Chapter 3

“Where’d you get to last night?” My jaw clenched and my hand closed in a fist over the ten dollar bill I’d just been handed. “I came by to give you a ride home but you were gone already. Did you go out with the girls?” It probably sounded like an innocent question, from one friend to another but I knew better. I could hear the underlying menace in his voice.

“Yeah, that’s right,” I lied, mostly because it was none of his business and as much as it had seemed like a good idea to me at the time to go home with that college kid, I’d woken up in an entirely different frame of mind and no longer felt like throwing that particularly disappointing event in Tristan’s face. 

“You should have let me know,” he continued, following me to the bar where I handed over the bill and the next order.

“I don’t have to report my movements to you T. You gave up the right to know what I do and where I do it when you slept with Candy.” Just saying her name made me grind my teeth. I hadn’t cared that my roommate was a stripper; her body, her life, at least until I caught her giving my boyfriend a free lap dance.

“Sugar, come on now, you’re not still mad about that are you?” Dylan, the bartender did his best not to laugh and kept pouring the beer while I rolled my eyes. 

“No, you know what T, I’m totally fine with it now. I mean, really I should be thanking you for helping me see the light and realizing what a complete fucking douchebag you are,” I turned and grinned malevolently at him, “but that doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly developed a serious case of the stupids and want to get back together,” I added before turning to grab the pitcher of beer and the four glasses to go with it. 

“I thought you’d join in,” he whispered in my ear, the whiskey he’d been drinking making my eyes burn, his breath heavy and warm on my neck. “I know you’re kinky like that,” he added, putting his meaty paws on my waist. 

“Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me.” It wasn’t a request but when Dylan reached for the section of the counter he could lift and immediately be on our side of the bar I shook my head. I didn’t like other people fighting my battles for me. 

“Baby, you know you don’t want that,” he purred in my ear and pressed himself up against my back. I grimaced, fighting the urge to toss my cookies. 

“Now Tristan,” I insisted as firmly as I could without actually screaming it. 

“Hey, jerk off, hands off my girlfriend.” I looked up at Dylan as soon as I heard the voice and he had the strangest expression on his face, like when you move a dog’s food bowl and they’re just confused. 

“Well this should be interesting,” he mused and then stepped back from the counter and crossed his arms over his considerable chest. I frowned at him, just to let him know that while I didn’t think I needed his help yet that I didn’t appreciate being abandoned altogether and then I peeked around Tristan’s bulk to see the kid from last night standing about a foot away with the same cock sure grin on his face that I’d wanted to slap off his face. 

“Oh god,” I breathed, closed my eyes and put my hands on the bar. “He is sooo gonna get killed.” 

Admittedly the kid was built better than I’d first given him credit for but he was still a pipsqueak in comparison to the man who still had a firm grip on my waist. Tristan had a pansy name, at least according to his friends, but there was nothing pansy about the six foot four diesel mechanic. He was built like a security gate, tall, broad and impenetrable. 

I felt Tristan’s hands withdraw from my waist and waited for the sound of his knuckles breaking bone. It took a minute, but what I heard instead was him laughing. 

“You’re fuckin’ kidding right?” I didn’t know if the question was aimed at me or at the kid but I kept my mouth shut and used the distraction the college boy was providing to slip under the divider and behind the bar. 

“Who’s the kid?” Dylan asked, still leaning against the back counter as if he was getting ready to watch a fashion show and not a prize fight.

“A stray I made the mistake of taking home,” I sighed. I heard Dylan chuckle under his breath and heaved another sigh. “Yeah, I know, I bring this shit on myself.”

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I didn’t like the way he was holding her and I especially didn’t like the way he was breathing on her neck. I’d almost turned around and had plans to offer the flowers I’d purchased to the first homeless person on the street and then I heard her growl at him. I’d dug the way she’d growled at me in bed. It was hot. But when she growled at him I suddenly heard my sisters and fear in her voice and the big brother in me took over.

“Hey, jerk off, hands off my girlfriend.” I knew I probably should have just told him to take a step back but as Sharpie is over fond of pointing out, I rarely think before I speak. 

I watched the guy let go of her and turn around. It was kinda like the first time John Scott walked into our dressing room. I looked up and found myself staring into the guy’s chest. I had to look up again to actually look into the guy’s eyes. 

“You’re fuckin’ kidding right?” the guy sneered at me. I play with and against guys that are big like this fucker was and I know better than to show fear but on the other hand, I’m also used to having someone bigger than me back me up. “Does your mommy know you’re out this late slugger?” he sniggered, reaching out to pat me on the head, or mess my hair, either way I blocked it with my cast. It hurt. I winced. He laughed. “Hey Bethie honey, get this kid a lollipop.” His big hand reached to swat her ass but she wasn’t there. She was already on the other side of the bar. 

“C’mon T, don’t be such an ass,” she sighed and I was disappointed to see pity in her eyes. She really thought this big meathead was going to beat the snot out of me and she felt sorry for me. 

