Shut Out (Bayard Hockey #1)(6)

I could totally tap that. Damn.

I pick up what Buck and Soupy are talking about and interject a comment. My eyes stray back to Rapunzel across the kitchen. She’s sitting straighter now, swinging the foot that’s crossed over the other leg, wearing a flat, strappy sandal. The languid movement attracts my attention to her legs, which are also primo.

She lifts a red Solo cup to her mouth, and as she does, her eyes meet mine across the kitchen. You know how that happens, right? You look at someone just as they turn to look at you and your eyes meet? It can be weird and you jerk your eyes away and pretend you weren’t caught. Or you can hold the look and smile.

That’s what I do. I smile at her.

Her eyebrows climb and she holds my gaze too, in a little bit of a challenge. Then she gives me a slow smile back, her lips shiny and pink like her hair.

Then, in a move that kind of confounds me, she dips her head. Her hair falls over her face and she tucks it behind one ear. It’s sort of shy and cute and at odds with the eye f*ck and the sexy smile. She nods, apparently listening to the guy talking to her. Then she peeks back at me.

I’m still watching her.

My groin tightens.

Shiiiii-iiiii-t.

I haven’t even been at this party for half an hour and I’m getting a hard-on for any girl who looks at me.

I need to hang out with guys.

I turn away and shoulder back into the conversation Buck and Soupy are having about which team is going to be our biggest competition this year.

Apparently, it’s Harvard.

“Glad you lowered yourself to hang with us tonight,” Buck says to me.

They think I’m stuck-up because I won’t party with them. Fantastic. I take the jab but keep my expression easy. “Hey, I can slum with the lowlifes once in a while.”

Buck’s lips twitch.

“So we know you’re Canadian.” Soupy squints at me. “But that doesn’t mean you’re a goddamn hockey god.”

My annoyance level reaches the point where I can’t stop myself from asking, “What the f*ck? What’s up with the trash talk? You guys hated my guts before I even got here.”

They exchange glances. “Coach told us not to haze you. Apparently, you’re some hot-shit NHL prospect they don’t want to piss off.”

I narrow my eyes at them. That’s what they think? Ha. “Yeah,” I say slowly. “That’s not exactly it.” I don’t know these guys well enough to be sure I can trust them with the true story. On the one hand, they might actually be impressed in a sick sort of way. But if they start shooting off their mouths all over campus, I’m f*cked. I don’t want people to know my sorry shit.

This is f*cking me up in all kinds of ways. Nothing’s ever been this hard for me before. All my life, people have liked me. Guys like me because they want me to play on their team, no matter what sport. I’m good at pretty much all of them. Girls also like me. I’ve never totally gotten why jocks are so popular, but I don’t question it too much. Once I was playing major junior hockey and puck bunnies were coming on to me all the time, I just gave a high five to the gods above and went with it.

Now these guys I don’t even know hate my f*cking guts. I can’t be my fun-loving, beer-guzzling, man-whoring self with them, so they’re never gonna like me. Even my profs are giving me squinty-eyed looks. I’m not going to be getting any easy As because of who I am. It’s pissing me off.

Not only that, I’ve never been so stressed in my life. I need to seriously learn some time-management skills. Between courses, workouts, and practices, I barely have a minute to myself. Luckily, I have no social life; otherwise, I’d never have time for studying.

And what is coming easy? Girls. Except once again I can’t be my man-whoring self around them. What if I hook up with someone who gets a wild hair and decides she didn’t really consent after all? Nobody will believe me a second time. If I think I’m f*cked now, that would be the end of my life.

So I’m not going there. I can flirt a little but I can’t touch.

Only they don’t know that, so the flirtation continues.

“I’ve heard hockey players have good hands,” a girl named Amy says in a breathy voice.

Tiffany, still hanging out near me, giggles. “I know they have good hands.”

“We also have great stamina.” I wink at her.

“But you gotta date a defenseman,” Soupy smirks.

“Oh yeah?” Amy flutters her eyelashes at him. “Why?”

“We care about your back door and pay a lot of attention to it.”

Jesus. Everyone bursts out laughing at the dirty joke, including the girls.

I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

I decide to use the bathroom to get a break from the sexual references and frank come-ons. I make my way through the crowded kitchen and into the hall. “Bathroom?” I ask someone.

“There’s one at the end of this hall and a bunch upstairs. Want me to show you?” she asks hopefully.

“That’s okay, doll, I got it.”

There’s a group of chicks hanging outside the bathroom door on the main floor, so I take the stairs at a run, my long legs easily eating two steps at a time. The hall upstairs is surprisingly empty and quiet, although as I pass a bedroom door I hear obvious sex sounds. I roll my eyes, a feeling of déjà vu making my gut cramp.