Pucked Over (Pucked #3) (2 page)

It’s been a month since all this went down. A month of reliving the hours spent in that bed with him. A month of embarrassment over my overreaction. A month of being horrified that I let the whole situation happen in the first place. Tonight there’s a charity exhibition game, and Randy’s playing. Sunny’s forcing me to go with her because her boyfriend, Miller, set the whole thing up. So I have to see Randy again. I’m not sure what’s worse: my residual mortification or the fact that at least twice a week I wake up on the cusp of an orgasm, with Randy’s stunning face and body burned into the back of my lids. My body is clearly interested in receiving the pleasure he generously provided again. And again.

And again.

But that’s too bad because I hate him. Smug bastard.

I hate him more because I can’t get my body on board. He was supposed to be a distraction. A fling. Screwing around for the sake of gratification and nothing else. He’s the last man I should want. He’s a player. He lives for the game. On ice, off ice, it’s all the same. And I don’t want to make the mistake of ramming my tongue down his throat yet again. I’ve already embarrassed myself enough when it comes to Randy Ballistic.

Run, Run, Run!

LILY

The game is over, and Sunny—formally known as Sunshine Waters—my best friend since grade one, is currently projected on the Jumbotron for the entire arena to view. Miller is mauling her while “Walking on Sunshine” blasts through the sound system in celebration of his team’s win. Actually, the real winner is a twelve-year-old boy named Michael and his family. Proceeds from this charity event are going toward his treatment. He has a brain tumor.

Miller and Sunny’s overly affectionate display would be cute if I wasn’t such a jaded bitch. Right now I hate everyone in happy relationships, including Sunny.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. If anyone deserves someone to love all over her, it’s Sunny. Prior to Miller, her boyfriends were sucky.

He, however, is a great guy. I didn’t think so at first, but like mold, he’s grown on me. I look away from the screen when they kiss, surveying the rink and the players milling around off the ice. I’m seeking out one player in particular, just to torture myself.

I spot Randy about twenty feet away from them, his helmet under his arm. His beard is lush and magical, and his grin is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. He runs a sweaty hand through his hair, pushing it back off his face. It’s wet. Probably sweat-soaked. I should find that gross. I don’t.

Instead, a backbeat starts up in my clit—full percussion. It’s like a deejay made a home in my underwear, and my vagina’s where all the bass resides.
Fuuuuuck.
Why does he have to be so hot? Why was I such an asshole last time I saw him? The tiny flutter in my stomach turns into a tornado of hummingbirds. Heat lasers from my vagina through my body, exploding in my cheeks.

“Come on, Lily!” Daisy Waters, Sunny’s mom and my “Momma Two,” as I’ve come to refer to her over the years, tugs on my arm. “Let’s go upstairs to the bar and get ourselves a drink before everyone gets there!”

I look away from the insane hotness, shutting down my memories before I melt into the floor and lose the ability to speak.

“Can I have pop? And can I order some food?” Brett, my thirteen-year-old cousin asks. He’s endlessly hungry, and he’s with me tonight because he’s friends with Michael—and he’d say Miller and Randy as well—after going to the hockey camp they volunteered at this summer.

“There’s tons of food! Don’t you worry!” Daisy ruffles his hair.

He ducks out from under her hand and hurriedly rearranges his ’do. In the past month he’s gone from wearing jogging pants and not caring what he looks like to spending forty-five minutes in the bathroom, fixing his hair and using far too much body spray. It could be worse. He could smell like most preteen boys: more goat than human.

Daisy links arms with me, chatting away about the engagement party she’s throwing in two weeks for Sunny’s brother, Alex, and his fiancée, Violet. She rambles on about how excited she is. This party has been a constant topic of conversation over the past month. It’s pretty much all anyone’s been talking about—that and this fundraiser.

Sunny’s older brother also plays professional hockey. Alex is center and team captain for Chicago, the team Miller and Randy also play for. Violet, Alex’s fiancée, is actually Miller’s stepsister. It’s a weird circle of love—almost like a soap opera, but with athletes and without inter-dating.

