Page 40 of Hot for the Hockey Player (The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens #2)

I started dinner prep. I took out some frozen homemade spaghetti sauce from the freezer and boiled up some pasta. I was too frazzled to do anything more elaborate. If I tried, I’d probably burn the whole house down.

I couldn’t go to his cabin. Not when the subtext for my visit was absolutely going to be sex.

I needed to do some trimming. I needed to shave my legs.

I’d also been several years since I’d had sex.

Was it like riding a bike? Would I always know how to do it?

Or would I fall off and skin my knee? Also, what was I supposed to tell the kids?

I never left in the evenings. I was a homebody, a workaholic and, by all accounts—boring. They’d definitely call me weird, among other things, I’m sure, if I told them I was going out at eight or nine. I also went to bed at ten because I got up at five every morning.

Nope! This wasn’t going to work. Not the nighttime booty visit, or this whatever it was with Maverick. I was delusional and needed to figure out a way to nip it in the bud. I had to cancel.

The door opened and Raina announced herself like Tigger, “Halloooooooooo.”

She took one look at me as she rounded the corner and plunked her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

Stirring the spaghetti sauce, I rolled my eyes. “Nothing. Go away.”

“Oh, now something is definitely wrong with a response like that. Normally, Gabrielle Campbell is much more articulate when she tells me to get lost. What is it? Cat got your tongue? Or rather … a certain, hunky hockey player?”

I stupidly slid my gaze sideways at her, and she took that as confirmation and, hopping up and down on her toes, clapped her hands with glee. “I knew it. So … how was it?”

“We’re not having this conversation?”

She went into my fridge, grabbed a yogurt cup, sat down on the bar stool, opened it up, and looked at me with big, wide, green puppy dog eyes. “Spoon, please?”

Rolling my eyes, I reached into the cutlery drawer and handed her a spoon. “It’s not going to happen. It can’t. He wants me to come over tonight for a … booty visit or whatever.”

“Booty call,” she corrected. “How do you not know what that is? You had a FWB when you were in college. Didn’t he booty call you?”

“FWB?”

“Friend with benefits? Again, how do you not know this stuff? You watch television, you have teenagers. And I live in the basement suite below you, so I know you don’t live under a rock.”

I shrugged. “I dunno, I just don’t. And no, my FWB didn’t booty call me. We had an ironclad arrangement. Notarized and everything.”

“You had it notarized? ” She made a disgusted face. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

A little bruised from the insult, I shot her a look.

“Nothing. He was a notary, so we figured why not?” I shook my shoulders and head.

“Either way, I’m not going over there for a booty call .

People would wonder why my car is parked in front of his cabin for …

a long time or whatever. The kids would wonder why I left at night, because I never leave the house. ”

“I know you don’t. Doesn’t mean you can’t start.”

“No.”

My phone vibrated on the counter and the notification said it was a message and image from Bennett McEvoy. I set the wooden spoon on the spoon rest and checked my message.

Hey, Gabrielle. Here is the to-scale model of what we want the land to look like. We obviously want your feedback. So take a look and let me know. Or you could pop by tonight and we can go over it in person, along with the last few changes to the proposal since we present two weeks from tomorrow.

I checked the image and it was a beautiful diorama of what we all envisioned for Bonn Remmen’s land. There were a few things I’d change though …

“Who is it?” Raina asked, shoveling a scoop of mango yogurt into her mouth.

“Bennett. He wants me to pop over to check out the model of Bonn Remmen’s land.”

“Ooooh. I’ve seen it. It’s great. But I know you’ll have your own feedback as you always do.” Her eyes went wide, and she snapped her finger. “There you go!”

“There I go where?”

“That’s your excuse to not only leave the house at night, but also go over to the cabins since they’re on the McEvoy property. It’s like the sex gods are gifting you this.” She shoved her hands toward me like she was holding a platter.

I glared at her. “No.”

“Yes.”

Parts of my body weighed in too and they were all screaming “yes” as well.

I turned the sauce down to low to simmer and put the lid on the pot. The pasta was cooked, the sauce was ready, even the parmesan was grated. Technically, I had time to kill before dinner. I could hop in the shower, do some much-needed trimming, and shave my legs.

Was I really doing this?

“I’ll watch the stove and eat all your yogurt. Go have a shower, Gabs,” Raina said, getting up from the barstool and going to the fridge to get another yogurt. “God, this stuff is like crack.”

I chewed on my lip as I stood there mulling things over. As if on cue, my wrists started to tingle and I rubbed at them, the memory of Maverick’s mouth there sending tingles to other places on my body.

“Go,” Raina said, opening the foil on a strawberry-kiwi yogurt.

Sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I nodded and went to go shower.

I could always bail later, but for right now, I was going to get ready for a possible sex-date with Maverick Roy, aged twenty-six, with a washboard stomach, and the kindest heart I’d ever encountered.

Dammit.

I already knew this wasn’t just going to be about sex with him. I was fucking screwed—and not in the good way.