Page 10 of Desperate Pucker (Denver Bashers #6)

Ryker

Itake in the look of shock on Maddy’s face.

“You’re eavesdropping on me?”

“Nope. I just walked up to the table and happened to hear you shit-talking me,” I say.

She glowers at me. “I wasn’t shit-talking you. I was just stating a fact.”

“I was too. You’re not my type.”

The angry look in her eyes sharpens. I’m not bothered at all that Maddy says she’d never hook up with me. I’m not interested in hooking up with her either. But I couldn’t resist giving her shit. It’s fun to rile up this ice princess.

She doesn’t even blink. “You telling me that I’m not your type is the biggest compliment I could hope for,” she says before downing the rest of the wine in her glass.

Ingrid refills her drink while holding back a laugh. I glance at the table and see Bella, Maya, Sophie, and Dakota all watching Maddy and me, amused expressions on their faces.

“I bet I can guess your type,” Maddy says after downing half the wine in her glass. “Inflatable with giant fake boobs, right?”

I roll my eyes and try not to laugh, even though I want to. That was actually pretty funny, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.

“You guessed it,” I say. “She’s gotta have brown eyes too.”

Maddy raises an eyebrow. “Figures.”

“Can’t help it. I like the deep, thoughtful look that brown eyes have. Unlike your soul-less White Walker eyes.”

Maddy stares daggers at me before downing the rest of the wine in her glass. She stands. “I have to pee.”

She bumps her shoulder against mine, probably on purpose. A whiff of her perfume hits my nose, and I still. Vanilla, citrus, and flowers. Fuck, she smells good.

I have the sudden urge to grab her arm and hold her still so I can bury my face in her hair and inhale…

Jesus, dude. That’s creepy as fuck.

She walks off, and I turn to the rest of the table.

“You should be nicer to her, Ryker,” Ingrid says.

“Why? She started this whole thing by making that comment about never hooking up with me in a million years.”

“She’s going through a hard time right now,” Sophie says. “She just found out her ex got engaged to the woman he cheated on her with.”

A tiny bit of my harshness toward Maddy fades. Just then, I feel a hand clap on my shoulder.

“Hey, you made it,” Xander says. “Did you order yet?”

I shake my head. “Got a little distracted, sorry.”

Xander smiles at the table. “I didn’t know you ladies would be here too.”

He leans down and gives Sophie a kiss.

“We stole your hockey hangout. Sorry,” she says sweetly.

Xander beams. “Don’t be sorry. We love having you ladies around.”

He says that the rest of the guys are meeting us for drinks soon.

“Here, we’ll make room for you,” Bella says.

There’s a shuffling of chairs. Xander and I grab the empty table next to us and pull it over.

I nod at the nearly empty bottle of wine. “More?” I ask. They say yes.

“Get a pitcher of beer too,” Xander says, handing me some cash. “Oh, and Scotch for Blomdahl.”

I walk up to the bar and order drinks for the table. I glance over to the side and see Maddy standing a few feet away, frowning at her phone screen. The bartender walks up to her and hands her a shot of tequila.

“Wine isn’t cutting it for you?” I ask as she downs the shot.

She looks at me, holds eye contact, then swallows. Something about watching her do that sends heat all over my body.

She grabs a cocktail napkin and wipes her mouth. “I needed something stronger tonight.”

There’s a flash of sadness in her eyes, and I feel myself soften. I may not like Maddy, but it’s messed up that her ex cheated on her.

“Hey. I heard about your ex. Sorry to hear that.”

She makes a face like she’s annoyed.

“I’m serious. They told me he cheated on you. He’s a dick for doing that.”

She blinks, like she’s surprised. A second later, her expression softens. “Thanks,” she says quietly.

She glances down and traces her dainty finger along the rim of her empty shot glass. “For a second, I thought you were going to say something mean. Like I deserved it.”

I lean back like someone just shoved me. An ugly feeling claws through my gut. “I would never say that to you.”

Those stormy eyes cut to me. They’re a little hazy, probably because she’s downed a lot of alcohol in a short amount of time and is tipsy. But then she blinks. There’s a flash of vulnerability in her gray-blue gaze that hits me square in my chest.

“You really think I’d say that?” I ask.

She shrugs.

I huff out a breath and make a surprised sound. “Wow. You think I’m a piece of shit, don’t you?”

