Page 40 of Only for Tonight (Only For #1)

thirty-three

Ariella

“C ome and see where the magic happens.” He pulls me to his side as we make our way down the hallway.

“I thought that was at home.” I look up at him and can’t help but laugh when he rolls his eyes. “You walked into that joke and you know it.”

“That magic is anywhere you are, baby,” he mumbles before lifting our connected hands to his lips and kissing my fingers.

“Smooth,” I say as he stops by the room that has people walking in and out of it. A couple of people give him the whole chin up, while a couple say hello as they walk the other way, then look at me and smile, saying they’ll catch up in a bit.

“You can’t step on the logo,” he warns me and I shake my head.

The locker room usually has the logo in the middle of the room and it’s notoriously known that you cannot step on it at any time.

No one can, and if they catch you, rumor has it you’re banned for life.

I don’t know if it actually happens because I’ve never met anyone who was brave enough—or stupid enough—to do it, but it’s a bad, bad thing.

“You act like I haven’t been in hockey my whole life,” I retort as he walks into the locker room.

I see a couple of the kids running around on their skates.

I can’t help but smile, the memories of us when we were younger come flooding back.

“Like, this is the first time I’ve stepped into a locker room.

Remember when we used to go skating with everyone and then have pizza right after?

” I ask him and he nods. “And the hot chocolate. Nico would make sure they used just milk and a milk chocolate bar. With real marshmallows. Remind me to have you stop on your way home. I think I got my first craving.”

He comes to me and whispers in my ear, “I thought your first craving was my cock.” I push him away and feel my cheeks heat up.

“We should get some chocolate paint or, like, chocolate syrup.” He looks around. “I’m ready to leave now,” he mumbles, making me laugh.

“Hey,” he says when he stops in front of his cubicle, which has his name in blue and white on it.

His helmet is on top of one of the shelves next to his gloves, and his skates are tucked under his bench.

A jersey with his name hangs on the hook.

“Kirby,” he says to the guy who is sitting on the bench next to his, his phone in his hands as he types away at it furiously.

The guy looks up and I smile. “This is my girl,” he introduces, pulling me to him and putting his arm around my shoulders, “Ariella.” He looks down at me, the smile on his face huge.

“We really should talk about how you introduce me,” I mention to him, then look back at Kirby, who is standing up now.

He’s about as tall as Jaxon is, if not just a couple inches shorter.

“I’m Ariella.” I extend my hand. “I live with this one.” I point with my thumb to Jaxon. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Kirby laughs and extends his hand to me, but Jaxon knocks it away. “Don’t touch her, man, she doesn’t know where that hand has been, and she’s trying to stay away from germs,” he warns and I turn to look at him, my mouth hanging open. “She needs to get her skates on her.”

“You did not just do that, Jaxon.” I shake my head and look back over at Kirby, who is trying not to laugh at the whole thing.

His hands are on his hips. “It’s okay, I already knew he was a barbarian,” he jokes, extending his hand again and this time I shake it without my hand being slapped away, “but it’s a whole different ball game seeing it up close.” He looks up at Jaxon. “I would go in for a hug but I value my life.”

“We don’t want to anger him,” I mumble, making Kirby laugh. “It’s a good thing he’s pretty.”

“I like her.” He looks at Jaxon, who glares at him.

“Dude, you need to calm down,” he says as his phone rings.

He looks down at it, his eyebrows pinching together, and his jaw gets tight.

“Yeah,” he snaps into the phone. “I’m at the rink,” he snaps and I can hear a woman’s voice coming from the other side of the phone.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I told you I had to leave at a certain time and you weren’t ready.

” I look at the door. “So you can get here when you want to get here.” I look over at Jaxon, who puts his hand on my hip and pushes me back so I’m sitting down, in his spot, my eyes still on Kirby.

“Whatever,” he grumbles, hanging up and putting the phone in his back pocket.

