Page 58 of Securing the Pucking Rebound

“I’m soaked through. You’ve got a dryer, right?”

“Y-yeah, sure, but⁠—”

I stand there stunned as he manages to bend over, balancing on one leg as he swipes his sopping wet clothes from the floor and bundles them to his chest before retrieving the bag.

“Lead the way then.”

“Uh…yeah. Sure. It’s…uh…this way,” I stutter as I begin walking back to where I came from.

He shuffles behind me, but as much as I want to turn around and look at him, I force my eyes to the front.

There is a hot, almost-naked hockey player following me to the back room.

There is a hot, almost-naked hockey player following me to the back room.

This is like my favorite filthy fantasy and my worst nightmare all rolled into one.

“What are you actually doing here?” I ask as Calvin pushes his clothes into the dryer I was emptying. There are still ten minutes on the washing machine, and we all know that ten minutes in washing machine terms is like three hours, so I let it slide when he presses start.

“Well,” he says, turning toward me and crossing his arms over his sculpted chest. His hair is still dripping, sending rivers of water racing over his shoulders. I watch one race all the way to his nipple, and the second it gets there, I realize what I’m doing and snap my eyes back up to his. “I thought to myself, I haven’t had a walk in the rain for a while and⁠—”

“You’re not funny,” I say, cutting him off.

“Sometimes I am,” he counters with his signature smirk.

I roll my eyes and finish up folding the towels that are still in my arms while he makes himself at home on our small couch.

When I turn back around, I swear the entire room has shrunk in size. I know for a fact the couch has, because we can usually fit three of us on there. But right now, with the way Calvin is manspreading, I’m not sure there’s enough space for me.

“You really have no shame, do you?”

He looks down at himself, his eyes all doe-like and innocent. “Who, me?”

“I don’t see anyone else. I’m not sure I’ve got anything around here that’ll fit you. Maybe one of Lessy’s gowns?”

“What’s wrong? Too distracting?”

“Something like that,” I mutter under my breath. But despite the words coming out as quiet as a mouse, his growing smirk tells me that he heard them.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, reaching for the bag at his feet, pulling out more containers, and placing them beside the huge pizza box I abandoned on the coffee table.

My stomach growls on cue.

He flips open the box to reveal a fully loaded chicken and veggie pizza, and then he begins revealing the sides.

“Was there anything on the menu that you didn’t order?”

“Yeah, actually. Ice cream. I wasn’t sure if you had a freezer here, and I didn’t want to waste it.”

“Right.”

“If you want some, we can stop on our way home.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“Why are you here?” I ask bluntly.

“To keep you company. To feed you.”