She never got all tingly for ideas that cost a bunch of money. Or meant more paperwork for her.
This definitely sounded like a recipe for paperwork.
And attorneys, permits, insurance companies, basically any entity designed to both protect you by making you all legal like and make your eye twitch.
I dropped down to the bench and glanced up. “But what about the WRDF?”
“We can still do that and this. And if that doesn’t work out, maybe we could just do this,” Marty said with a half shrug.
But there was no reason for it to not work out, unless the WRDF took issues with us working with Priest, even if that working was only temporary. Unless Marty was thinking about him staying which she shouldn’t, because he wasn’t.
Tilly skated past without a hint of interest in what we were talking about and tossed my wristguards with a barely audible “thanks” before she skated off to the other side of the infield.
My stomach plummeted to my toes, a familiar apprehension creeping in on me. A hesitance that would unfold on the track and have Priest tearing me a new asshole.
“What’s up with her?” I asked as I watched her go.
Rory shook her head, her mouth grim. “She’s been weird ever since last night.”
“Did she get a call or something while I was in the bathroom?”
“Nope. She just got really quiet and said she had to go,” Rory said, giving Tilly a dose of side-eye.
I watched Tilly out of the corner of my eye as she pulled on her elbow pads, followed by her wristguards, and a gave a firm tug to the strap under her chin to tighten her helmet. She stood alone, avoiding eye contact, her mouth tight, and a crease between her eyebrows.
“Okay, ladies, round up,” Priest called. He waited for us to skate in a circle around him and glanced down at his notepad. “On team one: Hate Puck, Spread ‘Em, Wall of Duty, and…Come Queen.” Priest scratched his head. “And they say guys are pigs.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like them,” Jackson said with a grin.
“You would,” Priest said, scoffing at him. “Team two: Anarch-Eve, Hazy Eights, Tilly the Hun, Mayhem, and Hot West. Get on the bank and let’s do this.” He skated past me, his palm landing on my hip. “Hey,” he said quietly, his lips brushing over my temple, sending a shot of pure fucking lust straight into my shorts. “Kick some ass.”
I leaned into him, siphoning the feel of hot, hard, towering man pressed up against me for every second I could. “Did you at least wear underwear today?”
“I did,” he said with a laugh. “Didn’t want any injuries up there.”
“What, like poking an eye out?” I said with what I thought would be a snort but came out a hell of lot more like a whimper.
“Sounds like you might be about ready to get rid of that no kissing rule,” he murmured as he dragged a lazy finger along the edge of my collarbone over the word “belonging” tattooed in script there.
“Or maybe you destroyed it when you got all manhandley with me out on the track the other day,” I said, forcing the words when his touch had sucked all the air out of the room, but enjoying the way he opened up ever since I managed to avoid steamrolling my own player on the track.
The rigid set of his shoulders had eased. He didn’t tunnel his hands through his hair in frustrated spurts quite as much, and he smiled showing off that deep dimple along the edge of his cheek I didn’t get to see nearly enough of.
Happiness looked damn good on the man.
A hot, promising grin curled his lips. “Don’t give me any ideas, Mayhem. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
“Hey, I’m not the one all reaching out to touch someone,” I said despite doing just that when I swatted his ass as I skated away, giving him a firm squeeze while I was at it.
We started out slow, not because he had us start out that way, but apparently now that we were actually doing this in full force, we’d gone all duh on putting the moves together. We’d turned into a nightmare cheesy montage of 1980’s bloopers from Cocoon full of agonizingly slow exaggerated movements and unsure glances.
Followed by the surprised look you get when you trust a fart only to have it betray you.
Gerald almost melted the vinyl of a bar stool one day with one of those.
I had to do something about what was unfolding here. I was a jammer. I set the tone with my takeoff in a way. If I just came in hard, fast, and confident, they’d follow.
Clearly the anaconda smuggler on the infield agreed since he started pacing alongside us, shouting the entire time.
“Go harder!”
“You’re not one team on the bank now, you’re opponents. Act like it!”
“Push, push, push!”
“Mayhem, don’t make me come up there!”
That one got everyone’s attention.
If he was going to stomp around like that, he should just wear his sneakers, it’d be better for his arches.
Two hours in, we finally managed to blast past the awkwardness and go for it. Bodies crashed into rails, players slid down the track and hopped back on with ease, gaps opened and closed, and I managed to shoot through the pack and zip around the corner to battle Carmen for lead jammer position several times over.
By lunch, the jitters gone, we sat on the infield benches, grabbing more water than food, our feet tapping to the beat of the music Priest pumped into the barn.
He stood by the front office with Jackson, their heads together, while Jackson scrolled through his phone. In the few quiet minutes, I could actually study him, so I took full advantage.
But studying meant wanting, if it was possible to want more than I already did.
I’d developed a taste for a bit of self-torture.
How did I know?