“You okay?” Jaxon asks him as he squats down in front of me and pulls out skates from under his bench. “Baby, take off your sneakers so I can put your skates on.”

“I’m going to go and check out the ice,” Kirby states, looking around, trying to avoid even looking at us, not answering Jaxon’s question.

“She’s running a bit behind.” He nods at us as he turns and walks out of the room.

A couple of the kids run into him and all he can do is laugh as he tries to dodge them.

“Baby,” Jaxon says, taking off a sneaker for me, “let’s get on the ice so we can get out of here earlier. I’m having a craving for chocolate all of a sudden.”

“Where did you get these skates?” I ask him as he puts one of my feet in the black skate.

“Called your dad, got your size from him.” I don’t say anything as he ties my skates for me before sitting down beside me and tying his own skates. “You going to put my jersey on or stay in that jacket?”

“I’m going to put the jersey on.” I stand up. “I should have worn long sleeves,” I tell him, taking off the jacket and he sees I’m wearing a tank top.

“I’ll get you one,” he hisses. “Put the jacket on.” He looks around before standing with one skate on, bending to whisper in my ear, “Your tits are what wet dreams are made out of.”

“Okay, one, ewww,” I say, putting the jacket back on, “and two, gross.” He reaches behind him and takes off his own sweater, handing it to me.

“Here, wear this,” he urges as he stands there in a T-shirt. “I have another one hanging under the jersey.”

“So why don’t I wear that one?” I ask him, grabbing his sweater for me.

“Because you’re going to smell like me so people will know you’re mine,” he explains, moving the jersey and snatching a team sweater from the hook.

“I can’t even argue with that logic,” I reply, putting the sweater on and it falls to the middle of my thighs. “This thing is huge; I can’t skate like this.”

He comes to me and folds the shirt up and tucks it into the front of my jeans, and then rolls up the sleeves. “Just as good,” he comments as he takes his seat again and puts on his other skate. I manage to put the jersey on and I feel like an Oompa Loompa as we walk out toward the ice.

“When was the last time you skated?” he asks me when we get behind the bench. I see kids on the ice, most of the little boys with hockey sticks in their hands, and I smile while I see some of the girls with sticks also.

“Last year, I went to the Dallas family skate when I was home for Christmas,” I tell him, smiling as he puts one skate on the ice and then the other, turning and holding out his hand for me.

I follow his lead, getting on the ice and skating beside him. “What are you smiling at?” He looks over at me.

“I was thinking of all the times we did this when we were young,” I admit to him. “I loved family skate day.”

“Me too. I mean, I did because I got to skate with the big boys.” He laughs. “I thought it was so cool.”

“You were such a showoff,” I goad him. “You would get on the ice without the helmet and in track pants and a sweater”—I laugh—“and you would wear your baseball hat backward and you had the hockey flow.” I can’t help but laugh. “You would skate circles around me?—”

“And then tell you I could teach you,” he cuts in, laughing. “What a dick.”

“I know,” I agree as we skate around a couple of kids and then he stops. “Look at us now.”

“Who would have thought?” I look up at him as he pulls me to him and bends to kiss my lips. “Not me, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t know,” he says, “I’d like to think we would have somehow ended up together.” I roll my eyes. “What?”

“I wasn’t even on your radar the night we hooked up.”

“Baby, you with that dress, those shoes, and those legs. You basically walked in with a bull’s-eye on you.”

I’m about to argue with him when the guy comes over with a camera. “Can we get a picture?”

“Yeah,” he says to the guy, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me to him, “and can you send it to me?”

“Sure thing, Jaxon.” He nods at him as he skates away.

“You ready to get off?” he asks me as we skate around a couple more times.

“Yeah.” I go to the bench and then see a couple of the women there.

There are about six women all huddled together talking, one of them telling a story as I smile at them and they smile back, but you can see they aren’t sure about me. I know right away these are the wives or girlfriends with kids.

