Puck Prince (Houston Scythes Hockey #1)

5. Callie

5

CALLIE

My body is pressed against the door as I squint one eye shut and peer through the peephole with the other. I’m not breathing, not moving, just mouth open as the hairs on the back of my neck prick up at what I’m seeing.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Owen tells a red-headed woman.

But it’s not just the pretty girl standing in front of him that’s making him sweat and panic.

It’s the fact that she’s holding a baby.

“You’re only allowed to come here in an emergency! What if someone sees you?” Owen is whisper-yelling. But despite his panic over whoever this is, he opens his door and she follows him inside, baby in tow.

I take a stumbling step back from the door, hyperventilating.

No. No, no, NO.

I continue to back away towards the living room as the situation takes nauseating shape in my head.

“He’s married,” I say to the empty room. “And they have a baby. Oh my fucking God. I just slept with a married man who has a family!”

I run a hand through my hair and hold it there. My head is a hornet’s nest of unwanted thoughts. Thoughts of my parents. The mistakes they made. Mistakes I looked at and thought, Why? Why would anyone ever do that? Turns out, the answer is because he’s handsome and there .

Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.

“I am the other woman.” I press my hand to my stomach, praying the wine I drank several hours ago won’t resurface. Then I remember what I’m wearing. His jersey. A married man’s jersey.

She probably washes this jersey for him. And how does he repay her? By fucking another woman, that’s how!

I rip the jersey off and toss it aside like it’s poisonous. Then I march to the bathroom. I need a shower. I need to rinse this whole night off of me. I am raging. How could I be so stupid? How could he be such a dick?

“Fucking hell, Callie, don’t say ‘dick’ right now,” I hiss at myself as I turn the shower on as hot as it’ll go.

As much as I feel terrible—dirty, evil, shameful, the works—I am just as upset over the fact that the sex was some of the best of my life. Go figure. That’s just my luck. I would find a sexy stranger who is stellar in the sack only to find out he is someone else’s husband.

I need to forget it. Forget it ever happened. Forget him.

But just as I am about to undress the rest of the way, I hear the front door groan open.

No. How? It can’t be him. I locked it, I swear I did! I closed the door and locked it and ? —

“Remind me never, ever to sleep with anyone ever again!” Kennedy’s voice wails through the apartment.

Oh, thank God.

I dart out of the bathroom, shower still running, and watch as Kennedy steps out of her heels and tosses her keys on the counter. She doesn’t wait for me to respond before going on.

“So get this: I show up at the restaurant—a bougie ass wine bar, by the way—and I am wearing this .” Kennedy motions over her short red dress. “I mean, I look good. Dylan shows up wearing Docker, zip-off cargo shorts of all things and those shoes that old men wear. Boat shoes? And a Hawaiian shirt. A Hawaiian shirt at a wine bar, Cal! I should have just walked out then and there. But no. What do I do because I give all the men on all the apps a fair chance? I stay.”

“And then what happened?” I ask. As much as I actually don’t care (seeing as how I’ve heard countless stories like this before from her), I let her go on. Mostly because, if we’re talking about her, we aren’t talking about me.

And talking about me is the last thing I want to do right now.

“Glad you asked. So this guy proceeds to order the most expensive charcuterie board on the menu. I am talking cured meats, aged cheeses, pear compote, like four fucking kinds of olives. I didn’t even know they had that many kinds of olives! And! A seventy dollar bottle of wine. So I’m thinking, huh, maybe he’s not so bad after all. Maybe I judged Tommy Bahama a little too harshly, right? We get to drinking, get to talking, he tells me he has a boat and all this shit. One bottle of wine leads to two, two bottles of wine lead me to his car, his car leads me to his apartment, and wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, I am lying in his bed in my sexiest bra and panty set, lookin’ like a damn snack.”

Kennedy is staring at me, eyebrows arched, hand on hip like she just told me the punch line of a joke, and I’m supposed to be laughing. But honestly, I’m lost.

“I don’t get it. He’s rich. He wined and dined you. Where’s the fire?”

“We get to his house and he goes into the kitchen to get another bottle of wine. Meanwhile, I am on my back on the world’s fluffiest down comforter ever. Ready to go. I wait… and I wait… and finally, I make my way out to the kitchen—only to find him, bottle of wine in hand, passed out on the fucking sofa!”

“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. I’ve run out of things to say in response to Kennedy’s bombed dates.

“I know. Un-fucking-real. Like, if it’s past your bedtime, go home!” She shakes her head and pulls out her phone. “I am done with dating apps. All of them. See?” She punches the icons on her home screen, deleting them one after the other. “Done. Done, done, and done. Hey. Why are you wearing men’s shorts?”

I stop, the world zooming in, all lights suddenly on me.

“What?”

“Your shorts. Whose are those?”

I open my mouth to respond, though I’m not sure what I am going to say. But then, like the antihero she is, Delilah howls from the other side of the balcony door and spares me an explanation.

“Fucking cat. Did she convince you to let her out and then refuse to come back in?” Kennedy marches over to the door, letting the spawn back in. “She does it to me all the time.”

“Yeah.” I am still trying to figure out how to answer her question. Of course I’m still in his shorts. The married man’s shorts.

Kill me now.

“I am one Adam & Eve purchase away from becoming like you,” Kennedy says. “I always made fun of you for being besties with a vibrator, but you know what? It’s looking like a lifelong friend right now. God. I need a shower.” Kennedy walks into the bathroom. “You already started it for me? You’re the best, Cal.”

“Right. Yeah. Sure.” I plop down on the couch, trying to process it all.

That was close. Too close. I need to get my shit in order. I have a job interview in the morning. A shot to truly start over. Which means, no more mixing work and pleasure, no matter how hot the guy is. If I didn’t know that before, I do now.

No more drinking when I’m alone.

No more letting men blur my vision (even if it is because I am spiraling out of the sky in the best orgasm I have ever had).

I need to focus on work. Focus on cleaning up my mess of a life. I need a list of goals and I am sticking to that list no matter what.

First on the list? Burn the married man’s shorts.

I’d rather be pantsless again.