 “Aw c’mon sugar, I’m just havin’ some fun with the little guy,” he crooned at her like he really meant it, like he hadn’t had murder in his eyes when he’d looked at me. “I mean, c’mon, you wouldn’t really sleep with him.” I looked around him at her and watched the blood creep up her neck and into her face. He must’ve seen the same thing because his hands curled into fists the size of small houses. “Aw shit, you’re kidding me right? This fuckin’ pipsqueak?” 

“Fuck off T, just leave him alone, please?” It stung, having a chick plead for my life. I could hear the guys in my head howling with laughter right now. 

“Hey, I’m over here,” I reminded him, probably unadvisedly. I could hear Coach Q in my head telling me to stop picking fights I had no chance of winning and that there’s only so many times that speed and agility are going to win before someone much bigger than me puts my head through the boards. 

“What’d you do pipsqueak?” the big guy asked and then flexed his chest muscles so that for a long moment I was sure he was about to Hulk out, that his t-shirt was going to actually give and rip away from his juiced up torso. “Did you pay her cuz I can’t see any other way except maybe a pity fuck my Bett would get into bed with a guy like you.” I didn’t like when he said it but one glance in her direction told me she liked being spoken about as a piece of this goon’s property even less than I did. She made a move but the bartender put one hand on her arm and she went still. I guessed right then that I was in it alone; just me and my cast, no Seabs, no Rat and no Buff to back me up. 

“Well if you call it a pity fuck to ride me half the night like and wear my ass out then shucks, I guess I’ll take it,” I grinned up at the big gorilla and watched his cocky smile fade around the edges. I knew it was going too far even as I did it but I couldn’t quite stop myself from giving it that old ass slap and grind motion. It was one of those stand-bys that you go to when you’re a guy, like all those times I tease Tazer about his mom being a MILF. I know it’s the wrong thing to do but it’s just too funny not to do it. 

I ducked when the guy made a grab for me and it might have been one of the only times that my size and speed came in handy off the ice. I dodged and weaved while the big guy stumbled around after me like he had two left feet until I managed to get a table between him and me and I thanked the big guy up above that this was a rough enough area of town that the tables were bolted to the floor. 

He stared at me, his nostrils flaring and all the veins in his neck and head bulging out and I wondered if this was going to be it, a headline in tomorrow’s paper about me dying in a bar brawl. I could hear the sports guys laughing right now, thinking I deserved it. But just when I thought he’d just reach over the table and grab me by the collar he straightened up, shook it off and went back to looking unimpressed. 

“Well if she’s gone all gold digger on me, I guess you’re welcome to her pansy boy.” 

I watched him walk out of the bar, relieved that he hadn’t turned me into a wet spot on the floor but also wondering why he’d suddenly changed his mind. There were a few Hawks fans in Buffalo, not many, but there was a chance I’d just run into one. 

“Wow, you must have horseshoes up your ass.” I turned to see her pouring a shot of something thick and golden into a shot glass, which she quickly downed and then poured another. 

“It has been suggested,” I admitted, thinking of all the times that other guys had taken a beating I’d probably...no, undoubtedly deserved. 

“You probably should keep going while you’re ahead and make yourself scarce before he changes his mind, comes back and beats your ass,” she added, pouring a second shot which she pushed towards me. She eyed the flowers that were still in my hand. I held them out towards her. “Really?” she managed to look embarrassed and nonplussed all at the same time.

That had been my reaction when I’d stopped at a flower shop to the buy them too. I wasn’t normally...well, ever, moved to buy flowers even for girls I dated, which I hardly did but I had never, and I mean never bought them for a chick I’d just banged, no matter how hot she was.

“What? A gentleman can’t buy a girl some flowers?” I’m pretty sure I’d heard Stalberg use that line, or maybe it had just come to me but either way, she took them, stuck her nose in the top of the bouquet and then turned her back on me. I was pretty sure she was just pretending to look for something to put them in while she tried not to look too impressed. I was willing to bet that big guy with the full ink sleeves had never bought her so much as a single rose. 

Point to me. 

“So you’re still going with that whole gentleman shtick?” she asked once, I guess, she had her expression under control and pulled an empty jug from beneath the bar which she then began to fill with water. 

“Well I guess that depends,” I replied, leaning over the bar just a little, getting my schmooze on and getting in her space at the same time which wasn’t easy with a bar between us. “Will you go out for dinner with me?” I hadn’t planned to ask her when I came in despite having stopped to buy flowers. I hadn’t really known why I’d come back looking for her, except for maybe a second helping of pretty earth shattering sex. 

“I’m working,” she answered quickly. She had a point. The bar was starting to fill up but then again, I had no place that I needed to be. 

“I can wait,” I told her, pulling a ten from my wallet. “I’ll be right down at that end of the bar when you get off.” She gave me a long hard look and for a moment I was sure she was getting ready to tell me to bounce but finally, as she dumped the flowers into the jug, she shrugged. 

“If you’re still here,” she mumbled. 

“I will be,” I told her with a grin. “Bring me a beer when you’re ready.” 