I spent an excessive amount of time at Sunny’s house as a kid, and she and I annoyed the hell out of Alex on the rare occasions when he was home. He spent most of his life at the arena. He’s a little strange, and I knew him before his hockey fame, so I’m well aware of his nerd status in high school. I guess he’s hot, but I can’t see him as anything other than a surrogate brother who used to help me and Sunny with our homework.

Daisy’s still talking, but I’m not paying attention. I’m too preoccupied with the fact that we’re about to pass all the players, and Randy’s still there, a smile on his gorgeous, sweaty face.

“Of course you’re coming with us. Can you get the weekend off work?” Daisy asks.

“Oh yeah, for sure.” I nod absently.

“That’s wonderful news! Sunny wasn’t sure you’d be able to manage it. I know you have such long hours with two jobs and all, but we’ll take care of your ticket to Chicago. Alex has plenty of room in his house, so you can stay there with us. It’ll be a great weekend!” She squeezes my arm. “Oh! There’s Miller and his parents and Alex and all the boys! Let’s go say hi! Sunny’s there with them. Come on!” She starts dragging me toward the group of players, which contains Randy.

I dig my heels into the rubber flooring and pry her fingers off my arm, scrambling for a reason not to go with her because I have the feeling my body is going to go rogue the first chance it gets. She knows about the Randy situation—or at least she knows the toned-down, PG version of it—but I can’t explain this to her. “Oh… uh… I need to use the bathroom. I’ll meet you upstairs in the bar.”

“We’re just going to say hi, sweetie,” Daisy gives me one of her knowing-mom smiles.

“I really, really need the bathroom, Momma Two.”

“Aw, come on, Lily. Michael’s over there,” Brett whines in his pitchy, almost-changing voice.

“You come with me, Brett.” Daisy puts a hand on his shoulder and winks at me. “We’ll meet you up there.”

I nod vigorously. “Sure. Great! See you in a minute!”

I’ve spent most of my life figure skating in this arena—Alex used his connections here in Guelph to get the space for the exhibition game—and now I work here, teaching skating lessons. I know where all the best bathrooms are, including a secret one not far from the bar where the afterparty’s being held.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to come to this. I can’t deal with seeing Randy. I have too many conflicting emotions—like lust and embarrassment and self-preservation, if that’s an emotion. I bypass the crowded elevator and hit the stairs. I take them two at a time and go right, instead of left toward the bar, at the top, heading for the hidden bathroom at the end of the hall.

I open the door, flick on the light, and lock myself in, exhaling a long breath. Turning on the tap, I shove my hands under the cold spray, hoping it will cool down the rest of me. Randy fucking Ballistic is a goddamn problem.

There are a million things in my life I regret. Staying with Benji for seven years is one of them. Not having Randy fuck the living hell out of me while I had a decent excuse to do so is another. Now, I can’t be sure that’s what would have happened, had things progressed differently, but I’m guessing.

The worst part is, I threw myself at him—offered up my body on a platter, which is totally not my thing. I’m responsible. I stay safe and comfortable. And then he refused to have sex with me because I was emotionally “vulnerable.” He more than made up for the lack of penetration, but that doesn’t negate my embarrassment, particularly since I went apeshit on all his clothes and proved I’d gone from “vulnerable” to unstable in a matter of hours. Nor does it temper my regret. That man can eat a pussy like nobody’s business. And his fingers, and his mouth, and—
Jesus
I need to stop thinking about him mostly naked and touching me.

I groan and stare at my reflection. I look like absolute crap. I almost never wear makeup, and the only stuff I have is meant for figure skating competitions. I thought about putting some on tonight, but I didn’t want to look like a street-walking clown. Also, the powder crap makes my skin itchy. My hair is flat, and so is my chest. I glance down at my pathetic cleavage. I need to gain five pounds, in my boobs. There’s nothing I can do about my sad little barely B-cups.

