Page 71 of Heartbreak Hockey

Sinking into the kiss, I inhale Mercy, quickly coming to terms with how much I missed him. His hands are all over me, in my hair, sliding up my t-shirt.

He pulls back to look at me. “I’m so fucking sorry and—” He wrinkles his nose. “You smell wrong. What the fuck is that?”

Oh shit. I wince. “Probably Tom Ford cologne.”

He deflates. “Oh.”

I run fingers through my hair, pausing and squeezing at the roots like the captain does when he’s frustrated. “Rhett came into town, okay? I was with Rhett for a few hours. We didn’t do anything except eat.”

“That’s his cologne,” he says.

“We hugged. He wanted to do more, but I told him I didn’t want to because I’m seeing someone else.”

He perks up. “You are?”

“Yeah. You, bonehead.”

That knowledge bolsters him. He begins by removing my jacket. “We’ve graduated to seeing each other? Where does that land on your Gen-Z relationship spectrum?”

I laugh as he pulls my arms out of the leather sleeves. Next to go is my t-shirt. He grips the hem and it’s gone in one smooth yank.

“I dunno, but I know this is where I wanna be right now.” We stare. Our stare where we gaze into each other’s eyes like some sappy fucking romance movie. His eyes say so much though and I’m afraid I’m going to miss something if I look away. He pushes on my back, guiding me … somewhere. “Where are we going?”

“Shower. That cologne is getting washed off and I’m instituting a Tom Ford ban.”

He’s hilarious. “Like, on all products or just the cologne?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” he says as we cross the threshold to his luxury bathroom suite. “Get your boots off. In fact, take it all off, Leslie.”

Thatwas a good Leslie, filled with dirty promises.

Chapter14

MINE

MERCY

Iknow all about guys like Rhett. He’s working the long game with Jack and tonight was the sales pitch before the close. If Jack seemed happy about it, I’d bow out. Probably not gracefully, but I would. He’s not happy though. The specters of that relationship dance in his eyes.

Does he know he’s stopped smiling again?

No. No, no, pretty boy. Nothing should steal your sunshine like that.

Scrubbing him down with my body wash, I erase all the traces of Rhett and cover him with mine.

“You gonna tell me what you were in a huff about tonight?” he says. The hot spray plasters his dirty blond hair across his face. I push it away so I can see his eyes again.

Guess I should tell him I was gonna quit the team. Gonna as in the past tense. Bea and Ari yelled at me for an hour via Facetime and talked some sense into me. Not all sense though. They mostly underlined how much they’re banking on me financially. I couldn’t argue with that and so I don’t like it, but I’m stuck here.

When I open my mouth to tell him what went on, I only mean to tell him the needs-to-know information, but it all pours out.

“Mercy Meyer,” he says when I’m done, narrowing his eyes at me and poking me in the chest for emphasis. “You were not gonna quit the team.”

“I was to. People need me.”

“We need you. Didn’t you see us tonight? We were Neanderthals. Only you can bring us to heel.”

“Not true, Leslie. You’re just a bunch of orangutans. Anyone with two brain cells can domesticize you.”