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Chapter 25

Scuba

I needed to knock this first date out of the park.

The sad thing was that it had been a while since I tried to date. Trying to bone someone was easy peasy, but Annie wasn’t someone who wanted to get drunk and laid.

It had to be a more vintage dating style, but not too vintage since we were not in school anymore. She was a mom now and an amazing one at that.

If she wasn't friends with Natalie, I would totally have her set something up for me. But I didn’t want her to spill the beans or be judgmental about me pawning the job off on her.

I scrolled through websites like Yelp and Reddit, trying to find the best option. I discovered the very thing that settled it for me. Minerva’s was Ryan Reynolds’ favorite place. If it was good enough for him, then it was good enough for us. Too bad he wasn’t filming in the area because it would have been sick to have her conveniently run into her favorite actor.

Actually, scratch that. I didn’t need her lusting after another guy in my presence. My ego might be oversized, but I didn’t need it to take a beating.

As I scrolled through my phone, Carter came up to me. “What’s got you glued to your phone?”

“What do you know about Minerva’s?” I asked him.

“The puck bunny or the restaurant?”

Damn. I forgot about that puck bunny. Granted, none of my flings ever held a candle to Annie, and having her living down the hall from me put an end to all the hookups.

“Restaurant. I’m familiar with the bunny.”

Right then, Spencer Suzuki walked into the room from the trainer’s room and snorted. He couldn’t have had a clue who we were talking about, but he couldn’t help himself from chiming in. “Is there a bunny you haven’t sampled?”

The guy seemed to love to bust my balls about my sex drive. Who cared if I had slowed down since I moved Annie in? My reputation was that I liked to have sex, and I liked variety.

It was time to stir the pot some since I didn’t want them digging into my sex life too much.

With the trade deadline drastically approaching, it was easy to do. Especially with several marquee players’ contracts coming to an end. “Did you hear who Elliotte Friedman says is coming our way?”

Elliotte Friedman was a reporter who always seemed to have all the details on players’ contracts. So, if he said a team was interested or a deal was in the works, it was true most of the time.

Carter said, “Eoghan Cooper.”

The name sounded just like Owen.

Even though all of us had nicknames and went by them ninety percent of the time, I couldn’t recall a single time I played against the Wild, and the guys on the ice didn’t use some form of his last name. I almost forgot that Cooper was his last name, but then again, if my first name was so off the beaten track in spelling, then it was no wonder everyone called him by his last name or something easy, like Coop.

“Damn, you actually know how to say his first name?” Spencer sounded shocked.

Rental was a bit of a nasty slang term for a player who only came to the team at the trade deadline for the remainder of the year. There was no expectation to keep the player since they would likely cost too much with the salary cap. And Friedman made it sound like a rental deal.

Normally, I didn’t care about the rental rumors, but getting a captain could be a major coup for us. He was an older guy, but most nights, you wouldn’t realize he was about thirty-four years old. It would be awesome if we could sign the Wild captain for more long-term.

Carter quipped, “Well, I think that’s how you say it, but I didn’t exactly look up the pronunciation guide for it. It’s either that or Ian, but I was pretty sure they said it was Owen the last time I watched one of his games. But he’s a damn good player, and I’ll take him as a rental any day.”

I held my arm up and said, “You and me both.”

Besides, if Friedman was correct, it wouldn’t be a terrible deal. A couple of draft picks and a generally unpleasant hockey player who played for our AHL team in Abbotsford.

“Yeah, and we basically get to keep the whole crew.”

Spencer looked at me with an intense stare. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Talk is the first and second-round pick in the draft, along with Sterling Watterson.”

Spencer Suzuki chuckled. “Oh, that asshole who became even more unpleasant at the end of camp. I still wished he was on the opposite team at that last scrimmage so I could have taken his knee cap out.”

Knees were still one of our most vulnerable joints. To take out a knee could lead to injury so easily, and it could be the path to something career-ending.

Not that I could blame Jetski for that sentiment. I wanted to elbow Sterling after his chirps went too far. I had never met someone so unpleasant to play with. Granted, I had my misgivings with the two Spencers when I first got to the Legacy since both of them were assholes to my guys’ girls in the previous times we played them, but both of them were actually good guys who helped with my move big time.

“That’s cold. Remind me never to piss you off,” I said with a chuckle.

Then I got up and left the locker room. I needed to call Minerva’s to make my reservation, and it was time for me to pick up my woman.

I wanted to pick up some chocolate for Annie, too, but I didn’t have time. Instead, I just focused on the date coming up.