Pucked Off (Pucked #5)(76)

Miller scoffs and gives Randy a look. “Tash? What kind of fucking bullshit are you pulling, Romance?” He jams his helmet on and clomps off, red faced.

“Jesus. What’s his problem?” Things have been less tense since Sunny had the baby, but now he’s pissy with me again. I rush to put on my equipment so I’m not late hitting the ice.

“Have you checked social media today?” Randy laces up his skates.

“No. Why? What’s going on?”

“What do you think? You went out with that Poppy girl and didn’t think it was going to be all over the bunny sites?”

“Oh, shit.” Now the onslaught of Tash messages makes sense.

I think about the middle of the night kitchen encounter: me naked, Poppy in just my shirt. Me contemplating how good it would feel to be inside without the condom, assuring her everyone was asleep in her neighborhood. “Is it bad? Like, are there bad pictures?”

“Depends on what you consider bad, I guess.”

“Does any of it make Poppy look slutty?”

Randy strokes his beard and regards me curiously. “No. Not really. I mean, there’s lots of you all up on her.”

“Up on her how?”

“Like normal date stuff, I guess.”

When I give him a blank look, he sighs and looks uncomfortable.

“Getting all touchy, kissing her, that kind of thing.”

Oh, thank God. Nothing from the kitchen. “So? I don’t get what the problem is.” The locker room is emptying fast, and Randy and I are getting looks.

Waters pops his head in. “Let’s go, guys. You needed to be on the ice two minutes ago.”

“Be right there.” I hurry to tie my laces.

Randy stands and grabs his helmet and stick. “When was the last time you took a girl out for dinner?”

I grab my helmet, stick, and gloves. My skates are loose, but we’re out of time. I don’t think taking a girl to The Olive Garden when I was a teenager counts. And that was only once.

“I don’t know. Never? The last time I took anyone anywhere it was Tash, and that was Waters’ engagement party and the whole team was there, so it wasn’t like an actual date-date or anything. Plus things got kind of fucked up.”

“Ya think? You lost your shit on her because you thought we hooked up.”

“Well, she fucks everybody, so it was highly plausible.”

“Pot, kettle, dude.”

“You think I like being like this?” I snap.

Randy’s eyes go wide as he opens the door to the ice.

“I just wanted to be with her. I kept telling her that, but all she wanted to do was screw with my head. She was the one who kept bringing me girls like they were fucking gifts.”

“Wait. What?”

“It wasn’t my idea; it was hers.”

Randy looks floored by this information. “Seriously?”

“Unfortunately, yeah. They were her way of saying I wasn’t enough, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before now?”

“What was I gonna say? That I hate the shit I did for her, but I didn’t know how to make it any other way?”

“But the Tash situation wasn’t isolated.”

“Until her it wasn’t common, though.”

He frowns. “What do you mean it wasn’t common? You’re legendary.”

“Things get blown out of proportion a lot. You know that.”

He considers that a moment. “So what’s the deal with Poppy then? Why the dinner date all of a sudden?”

We step out onto the ice together, nab a puck, and start skating, passing it back and forth.

“Because she’s different—and not the way I thought Tash was different—like, really different. Good different. I want to spend time with her, real time.” I sound like a fucking idiot.

Randy fumbles the puck a bit, but recovers and slides it to me. “Like an actual relationship?”

“Yeah, man. Like what you and Lily have. I think I want that. I got Poppy to agree to two dates, and I don’t want to fuck this up. And not just because she can’t be my massage therapist anymore. I for real want this girl. Like, I need to keep her. That sounds wrong, but this morning when I realized I didn’t have anything set up with her, I got, like, panicky. So I made another date for tonight.”

“Wow. Okay. You’re seriously serious.”

“Aye. So this bunny shit, I can’t have it messing with things.”

“But you can see why the bunnies are gossiping, right?”

“Because I took some girl out for dinner?”

“It’s a big deal in the bunnysphere. You’re a fucking legend, Romero, even if you don’t want to be.”

I overshoot the puck, but he’s fast enough to catch it before it gets away from him.

Not once did I consider how the bunnydom would react to me taking a girl out for dinner. I also didn’t consider the possibility that people might take pictures and post them. But I should’ve, because I’ve seen all this bullshit before. Back when Miller was first dating Sunny, back when Randy was still pretending he and Lily were just “having fun.”

“Remember all the nasty messages Lily got when she moved in with me, and we’d been together for, like, months? The bunnies are fucking crazy half the time, Lance. They’re gonna be all over this.”