Regan and I sit beside her. Dax got us special seats outside of his normal season tickets for the playoff games. Regan and I will be attending them together, but my parents were not about to miss the first one and any others they can make.
I turn my attention to the ice. I can’t even begin to count or remember all the games I’ve seen my brother play in, which have included playoff games with other teams—including a disappointing conference finals loss when he was with Toronto. But there’s something about this team that transcends Dax’s prior league experience.
I wasn’t bullshitting Dominik last night when he asked my opinions on the playoffs. He has built something utterly magical with this team, and I can even see it in the way they skate their warmups. Every guy out there is focused and determined, yet… they all have an easygoing grace in their attitudes. It’s as if they’ve accepted the highly pressurized situation they are in, and they’ve decided to channel it into the most brilliant positive energy I’ve ever seen.
There’s no doubt… part of that comes from Tacker finally settling back into the first line. The man has been through so much and while much of it was beyond his control, it had to have had a negative impact on the energy of the team. But—and I’ve heard most of this from Regan—he seems to have found a true love of life again after falling for his therapist, Nora. That has, in turn, brought them all closer together.
Proof is in the fact the first line helped Dominik decide to allow Rafe Simmons—our talented leader of the second line—to go to Raleigh to join the Carolina Cold Fury in an unprecedented deal. No one has ever effectuated such a trade of players on the eve of the playoffs, particularly between the top-ranked teams in both conferences. All the sports news networks exploded this morning with the story, although Dominik had told me all about it over carbonara last night.
And then… true to his word, we went back to bed where we did not leave until this morning.
I normally don’t do sleepovers since they tend to signify “something” more than just sex. I have to give Dominik credit, though.
We did extraordinarily little sleeping.
“So,” Regan whispers as she leans into me, nudging her shoulder against mine. “Are you going to tell me how it went last night?”
We haven’t seen each other today. By the time I’d gotten home from Dominik’s, Regan was gone for a shift at her contract job as a pediatric nurse. Thank God Dax was gone, too. That way, I didn’t have to suffer his condescending disappointment about me sleeping with his boss.
But whereas Dax has a healthy dislike of Dominik’s interest in me, Regan has full-blown romantic fantasies.
Needing to disabuse her of them, I scoot closer, needing to talk loud enough to be heard over the music but not so much my parents, who are on her other side, can hear. I even cup my hand around my mouth so the words go directly into her ear. “We had sex four times last night, and it was stellar.”
“Wow,” she replies, awed. “Four times? Dax and I have never—”
I throw up my hand to cut her off. “We are not discussing my brother’s sex life.”
Smirking, Regan edges closer. “So, what… are you two dating now?”
My return grimace should be enough of an answer, but I make sure she understands. “No, of course not. I don’t date. Neither does he. We met for mutually advantageous orgasms is all.”
Her curiosity is not appeased, though. “Does that mean you’ll meet again for the same?”
I shrug, although Dominik seems to think so. He told me as much when he dropped me off after the breakfast he’d promised—which was served in bed, yummy, and followed by more sex.
“You’re coming home with me after the game,” he told me after he’d insisted on walking me to Regan and Dax’s door where he’d proceeded to kiss me breathless.
But then I recovered my breath enough to argue about it.
Regan nudges me in the ribs, but I ignore her. I’m tired of talking about the never-ending complexities Dominik Carlson seems to have brought into my life. Instead, I let my gaze focus on the ice, pretending to be enamored with the Vengeance warmups.
I mean… I have to trust Dominik and I are on the same page. I think we both had a meeting of the minds in addition to the other parts of our bodies that met last night.
He’s a player and not ready to settle down. I’m relationship averse and believe there’s nothing wrong with a woman in this modern world partaking in a sexual relationship with a man without expectations of it going any further than some fun times.