Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 72764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
My teammates never missed a chance to make fun of me for the ad, even Lars. But when it was his turn to be the butt of a joke, he had no sense of humor.
We posed for the photo, shook the fan’s hand, and went back to our lunch.
“I have a better chance of getting to know her if I just don’t say anything,” I said.
He arched a single brow again, his trademark move. “How are you getting to know each other if she doesn’t know who you are?”
I shrugged. “She’s still getting to know me. She just thinks I’m Rob.”
“Who is Rob?”
“That’s the fake name I gave her when we first started texting.”
Lars looked up from his food and made eye contact with me. “What is the word for when someone does things on purpose to make them fail?”
English wasn’t his first language, and I regularly helped him with rarely used words and phrases.
“Being your own worst enemy?”
He shook his head.
“Sabotage?”
“Yes, that is it. Every time you really like someone, you sabotage it.”
I balked. “Bullshit. I do not, and you don’t even understand what I’m saying. I just found out she’s the woman I’ve been texting. It’s not like I could have told her in front of Kevin from sales.”
“You could have told her that evening, by calling her. Did you?”
“Where’s our server? I need more iced tea.”
Lars cleared his throat. “I asked you a question—did you?”
I scowled at him. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, douchebag. Would we be sitting here talking about whether I should tell her if I’d already told her?”
“Why didn’t you tell her?”
I scanned the restaurant for our server, grumbling. “A person could die of thirst around here.”
“You’re avoiding the core question in this discussion,” Lars said matter-of-factly.
“You know, you’re a real pleasure to talk to since you started therapy. Always trying to analyze everything.”
He shrugged. “Why meet around the bush?”
“It’s beat around the bush, asshole.”
“That sounds dirty.”
The server came by our table with an iced tea refill for me and after I thanked her and took a sip, I said, “I already told you why. It’s because I don’t think she’ll like me.”
“So what? Then you can move on to someone else who will.”
“Will they, though? I’ve been thinking since I met Sariah about how many women have actually really known me. I know they pretend I’m the greatest thing ever, but…in reality, they just see good looks and money and try to be what they think I want.”
Lars nodded. “I’ve felt that way about women before, too. Before Sheridan, I mean.”
I finished my lunch and pushed my plate aside. “When Sariah and I are texting, I get to see who she really is. And I get to be honest about who I really am.”
Lars gave me an are you really being honest look, but I put up a hand to keep him from commenting.
“Other than my name,” I said. “And a few other key details, I guess. But you know what I mean. I’m not a pro hockey player or a hot underwear model when I’m talking to her. I’m just me. I’ve never had that before and it feels good.”
Lars leaned back and crossed his arms, considering my situation. “You don’t want to hear my advice.”
“You of all people should know what I’m saying. That it’s nice to be liked for who you are instead of what you do and what you have.”
His smile was wry. “You always give me the advice I don’t want, so I will do the same. Being a pro hockey player with money and good looks is part of who you are. You should either never tell her, and only be text friends, or tell her immediately.”
“Those things aren’t part of who I am though,” I argued. “They don’t really matter.”
“Any woman who dates you is dating someone who is on the road a lot. Someone who has willing women waiting in every city. Many women want to date a hockey player, until they’re dating a hockey player.”
I’d seen that time and again with my teammates and experienced it myself, too. There was no way to know if Sariah was like that, but one thing I was sure about was that knowing my identity would change how she felt about me.
“I just need more time to show her who I really am,” I said. “I don’t plan to keep her in the dark forever.”
Lars’s smile was knowing. “If I did this to Sheridan, when I finally told her who I was, she’d cut off my ball sac and mount it on her wall like a deer head.”
“Yeah, she’d be pissed,” I agreed.
My phone dinged with a text alert. I read it and then showed it to Lars.
SARIAH: My new job takes me to lots of cool places and today I’m at a hockey arena. Have you ever smelled hockey gloves? Not when they’re new, but after they’ve been worn? They smell worse than a rotting corpse.