Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
We stopped dancing only long enough to take shots or refill our beers before Grace would be tugging me back out on the floor.
It had been almost an hour when I hit my breaking point, sliding through the crowd when Grace was tied up in another line dance. I checked to make sure the team wasn’t leaving yet before slipping out the back door of the bar to a small courtyard.
It was mostly empty, just a few guys at a table in the corner and a couple making out on a bench under the Edison lights. I blew out a breath, leaning against the brick wall and sucking down half of my fresh beer in an attempt to cool myself off. I was a sweaty mess, my dress shirt sticking to my chest and arms like I’d just played an entire period without a line change.
I noted the guys were eyeing me kind of curiously then, muttering to themselves. I recognized that look on their face. It was the look I got from strangers when they wondered if they knew me, when they thought to themselves, he looks so familiar.
Only the true hockey fans figured it out.
I wasn’t in the spotlight the way Vince was, didn’t have a million groupies on the Internet — mostly because I barely posted there, anyway.
But these guys must have been fans, because one of them lifted his beer and said, “Hell of a season this year, Jax.”
I tilted my beer toward him in a salute of thanks, and I really was thankful, because he and his friends left it at that. No one asked for a photo or an autograph, and I went right back to leaning against the brick wall and trying to cool down.
“I am a tipsy little nipsy!”
Grace wobbled out of the bar a little unsteady on her high heels, all but falling into me before she straightened and peered up at me.
“A what now?” I asked with a grin of my own.
“A tipsy little nipsy,” she repeated — as if it’d make more sense the second time. Then, she shimmied her shoulders a little and leaned against the wall next to me, letting her head fall back against the brick on a sigh. “I love dancing. Dancing always makes me feel free.”
“Funny. It makes me feel reckless.”
She smiled without opening her eyes, like she already knew that, like it was her plan all along.
“Well, you needed to loosen up.”
“Tell that to your brother when he knocks me back to last Tuesday.”
“He didn’t see a thing.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re still standing, aren’t you?”
She peeked one eye open at me with that, a little smile on her lips, and then she turned where she was leaning against the wall until it was her shoulder on the brick instead of her back. She scrunched her nose up at me.
“Would you rather be a fish or a bird?”
I blinked.
And then I barked out a laugh. “Come again?”
“A fish or a bird, Brittzy. It’s not a hard one.”
I opened my mouth to respond, and then just laughed and shook my head instead. “Uh, a bird, I guess.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Flying seems cool.”
Her mouth pulled to the side. “Fair. I’d be a fish, though. Imagine being able to breathe under water? And you know that feeling, when you’re just lying on your back and floating?”
She spread her arms out and closed her eyes, her face softening in a peaceful bliss.
“Everything is so quiet. Nowhere to be. No one to be. You just… exist.”
I thought I saw something sad tinge her expression then, but she dropped her arms against her sides with a slap before I could fully register it.
“Okay. How about this one. Imagine you have two miniature legs that are constantly kicking,” she said, illustrating the scenario with her index and middle finger. She pointed them down in an upside-down peace sign and wiggled them back and forth like they were walking legs. “Would you want them attached to your chin, or your gooch?”
The laugh that barreled out of me was impossible to contain, and Grace smiled wider, moving the wiggling fingers under her chin before she popped them down in-between her legs in the most unattractive gesture I’d ever witnessed from a woman.
“Come on, you gotta pick one,” she goaded.
I was laughing so hard I had a stitch in my side, watching her move those fingers back and forth between the options.
“This is the fucking weirdest question I’ve ever been asked in my life.”
“Beats talking about the weather though, doesn’t it?”
I wiped a hand over my mouth and shook my head before crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t know. My chin, I guess.”
“Nice,” she said. “You could join a circus. Or maybe have your own show in Vegas. Oh! Would you put shoes on the feet, or just let them be barefoot?”