Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 60948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“Jesus, Alexei. She’s married, okay? Now will you drop it?”
His easygoing demeanor fades as his smile flattens and his brows drop down, giving me a seriously disappointed look. “You’re seeing a married woman?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that. You think I’d do that?” I scowl at him.
He shrugs. “Well, from what you said…”
I lean my elbows on the table. “Look. She’s off limits. But that doesn’t stop the way I feel about her. God knows I’ve tried everything I can think of to get past it. But it doesn’t even matter because she doesn’t know how I feel. No one knows but me, and now you.”
“So you just…?”
“I just…focus on other things.”
Alexei’s expression is so confounded it’d be comical if I wasn’t wound so tight right now.
“Okay,” he finally says, clearing his throat. “I can help with this. You need to fuck this woman out of your system.”
I shake my head and then drop it into my hands. “I don’t need your help.”
“Just hear me out. I caught feelings for a woman a few years ago and this is how I got rid of ‘em.”
I glare at him. “Because feelings are such a bad thing?”
“We’re only thirty-one, man. I’m not even considering settling down ‘til I’m forty.”
“You’re like an overgrown frat boy. I’ve been over mindless fucking for a while now.”
For two years and seven months, actually, but I’m not telling him that. From the first time I laid eyes on Mia Marceau, nothing’s been the same for me. For the first few months, the guilt alone made me try hard to find another woman I could fall for.
I went on dates. I posed for a Sports Illustrated shoot that had women tossing their panties onto the ice at games with my name and their phone numbers written on them. I picked women up at bars after games. Hell, I even let myself be auctioned off for an evening out to benefit charity.
Nothing. Just looking at Mia got me more worked up than anything else I did with other women. So I quit dating, because it wasn’t working and it also wasn’t fair to the women I was going out with.
“C’mon, let’s go get a drink, Gramps,” Alexei says, signaling for the check. “After the higher-paid brother picks up our check, of course.”
I can’t keep the grin from my face as I take out my wallet. “You gonna buy my water at the bar, high roller?”
“I’d buy you whatever you wanted if you’d pull the stick out of your ass and order a real drink.”
If I could drink and play like Alexei, I would. But if I slide on my diet, I’ll be slower. More sluggish. I can’t afford that. The older I get, the harder I have to work to stay at the top of my game.
And even though my life’s damn good, the game of hockey is about all I’ve got.
Chapter Three
Mia
The bar is louder and more rowdy when I return from my break. Janice nods at me as I take over, wiping her sleeve across her brow to clear away the sheen of sweat.
Being on my feet all night here is physically exhausting. I can’t complain, though. It gets crazy busy, especially on weekends, but I’ve done way worse jobs for way less money.
I’m a Southside girl. When I was a kid, I delivered newspapers, did yard work and babysat for my neighbors. I was thrilled when a neighbor offered me six bucks an hour to help take care of her grandma when I was thirteen. Watching game shows and playing cards with an old lady sounded much better than chasing toddlers around all day. But I soon found out I was in for more—I had to help her take showers and wipe herself in the bathroom. I had to rub her feet and cook her liver and onions.
The money got better when I turned sixteen. I started waitressing then, stuffing tip money into my grandparents’ coffee can savings account when they weren’t looking. I did odd jobs with my grandpa for extra cash, too. We shoveled snow, scrapped metals and fixed up cars. We didn’t have much, but now I know we had everything that really matters.
“Two cosmos, a white Russian and a Bud Light bottle,” a waitress named Cara calls out to me. I meet her eyes to let her know I’ve got it.
“What do you guys have on draft?” a man at the bar asks me. I rattle off the list, take his order and dart to my mixing station before anyone else can stop me.
I love being this busy. When orders are flying and it’s all I can do to keep up, the night goes by fast, I make great tips, and I feel outside of myself. I’m not Mia Marceau, a broke twenty-nine year-old college senior with an estranged husband. I’m just Mia the bartender, filler of drink orders who smiles, makes change and wipes down the bar.