Page 20 of Icebound

Cruz unscrews an electrolyte drink. “Don’t fuck with me. I’ve got a lot of pent-up energy after that damn puck bunny edged me for like three hours, then fell asleep on me.”

“Stop calling your one-night stands puck bunnies,” I say. “You realize women are responsible for half our ticket sales, right? Do you really want to piss them off?”

Cruz scoffs. “They like being called puck bunnies.”

I squirt water in my mouth. “Not when you say it like that, they don’t.”

“You want to talk about pissing off women? What happened to all those stories I heard about you? Where’s Tenerife Threesome Tremblay? He sounds like a good-ass time. I want him back.”

Threesomes are a lot of work, and I only have one mouth. Yeah, I had a good time in my twenties, and so did the women I slept with, but I’m almost thirty-four. I’ve had pickles in my fridge last longer than my relationships.

“That was one time, and it happened years ago,” I say. “Stop bringing it up. Camille spent way too much time taking down those articles, and I still can’t get any sponsorships because of it, so I have manners now.”

“Manners?” Cruz snorts. “Is that what you call fucking two women at once? ‘Cause if that’s the case, my mom raised me wrong. Why the hell have I been opening doors?”

Patty groans. “That’s it. My daughter’s never dating. I’m going to buy a castle and lock Betty up when she turns thirteen.”

My shoulders sag like they do every time Patty brings up his baby girl. He has someone waiting for him, someone who relies on him. All I’m coming home to is a cat that scratches me as a greeting because I couldn’t bring myself to declaw him.

Wiping away the thought, I lift my leg on the bench, stretching my groin. “You won’t need to lock Betty up in a castle because you’re going to raise her right, so she’ll know exactly what kind of man she deserves. Her standards are going to be so damn high, thanks to you.”

Patty rakes a hand through his hair like he wants to pull out the strands. “How am I going to protect her from the assholes of the world? I think I’d shoot myself in the foot if she dated someone like Cruz. No, actually, I’d kill Cruz.”

The murder victim in question swats Patty’s leg with a towel. “Hey, she’d love me. I’m very generous in bed. Just ask Tremblay’s sister.”

“Nice try.” I throw an empty bottle at him. “Rowyn would never date you. She’s got standards.”

He shoves his tongue in his cheek. “Wanna bet?”

“I’m a terrible role model,” Patty continues, interrupting again like the peacekeeper. Good thing, too, because I was tempted to smack Cruz for that one. I’d break his lucky stick if he tried anything with Rowyn.

“Hell, I almost gave my daughter honey. How come no one told me you can’t give newborns honey? People should talk about that more, or at least put a warning label on the bottle.”

Cruz swipes a towel through his hair. “I think they do, man.”

“Nice. Even you know that,” Patty moans, throwing his water in the recycling bin. “I’m a shitty dad.”

“Hey, listen to me.” I pull Patty into a hug so Cruz can’t hear. “Only great parents feel like shitty ones. You’ve got one hell of a support system, and you know what Betty’s going to see when she grows up? She’s going to see her daddy chasing his wildest dream, and that’ll make her want to be just as wild as you.”

Patty wipes his eyes, but this is his norm now. He cried at a pet food commercial because Betty laughed at the mini dachshund eating dog food.

“Thanks, Tremblay. I needed that. My mom gave Betty a blueberry for the first time today, and I didn’t get to see her eat it, which sucks. She makes the funniest faces when she tries new things.”

Cruz grabs two foam rollers. “Why the fuck would you want to see her eat a blueberry? I’ll eat a blube for you.”

Patty scowls. “I don’t want to see you eat a blueberry.”

My phone rings, and I lurch for it, but my shoulders slump when I see Rowyn’s name and not Nina’s.

I put my phone to my ear. “Hey, Wyn, what’s up?”

Cruz moans. “Is that your sexy-as-fuck sister? Tell her I miss her, and I think about her all the time.”

I point at him. “Don’t go there.”

That’s all it takes for my twenty-two-year-old sister to launch into her monologue. “So, my professor failed literally everyone in the class yesterday, so we all went for drinks to drown our sorrows. Have you heard of a Sourtoe Cocktail? I shit you not, there’s actually a human toe that has been mummified in the salt, but that’s a whole other thing. So, I might have ended up in jail—”

“What? You ended up in jail? Why didn’t you call me?” I demand. “What ha—”