, there are times when it’s just us, when we’re talking and it’s like she’s seeing something she didn’t expect. But I don’t think I fit in with her plans.”
“Uh-huh… We’ll call that a solid maybe.”
I blow a breath out my nose. Why did I call this guy again? The closest he’s come to commitment is buying the building half the team lives in. “Forget it.”
“Right. Not sure you’re capable of forgetting anything you care about, but whatever.”
“Axe.”
That fucker yawns. “Chill. I’ve got a plan.”
I sit back. “Yeah?”
This is the reason I called him. For all the shit he gives, Axe has been known to offer some pretty solid advice.
“You’re gonna have to think like a bunny.”
I cough. “What the fuck does that mean?”
This guy is going into the boardsso hardnext time we hit the ice.
“It means, you gotta work yourassets, dipshit. Be casual, like you dig what’s going on between you, but if it’s over thirty seconds from now, you’re walking away smiling. No moony-eyed confessions about how she feeds your soul or any of that bullshit. Give her what she wants—and the fact that you’re calling me tells me whatever went down last night was good enough that she’s going to want more. So beeasy. No threat. Just another pro-hockey player with all the fixin’s, available if she’s into it. And then when she is… make it count. Make it so good, she has to think long and fucking hard about what her type is, after all.” A deep, satisfied breath sounds through the line. “Be the bunny, dude.”
* * *
