Pucked Up (Pucked 2)

“What happened?”

“I got a puck in the face playing street hockey.”

She sucks in a breath. “That must have hurt.”

“Lots of things hurt. They were gonna put braces on me, but then they didn’t have to. I got these titanium implants, instead. They give you good drugs when they put those fuckers in. Anyway the accident fixed my teeth in the end, so I guess the pain was worth it.”

“That’s a lot of pain for a nice smile. I hope you wear a cage now.” She wipes my forehead one last time. “Okay. It looks like you’re dick free.”

I sit up. “Thanks for taking care of that.”

“No problem.”

I stand and extend a hand to help her up.

“You’re a lot different than I thought you’d be.”

“Is that good or bad?”

She smiles. “It’s good. You’re nice.”

Lance yells for me to come outside. When Poppy doesn’t make a move to follow me, I pause. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I need to use the bathroom, wash all this stuff off my hands. I smell like a fruit salad.”

“Okay. See you in a few.” I grab the shake Natasha made, the bag of rice with my phone, and the charger and go outside, where Lance and Randy are already in the pool. I plug in the phone near the barbeque, check to see if it’s working—it isn’t—and down my shake.

Lance looks like he’s having trouble keeping up. Randy seems to be doing okay, though. I jump in, dunking my head and rubbing my hands over my face to wash off the residual hand sanitizer and the artificial-fruit smell.

“Took you long enough,” Lance says through heavy breaths.

“No thanks to you, dickface.”

“Shut up, both of you.” Natasha blows her whistle. I hate that thing. “Miller, suicides in the shallow end. I want twenty.”

Lance grins and gives me a thumbs up.

Natasha points to him. “You too, Lance Romance.”

At least I’m not alone in hell this morning.CHAPTER THREE

ALL THE HONEYS IN THE HOUSEAfter half an hour, I notice that Poppy, the girl who rubbed the dick off my forehead, hasn’t come outside. Maybe she went back to sleep. I don’t have time to ask questions; Natasha is on a rampage. She’s definitely annoyed with Lance, who’s the least motivated of the three of us.

He keeps getting distracted by Flash Beaver, the chick he boned last night. He must have had a few bikinis lying around his house, because she’s dressed in a tiny white one that barely covers anything. Dick Yeller is wearing a pink bra and yellow panties. I try not to look at either of them and stay focused on the exercises.

Plyometric workouts are intense on dry land, in water and hungover, they’re pretty much torture. We’re on round three of cardio break when the doorbell rings.

I look to Lance, who’s sitting on the edge of the pool, not doing what he’s supposed to. “Who’s that?”

“I invited a few people over.” He nudges Flash Beaver and asks her to let whoever it is in.

Lance doesn’t invite “a few” people over. It’s not how he works unless it’s to get his fuck on with some bunny, like last night. That these girls are even still here is surprising. Usually he calls them a cab first thing in the morning and ships them off. Flash Beaver must’ve been a lot of fun.

“Where’s your friend?” I ask Dick Yeller.

She looks up from her phone and gives me a funny look. “She went to answer the door.”

“No. The other one.” I motion to my forehead. “The dick remover.”

“Oh! Poppy? She wasn’t feeling well. She took a cab home.” She goes back to staring at her phone.

This chick seems like a seriously shitty friend.

Natasha’s already out of the pool, packing up her stuff. I’m sure we weren’t finished, but it’s clear she’s given up. Flash Beaver comes back with a couple of guys from my team and some girls I’ve never seen before, which is a good thing. I lift a hand in greeting, then grab the weights and bands we didn’t get to use. Lance gets off his ass, not to help, but to greet his company.

“Sorry about today.” I fold everything up the way Natasha likes it and pass it over so she can pack it in her duffle bag.

“You were fine; the other two were the problem. I don’t think these home sessions work very well.”

“It woulda been fine if Lance had gotten rid of the bunnies.”

Lance lives outside of the city on a massive piece of property in a gigantic house. He has a complete weight room and a track in his backyard. His pool kicks ass. And the hot tub is great after a serious workout. I won’t be using it today, since I don’t know what happened in it last night. We started scheduling training sessions here when the weather got warm. That way I wouldn’t have to deal with all the bunnies at the gym. Unfortunately, Lance started bringing them here instead.