From as far back as I can remember there were always two kinds of cliques, sometimes even three, the mother club, the single girls club, and of course it’s not complete without the bitch club.

Those are usually the girlfriends or wives of the players who think they are so much better than all of the other ones.

I look down at our hands as we step back into the locker room and head back to where he sits.

He sits beside me as I lean over to untie my skates.

I put on my sneakers and then take off the jersey and then his sweater before putting my jacket back on.

“Hey, you two.” I look over and see Kirby coming toward us, a woman trailing him. I get a look at her before she sees me.

Her blonde hair is perfectly curled and styled, with heavy makeup on, and she’s wearing a pair of leather pants, a tight bodysuit, and has a black jacket.

High-heel booties are on her feet and a brand-new Chanel dangling from her hand.

“I was hoping to see you guys. We were just going to eat and thought you guys might want to join us,” he says.

“Angela.” He pulls her hand and she looks at Jaxon with a weird look on her face—it’s definitely not friendly—before she turns the look to me and I see it’s definitely not friendly, even though she pretends to smile. “This is Ariella.”

I put on the same smile she is giving me as I reach out my hand to shake hers, wondering if she’s going to show her true bitchiness in front of the guys. “It’s nice to meet you, Angela.”

“Hmm,” she replies, “the pleasure is mine.” I can’t help but smile ear to ear and make sure she sees that she doesn’t get to me.

“We’re going to head into the food hall,” Kirby mentions. “We’ll save you a seat.”

“Cool.” Jaxon takes off his own skates and is oblivious to what is going on.

“She’s—” I start to say.

“A bitch,” he finishes and I laugh. “But that’s Kirby’s problem and not mine.” He stands up, grabbing his sweater from beside me. He takes off the one he was wearing on the ice and puts on the one I was wearing. “Now, I smell like you,” he comments, bending to kiss my lips, “and I love it.”

We walk out of the room and I look around once we get into the food hall, seeing tables all set up in front of a buffet of food. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay, I’m going to go and sit”—he looks around, spotting Kirby—“there.”

“I’ll find you.” I turn to walk away and head to the bathroom when I’m pulled back and he wraps his arm around my waist and my back is pressed to his front.

“You forgot something,” he whispers in my ear and I look up to the side and he bends his head to kiss me. “Now you can go.”

I laugh, shaking my head as I find the restroom, walking in and going to the stall. I’m pulling up my pants when I hear them. “Can you believe he would bring her here?” one of the girls snarls. “How disrespectful.”

“Please,” another voice cuts in, “you know it’s just a fucking fling with him.”

“From what I heard,” the last voice starts in and I know that voice, “he’s with her because he feels guilty that he got her pregnant and now he has to be stuck with her.

” I close my eyes, hating that her words bother me.

“He’ll be over it in no time, and then he’ll be begging Tiff to take him back again. ”

I look up at the ceiling, blinking away the tears and getting pissed at the same time.

I flush the toilet and open the stall, seeing them all lined up, one next to each other.

Each of them applying their lip gloss and their eyes go from their own reflection to me standing behind them.

Two of them open their eyes wide, knowing they were caught, but not Angela.

She just looks at me like her words didn’t matter.

I walk over to the empty sink and put my hand under the soap dispenser and watch the soap come out.

The whole time my heart is pounding in my chest and the back of my neck is hot.

“I don’t think it’s disrespectful”—I look at them through the mirror—“for him to bring me since he ended things with Tiffany even before I was in the picture. Well, actually, I guess I was always in the picture.” I smile at them.

“Since we’ve known each other since we were kids.

” I shake the water off my hands before reaching and grabbing a couple of paper towels from the middle stack.

“I’m not psychic or anything like that,”—I lean my hip on the counter—“but even if I wasn’t in the picture, I don’t think he’ll go crawling back to Tiff.

” I repeat her words as I toss the paper in the basket and smile at them and start to walk out but stop.

I look directly at Angela. “By the way, tell her I said thanks.”