And what in the actual fuck is happening to me? None of my teammates would believe what just went down.
Typically, when girls throw themselves at me, I politely turn them down. At least for the past two years I’ve been in Boston I did, because I’d been in a relationship off and on.
My ex-girlfriend, Emily, was always so insecure about the attention I received. That’s how I knew we were short-term. She couldn’t handle the fact that girls threw themselves at me. She didn’t trust that I’d be faithful to her. Which I always was.
I honestly didn’t have the time to juggle multiple girls, especially when Emily tried to consume all my free time, and more, to compensate for her lack of confidence.
When you’re one of the top college hockey players in the nation, it’s almost impossible to fly under the radar. Whenever we had an away game, and I was tagged on social media in pictures from fans, Emily would lose it.
She’d spend the entire night blowing up my phone with texts and calls. It got to the point where I just couldn’t take the fighting and insecurity anymore.
My teammates were all surprised I stayed with her as long as I did. None of them understood why I had a girlfriend to begin with, and not one of them liked her.
What they didn’t realize was that when I had a girlfriend some of the girls on campus left me alone. Especially once they saw what Emily did to girls who would approach me at parties we were at together.
It may sound crass when I say it like that, but I did have feelings for Emily. She was different when it was just the two of us. I knew she could tell I wasn’t all in, but she stayed with me anyway. Maybe it was for the status that being with me brought her—I’m not sure.
Since I broke up with her, the girls have been relentless on campus. There are even TikTok and Instagram accounts dedicated to my hockey flow.
I snap myself out of the mental rabbit hole I’ve just gone down and get dried off.
“Hey man, I’m going to head home to shower and get ready. Want to order pizza when I get back, and then we can take an Uber to Jax’s?” I ask Carse on my way through the house.
“Yeah, sounds good to me. Think three larges will be enough this time?”
“I don’t know if Katie and Kenna will be okay with splitting a large. But they’re sure as shit not touching any of mine.”
“You’re right, four it is. Cold pizza as a late-night snack doesn’t sound bad if there are leftovers.”
“Damn straight. Later, C.”
I head across the yard to my house and take a long shower, letting thoughts of Kenna in that pink bikini consume me.
3
June
Carson and I arrive at Jackson’s sometime after nine and the party is in full swing. The girls were taking their sweet ass time, so they said they’d get their own Uber and meet us here.
“Turner, what’s up, man?” Jax yells from the kitchen island when he spots us.
I shake his hand and bring him in for a one-arm hug. “Not much, Jax. Just putting Carson through the grind, trying to bring him up to speed,” I taunt and look over his shoulder at Carse. He knows I’m just giving him shit.
“What about you? Something has to be keeping you busy if we haven’t seen you at the rink or the gym yet.”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya. Not something, someone.” Jackson wraps his arms around the waist of a girl with raven hair and kisses the top of her head.
“This is Tae. Tae this is Griffin Turner, and you’ve met Carson, right?”
“Yeah, you introduced me to him after one of your games this spring,” Tae says.
“Nice to see you again,” Carson says as he grabs a cup and fills it up with a rum and soda mix.
“Babe, Turner used to play on our high school team with us. Now he’s big time at Emery before he heads to Colorado,” Jax explains as he nuzzles into her. I’ve never seen Jax with anyone for longer than a one-night stand, so this is weird.
I think Tae murmurs a response, but I’m completely distracted by the girl who just entered.
Kenna is wearing the shortest pair of black cutoff shorts with a black crochet crop top that leaves very little to the imagination. She looks good enough to eat.
