Roman (Cold Fury Hockey #7)(68)

“Don’t worry about Gray,” Ryker says, and that piques my attention. I turn to look at him again. “She knows that’s part of the life…dealing with that crap.”

“But she doesn’t trust me to do right by Lexi,” I say grimly.

“She doesn’t know anything but your past reputation,” he counters. “Give her time.”

I stare at Ryker for a moment, and yeah…I really like this guy. But sadly, I can’t say the same for his wife, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get there. I don’t tell him that, though, as Ryker’s likely to throw a punch at me if I did. Instead, I say before turning to back to my beer, “Appreciate the advice.”

“Sure you do,” he says with a laugh, then claps me on the shoulder one more time as he stands from the stool. “And for what it’s worth, I’m glad to see you and Lexi together. She clearly adores you.”

I try to ignore the warm feeling that statement produces in my chest, but I do look up at him and smile. “Thanks. I’ll deny it if you repeat this, but I really like her too. I would never abuse her trust.”

“I know,” he says genially. “I could tell you were totally uncomfortable with that situation. Gray may not have seen it, but fuck…I’ve been in that situation, and it sucks balls.”

“What in the hell should I have done?” I ask, curious now that I know Ryker’s been through this.

“You just have to be ready for it, and when you’re asked to do things out of your comfort zone, learn to gracefully come up with a work-around. It will come more naturally to you the more it happens.”

“I don’t want it to happen,” I grumble. “In the future, I think I’ll just head straight to my room from the bus.”

Ryker laughs and shakes his head. “You’ll never do that because you don’t want to deprive the kids and legit fans. Just have a canned response ready. Something like, ‘Sorry…I don’t think my girlfriend would like that.’ That covers a wide variety of situations.”

Hmmmm…that does sound pretty simple, and I vow to myself I’ll do that the next time.

“Thanks for the advice,” I tell him as I stand from my stool. I pick up my beer, take one more chug, and put the half-empty glass back onto the bar. Turning to Ryker, I say, “Now, Lexi’s expecting my call, and while I enjoyed chatting with you, I’d much rather be talking to her.”

Ryker snorts and we turn to walk to the elevators together.





Chapter 25


Lexi


I look at the time on my phone again, then my texts to see that Roman still hasn’t responded to me, and with a frustrated huff, I look at Georgia, who is sitting at her desk doing paperwork. Pushing up out of one of the cheap secondhand guest chairs, I tell her, “I’m going to head home. I have no clue where he is or what’s going on.”

Georgia looks up at me with a sympathetic smile. “Oh, honey, I’m sure everything’s fine.”

And I hope that’s the case. Roman was supposed to pick me up here at The Grind when I got off my shift at 5:30 P.M.

That was over forty-five minutes ago.

I feel like we’ve hardly had any time together and I guess that’s something I need to get used to if I’m going to date a professional athlete. He was in DC last Saturday night for a game—the night we affectionately refer to as the “boob incident” game—only to come back for a day, before he headed out for games in Atlanta and then Nashville. The day he was back he had practice and I had to work that night, and thus our time together was him sitting in The Grind listening to me play my music. Well, that’s not true…he stayed at my apartment that night and it’s safe to say neither of us got much sleep, but then he was off traveling again.

He got back into town today and doesn’t have a game for two days. His plan was to pick me up here and then we were going to go on a real date: dinner and a movie. Well, and then there would be sex, because…hello, this is Roman and I may be addicted to his body.

Even though we haven’t seen each other but for a few snatches of time over the last several days, we’ve stayed in constant contact. Calls, texts, emails, and even FaceTime, which may have involved one very late-night sex show I put on for him after his repeated whining that he missed my body. Of course, I couldn’t deny him, and we both had a mutually satisfactory ending with that call.

But I am worried that he’s forty-five minutes late with no call or text, nor is he returning my calls or texts. My first worry is that something bad has happened to him and I imagine the worst, like a car accident or something. A secondary worry, which I try to tell myself is ridiculous, is that Roman’s through with me.

It’s ridiculous.

I know it.

But still…it’s a worry. While we’ve been getting closer and closer to each other, there are still gaps that can’t seem to get filled. That would namely be the antagonism between him and Gray, which has not gotten any better, but it hasn’t escalated either. It’s basically turned into grumbling about each other to me. Both of them have come to feel comfortable enough with me that they can complain about the other.

Last Saturday, Gray did as Roman thought she might, and she called me to tell me about him signing that jersey. Well, in her words, he was signing her breast. Roman’s story was a little different, and that it was her jersey over her breast. Semantics, I know, but both of them felt affronted by the actions of the other and I got a double earful.