Gauging the Player: A One-Night-Stand Sports Romance (The Playmakers Series Hockey Romance Book 3)

the lap dances. I was just making sure Hunter and Wyatt stayed out of trouble.”
“And now?”
“And now I don’t give a shit. I just wanna go home.” Quinn shrugged. “If they get in trouble, it’s someone else’s problem. I’m tired of babysitting those idiots. I was hoping to catch a ride with you to the arena.”
As Gage was opening his mouth to reply, his attention snagged on a woman with long curly blond hair talking to a guy in the adjacent parking lot. He squinted to get a better look. Her arms were crossed, and she seemed to be leaning away from the guy. Nothing threatening, but she looked uncomfortable as hell. He took a few steps in their direction.
“Nelson, where are you going?”
“Just need to check on something. Keep an eye out for a white Altima with a pink Lyft sign. That’s our ride.”
Gage increased his stride. As his focus sharpened, his breath caught.
“Lily?”
The woman lifted saucer-wide eyes to him, and the dude, a forty-something, swiveled his head, surprise all over his face.
“Uh, hey, Professor,” she squeaked. “How’s it going?”
Gage pointed at the man. “Is he bothering you?”
A few inches shorter than Gage and obviously not in good shape, the guy took a few steps back. “I-I just wanted to be sure she got in her car safely,” he stuttered.
Confused, Gage looked between the two. Lily’s expression bordered on alarm—whether it was caused by the dude or her seeing him, he had no idea. He made a snap judgment call and addressed the dude. “I’ll make sure she gets where she needs to go. You can take off.”
The guy scrambled away and hopped into a car, though Gage hardly registered it for being hyper-focused on Lily. His heart pounded in his chest.
“You are Lily, right?” He didn’t need to ask. He’d recognize her anywhere.
She seemed flustered. “Identical twin?”
“Nice try.” Shit, she still wants nothing to do with me. What the hell did I do? He blew a forceful breath through his nose, his mind careening like one of Disneyland’s spinning teacups. Where’s she been?Why did she take off?
Behind him, Quinn called, “Lyft’s here.”
Gage spun, which was when he noticed the guy was still sitting in his car, eyeing him warily. Was this guy playing guard dog? “You take it, Quinn,” he shouted back.
Quinn saluted and grinned. “Admiral, I expect you to behave yourself and be at practice on time.” There was no mistaking Quinn’s repeat of one of Gage’s worn caveats. In his own defense, however, any guy wearing the A needed to act the part with his teammates—even if it meant keeping their asses out of trouble at strip joints.
Gage watched as the Lyft pulled away. To Lily, he said, “Do you want to go somewhere so this weasel leaves you the hell alone?”
“He’s not a weasel. He’s just …”
He arched his eyebrows. “So you want him following you?”
She shook her head.
“This your car?” He pointed at a gray Toyota Highlander beside her.
“Yes. Could I give you a ride somewhere since yours just took off?” Her eyes darted back to the dude, and she waved at him as if to say, “You can leave now.”
“That would be fantastic.” He followed her to her driver’s side door, opened it for her, then retreated to the passenger side and clambered into the seat, but not before shooting a glare in Weasel’s direction. Weasel seemed satisfied—or defeated—and pulled away slowly.
Good. Because right now all of Gage was zeroed in on his goal: to find out where this woman had disappeared to last summer and why. The incident still grated on him, and he wanted to spout the speech his bruised ego had cobbled together that gray morning when he’d woken up alone. Emotions ran a four-hundred-meter relay race inside him. Shock, anger, curiosity, more shock, wounded pride.
As they waited in charged silence for Weasel to merge onto the road, the front seat—hell, the interior of the whole damn car—felt like an ion storm was brewing. This was different from the electrical rope he’d felt tethering him to her that heady night, though no less powerful.
To his consternation, her fragrance drifted his way and slung him right back into her soft bed, the one in which he’d awoken naked that morning, drifting in a sea of warm contentment, coming to in a fuzzy, leisurely cadence. When he’d reached for her, the sheets beside him had been cold, empty.
He’d called to her, only to be crushed by disappointment. All she’d left behind were the empty wine bottle and a note with his name scrawled on it.
Dear Gage,
Last night was magical. Thank you for making this girl feel special.
Wishing you a wonderful life.
xo
Hoping he’d missed something—like a way, any way, to contact her—he’d reread the note several times. The message could have easily said, Hey, thanks for the use of your dick. In the end, that had been what it was about, hadn’t it? Only sex. Well, amazing sex, but nonetheless, he’d let himself get worked. Used. Notched into a bedpost.
The incident had been a valuable reminder of why he didn’t date. Women viewed him in one of two ways: he was either a bottomless bank account or a rock-it-all-night-long fuck. And yeah, he could rock it all night long, but he preferred to share with the right woman. And the right woman—one interested in what was behind the pro hockey player façade—wasn’t among women he typically met.
His attraction to Lily had dazzled him, hoodwinked him into believing they had a special connection. A connection worth exploring, that went beyond one night.
But he’d been wrong.
She cleared her throat. “Looks like he’s gone. So where to, Professor? Or is it Admiral?”
Gage snapped back into the Highlander’s stifling atmosphere. “Blizzard Arena, please.”
As she guided her car onto the street, silence shimmered between them, so thick he could almost touch it. Though he reined in the urge to steal glances at her, her rigid posture behind the wheel insisted on floating in his periphery.
Finally, he side-eyed her.