I rummage through my purse, searching for something beyond lip balm. Anything with a hint of color would be better than the look I’m rocking now. I bet Momma Two has an endless supply of sparkly tubes in her bag. She wears an insane amount of makeup. And hairspray. She’s worn her hair the same way for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure if she just loved
Dallas
and can’t let it go, but her hair is a special kind of fashionably unfortunate.

I find a tube at the bottom of my purse. The top has come off, and there’s all sorts of gunk stuck to the lipstick. Snatching a few squares of toilet paper from the roll, I remove the dirt and flakes of old granola bar before I rub it over my lips. It’s a bright, obnoxious shade of pink. I blot it with the toilet paper, but all I do is smear it over my mouth.

“Damn it.” I grab a paper towel from the roll. Running it under the water, I pump some foam soap onto it and scrub at my lips, trying to get the pink off. The soap gets in my mouth, the chemical taste making me gag.

Someone knocks on the door. Almost no one knows about this bathroom.

“I’ll be out in a minute!” I shout over the running water. All the scrubbing has left redness around my mouth. Now I have to hide in a dark corner until my skin calms down. I slather my lips in a shiny clear gloss that’s also lurking at the bottom of my bag, turn off the water, and open the door.

Sunny’s standing on the other side with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s effortlessly beautiful. She can roll out of bed with her perfect blond hair a matted mess, and she still looks ready for the runway. She’s currently dressed in a huge hockey jersey, a pair of black yoga pants—from lululemon, of course, because that’s what her brother buys her—and a pair of flats. She’s modelesque. If I didn’t love her, I’d hate her.

Violet, her soon-to-be sister-in-law stands beside her. She only comes up to Sunny’s shoulder. She’s a tiny thing with huge boobs and this amazing long hair that’s not brown or red, but somewhere in between. Her eyes are a fabulous shade of green. Neither one of them is wearing a stitch of makeup, as far as I can tell, and both of them are gorgeous. Next to Violet is another girl. I’ve met her once before, but I can’t remember her name. She’s also stunning. It’s a whole squad of them.

“I knew you’d be hiding in here.” Sunny flips her hair over her shoulder.

“I’m not hiding.”

Sunny raises a brow.

“What happened to your face?” Violet asks, leaning closer. “It’s all red.”

“I got something on it. I was trying to rub it off, and I made it worse.”

“What’d you get on it?” Violet gets even closer; she’s right inside my bubble.

I’ve met her a bunch of times now. She’s kind of crazy, in a good way, but I’m used to people being a little less in my face. That’s probably because I give off a bitchy vibe or whatever. Violet seems immune to it.

“Just…” I flounder around for a second, trying to come up with a lie. I don’t want to tell them I was putting on lipstick because Sunny’ll know I’m trying to get pretty for Randy. “… stuff.”

“Stuff?” Violet asks.

“It’s not important. We should probably get to the bar before it’s super busy.”

“Was there a guy in there with you? Do you mean jizz stuff?” Violet brushes past me and opens the bathroom door.

The girl whose name I can’t remember shakes her head. “Just ignore her. She’s lost it.”

“I have not lost it, Char! That’s a totally legit question.” She looks to me as though I’m going to confirm the legitimacy of having a reaction to jizz on my face. At my silence, she continues her explanation. “Sometimes, when Alex eats too many suicide wings, his jizz makes my chest red.”

Sunny cringes, because Alex happens to be her brother, I assume. “I think I need a mojito.”

“Ohh! Good plan!” Violet threads her arm through Char’s and leads her down the hall. “Come on, ladies, let’s drink too much and share jizz stories.”

“Is she always like this?” I mutter.

“She’s stressed about the engagement party. She’s been drinking out of a flask the entire game, according to Charlene.” Sunny twirls a lock of hair around her finger. “I’m concerned about her.” She turns her attention back to me. “How about you? Are you okay? I thought you said you’d be fine to see Randy.”

“I am fine. It’s fine. No big deal.” I wave my hand around in the air a little hysterically. “We fooled around. It’s nothing.”

She tilts her head. “Lily.”

“Really, Sunny. It’s cool. I should probably make sure Brett’s doing okay and not bugging the players.”