Page 11 of Trick Shot

“Heard he’s single,” Dom shrugs, sipping his new drink.

I still can’t fathom how he and Zed played hockey together when they were little kids. I think it’s mainly because I can’t picture Zed as anything little.

“Not the point,” I say, already turning toward the bar setup outside. “The point is I haven’t even made a proper drink yet and he’s got groupies forming a prayer circle around his dick.”

“Jealous?”

“Only of the quiet,” I mutter. “I’d kill for that kind of intimidation.”

Dom laughs as I head outside, dodging a drunk girl in heels and a drunk Nate arguing with Alexa about the music.

I reach the bar and grab the bourbon, pour a splash straight into the nearest glass, and toss in exactly one cube of ice so I can pretend I have class.

The music’s still thumping behind me, but my brain’s already drifting to what I actually want to be doing tonight—working on the rocking chair sitting almost finished in my workshop.

Because apparently, when I’m not skating and fucking, I carve furniture like a retired lumberjack with commitment issues.

It started as a hobby—therapy with sharp objects. Something about raw wood and a chisel makes me feel like I’m in control of my life.

But this one is not a project to kill time. It’s hers.

She once told me—somewhere in the middle of a midnight text spiral about rainy days and death by Chinese food—that she’s always wanted a proper rocking chair.

I laughed, called her an old lady.

I should’ve left it at that.

Instead, I picked up a slab of maple the next day and started building the damn thing for her.

She doesn’t know. Hell, she probably doesn’t even remember saying it. But I do.

And now here I am, at a party drinking bourbon with two blondes deepthroating me with their eyes from across the room. And I’m thinking about a woman I don’t even know the name of—and building her furniture like we’ve been married for forty years.

I need help. Or an exorcism.

I swirl the bourbon in my glass, watching the ice clink. One sip in and I already know how a night like this used to end. I’dprobably pick the hottest one in the room—maybe a blonde with too much lip filler and dead eyes—and either take her home or fuck her in one of the guest rooms upstairs so I don’t have to deal with the awkward you can go now speech.

She’d make sure everyone heard it, and I’d pretend like I care. And the second it was over, I’d feel like someone scraped the inside of my chest out with a plastic spoon.

Again.

Sex used to work. It used to be fire and dopamine and blackout bliss.

Now I can’t get the job done unless I imagine Bunny underneath me.

Because none of them are her. None of them make me laugh like her. None of them put me in my place like her. None of them get under my skin the way she does with just a goddamn emoji and a comment about wanting a fucking rocking chair.

I tried. Fuck, I really tried.

When Bunny first laid down the rules ten months ago—no names, no faces, no meeting up—I told myself it was a game. Something fun and light. A late-night fantasy I could walk away from anytime.

But somewhere between our fourth week of texting and her tenth rant about Dune vs. Star Wars, I stopped just wanting her. I started needing her.

Like if she didn’t answer for a day, I’d lose my goddamn mind.

But the sex? At first, it kept happening—primal, mindless, just scratching the itch.

Then I stopped.