Page 42 of Fake Shot
We all turn toward the TV in time to see the opposing players huddled together with their sticks in the air. Colt turns toward the goal and grabs his water bottle off the top of the net, and when the camera zooms in on him, he looks more pissed off than I’m used to seeing him, even during a game.
Fortunately, that goal and the subsequent fast-paced nature of the second and third periods have us so focused on the game, no one brings up the earlier conversation about Colt and me again. And I leave before the game is over, claiming that I have to get up early tomorrow, but really, I just want to make sure I’m not dragged into another interrogation about my past. Audrey is the only person who knows everything that happened in Vegas. And it needs to stay that way.
Chapter Sixteen
COLT
Iface 200-pound men who are shooting rubber pucks at me at over 90 miles per hour on a regular basis. That fact alone means there’s almost nothing that makes me nervous. So why, as I sit on Jules’s couch waiting for her to get home from work, is my stomach twisted up in knots?
Pulling out my phone, I read through our text exchange from last night. It’s embarrassing how frequently I’ve done this, trying to figure out what she’s thinking and how she’s feeling. She’s so damn hard to read.
Colt
Tell me you don’t have any plans tomorrow night.
I sent that text a full hour before our game, and when I hadn’t heard back from her before the game started, I was annoyed. I took a quick peek at my phone in between thefirst and second periods, which was a mistake. Her lack of response at that point pissed me off.
Why was she ignoring me? I was so busy getting myself worked up about it that I let a puck, which should have been an easy stop, fly right by me at the beginning of the second period.
That was the wake-up call I needed. This distractibility—me thinking about her when I shouldn’t be—it’s exactly why I don’t date. No woman is worth fucking up my career over. Especially when I have so little of it left to enjoy.
I got my head on straight and didn’t let a single shot past me after that, and we ended the game 2-1. Leading the series by two as we headed back to Boston was a great feeling, but I honestly couldn’t enjoy the celebration with my teammates as we loaded onto the plane for our flight home—until her text came through.
Jules
I don’t. Why, what did you have in mind?
Colt
A trip to the jeweler so you can pick out a ring, and then our first “official” date as a newly minted fake-engaged couple.
Jules
Do we have to?
When I’d chuckled at that, Drew’s head snapped over to my phone screen so quickly I had to flip it over. Of course I’d pick the only woman in the world who’s resistant to my charms. This couldn’t have happened with someone who’d have made it easy.
You don’t want easy.
I don’t know where the thought comes from. But as I sit on the couch now, waiting for her, I have to admit that it’s true. Every woman I’ve ever been with has been easy. Easy to get into my bed, and easy to leave. Even leaving Cheri, who I’d dated for two years and who was supposed to transfer to a college in Boston at the end of her freshman year so she could be with me, wasn’t the painful part. It was getting over my brother’s betrayal that gutted me.
Not only is Jules not easy, but she’s a legitimate challenge... a puzzle I’m desperate to finish putting together while half-afraid I’ll be missing the last piece. Somehow, that only makes me want to work harder at figuring her out.
Colt
Only if you want this to be believable.
Jules
What I want is for this not to be happening at all.
She’s so much less snarky when she’s within two feet of me. It’s like her walls come down just enough for me to climb over them. It makes me wonder why those walls are there in the first place, and what I’d have to do to get them to crumble entirely?
Colt
Us against the world, remember? So start dreaming about what you want that ring to look like because you’re going to be picking one out tomorrow night.
Jules