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Every damn time I looked up that night his eyes were on me. It was a little creepy but at the same time I kept thinking about how he’d stood up to Tristain, right up to where he hid behind a table, and I was at least half impressed. The flowers had put him over the edge. I was pretty sure the last guy to buy me flowers had probably been my dad the day I’d graduated from high school. That, I kept telling myself, was the only reason I hadn’t shooed the kid away yet; he’d tugged on one of my only sentimental strings. That and he kinda had the whole eager puppy vibe down to a science. 

Or maybe, I told myself as I grabbed my coat from behind the bar, it had been the way he’d fended off the advances of at least a dozen blondes with better bodies than mine while he’d been waiting for me. If he’d done it on purpose just to get on my good side, he’d done a fantastic job. 

“So I know this place,” he said, appearing at my side as I stepped out onto his side of the bar. 

“Oh yeah,” I mused, heading towards the exit, “another hotel room?” 

“I was actually thinking about this diner I know but...whatever the lady wishes,” he replied with that crooked smartass half smile. 

I wasn’t in a rush to get back into bed with him so I opted for the diner where I sat nursing a blueberry tea and a piece of apple pie while he gobbled down a couple of burgers and a whole plate of fries like he was a starving kid from Africa, or a growing teenage boy. 

“High metabolism,” he explained with a grin as he wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“That won’t last forever,” I told him, wondering if his father was the size of a Mac truck. 

“Can I get you anything else...Patrick?” the waitress, who to my eyes didn’t look old enough to be working this late, had been eying him like a piece of candy ever since we’d walked into the place. He looked up at her and gave her one of his dazzling boyish smiles.

“You want anything else, Bett?” he asked and turned that smile onto me. It really was like being in the center of a spotlight. It made me want to squirm right under the table and hide except that I’d never been a fan of girls like her in school and if I had something one of them wanted for once, I wanted to rub it in. 

“Just you sugar,” I purred and reached over to stroke my hand across the back of his, remembering too late that it was the one with the ketchup on it. 

“Cheque please,” he grinned up at her and she made a face at me that would have made Medusa proud. The minute her back was turned I grabbed a napkin and wiped off my sticky fingers while he pulled his wallet out. 

“Geez does George Costanza know you stole his wallet?” I asked as he pressed a pair of twenties into her outstretched hand and then, with a flourish, added a five. 

“I’ve got important stuff in here,” he replied with a wink, tugging just the corner of a foil condom packet out of one of the sections. I rolled my eyes. “So where to?” 

 “My place,” I muttered, sliding out of the booth and doing my best to ignore his ‘hit the jackpot’ grin. 

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It had been done to me but I still felt just a little guilty as I pulled back the sheet to reveal the full length of her sleeping body so I could take a picture with my phone. She wasn’t Playboy hot but she was hot enough that I knew texting a picture of her to Tazer would give him spanking material for a week. As I dropped the sheet back over her shoulder she yawned and rolled over, giving her back to me in the tiny double bed against the far wall of her equally tiny bachelor apartment. I hadn’t been in an apartment this small since I’d played for the Knights.

I rolled out of the bed and went looking for something to do. There was no Playstation, no Xbox, not even a Wii. There was a small TV, probably nineteen inch, and a few dvd’s piled beside it, none of them porn. I shuffled through them and decided that the period dramas would probably put me to sleep when what I really was, was hungry. 

There wasn’t much in the tiny galley kitchen either. There was a lot of bottled water in the fridge, a block of marbled cheese and bunch of apples. I took an apple and bit into it, letting the tart juice run down the back of my throat. I would have preferred left over pizza or even cold spaghetti but after a couple of bites my stomach stopped growling. 

What there was a lot of in the apartment were bookcases, overflowing bookcases. I looked at some of the titles of the well worn, dog eared paperbacks and made a face. Most of them were that kind of stuff they try and make you read in highschool that you just end up buying the Coles notes to do your book report with. There was Dickens, Brontë, Austen, Shakespeare, the lot. Not a single dime store romance novel like I usually found in the collections of the girls I banged. 

My phone vibrated in my hand, almost causing me to drop it. I’d forgotten I was still holding it. There was a text from Tazer. 

‘She’s too good for you I can tell from here’

I smirked and put back a coverless copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

‘It’s my dick she sucked’ I sent back and laughed to myself. I knew what the response was going to be before my phone vibrated again. 

‘Loser’ was the exact reply I’d expected. I was about to send back another text, I was just trying to think of a good name to call him when I heard a rustle of sheets and then her bare feet hitting the floor. She rounded the corner, wiping sleep from her eyes and then stopped and stared at me. 

“I thought you’d left,” she muttered and just for a second I thought she looked disappointed. 

“No babe, I’m still here,” I told her and offered her what was left of the apple I’d been eating. She waved me off and went to the fridge where she took out a bottle of water, twisted off the cap and downed it like she’d just done a two minute shift. I watched her neck work as she swallowed and followed the long line of her neck down to her tits with their rosy pink nipples and felt my body stir in appreciation. I tossed the apple core into the kitchen sink as I monitored a drop of ice cold water sliding down over her collarbone, right before I caught it with my tongue. 

I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her onto the counter. She looked a little startled but mostly bemused as I settled myself between her thighs. 

“Don’t you ever get tired?” she asked. I grinned and shook my head and slid my cock home.