“I just figured you’d say he couldn’t take looking at my White Walker eyes anymore,” she mutters.

That ache in my chest deepens. Well, now I feel like an asshole.

“I was just fucking with you, Maddy. You have pretty eyes.”

Her eyebrow quirks like she doesn’t quite believe me. She fiddles with the corner of her napkin on the bartop. “Yeah, right.”

“Do I seem like the kind of guy who would give a compliment if I didn’t mean it?”

She looks at me and shakes her head. Her cheeks are the faintest shade of pink.

The bartender hands me a bottle of white wine and a half-dozen glasses. I bring it to the table, then head back to the bar to wait for the pitcher of beer and the glass of Scotch I ordered. I hear the bartender ask Maddy if she wants something else to drink.

“A whiskey and Diet Coke, please,” she says.

I make a face.

She looks at me. “What?”

“Diet Coke is gross.”

“It’s fine.”

“It tastes like shit. Regular Coke is way, way better.”

Her gaze falls to the bartop, and her cheeks flush again. “I’ve never had regular Coke before.”

I gawk at her. “Are you serious?”

She nods. I tug a hand through my hair.

Her brow wrinkles. “You seem really bothered by this,” she says.

“Because it’s a fucking war crime that for your whole life you’ve been drinking Diet Coke instead of regular Coke.”

“I don’t drink it that often.”

“All the more reason to drink regular Coke. If you’re only ever going to drink soda sometimes, then it should be good.”

“It’s a force of habit,” she says. “I had to be really careful about my weight when I was a figure skater.”

I think back to my ex, Alina, who was a figure skater. She had to be careful about what she ate, too, but even she let herself drink regular soda sometimes.

I look at Maddy. She’s really fit. She can let herself have a whiskey and Coke.

I signal the bartender. “Could you add a Coke to my order, please?”

He says no problem. Maddy looks at me, confused.

“You’re trying a sip of Coke.”

She rolls her eyes.

“One sip,” I say. “If you don’t like it, you can tell me to fuck off. But you have to try it.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, but I spot the amusement in her eyes. “Fine.”

“You’re not competing as a figure skater anymore, right? You don’t need to be so strict with yourself.”

She’s quiet for a second. “Like I said, it’s a hard habit to break. Especially when everyone around me was reminding me how much bigger I was than all the other figure skaters.”

I scoff. “If you’re big, then I’m fucking Goliath.”

She laughs. A burst of pride zooms through me at getting her to do that.

“I was Goliath standing next to some of those tiny figure skaters. Some of them were barely five feet tall.”

I tilt my head at her. “Everyone would be considered a giant standing next to someone that small.”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling.

“Who the hell was telling you that you were big?” I honestly want to know. Maddy is tall for a figure skater, but no one in their right mind would ever call her big.

“A few of my coaches. My ex.”

An angry feeling rips through me. “Your ex said you were big?”

She nods. “He was a figure skater too, so he was pretty fixated on weight.”

“I don’t care if he was the fittest human being on the planet. He had no business commenting on your weight or your body. No one does.”

For a second, she looks at me with an unrecognizable expression on her face.

“What would he say to you?” I know it’s not my business, but I’m too curious. What kind of a dipshit tells his girlfriend that she needs to watch her weight?

“He’d give me a hard time if I wanted dessert or if I wanted second servings of dinner. Or if I wanted to put milk in my coffee.”

I grit my teeth, pissed off.

“So not only is he a cheater, but he wants to police women’s bodies. Yeah, fuck that asshole.”

She makes a surprised laughing noise that has the corner of my mouth slanting up.

The bartender drops off all our drinks.

I slide her the Coke. “Try it.”

She rolls her eyes at me again, but she’s fighting a smile this time. When she takes a sip, her eyes go wide. Then she closes them and hums.

“Oh my god, that’s so good.”

“Told you.”

I swipe the glass of whiskey and Diet Coke and hand it back to the bartender along with some cash. “Could you get her a regular whiskey and Coke instead?”

She looks at me, a soft, surprised smile playing across her lips.

“Enjoy your drinks, princess.”

I walk back to the table, feeling weirdly happy.

After a minute, my phone buzzes with a text from my little sister.

Hey. I’m in trouble. My friends ditched me at a party and I don’t have a way to get home. Can you please come pick me up?

Panic rockets through me. I stand up and look at the guys. “I gotta go.”

I head out of the bar without saying more.