Juicy Rebound (IceCats 1)

Merry nods his head. His long blond hair falls from his mask into his face. He pushes it away, annoyed. “Exactly. Good for you. But then, why are you all brooding and butthurt?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Okay, maybe a little bit.” I groan as I shake my head. “I don’t know. It pisses me off that it’s been over a year since she left me, and she’s still bothering me.”

“Well, she’s a complete psycho, so what do you expect?” He says it so calmly and with no-holds-barred as he gauges my reaction. “And you know it’s true.”

I do. Everyone warned me not to marry Lana, that we were too young and didn’t know each other well enough, but I didn’t care. I’m not one of those guys who runs from relationships. Many of those guys play for the IceCats, Merry being one of them, and I don’t hate on them for it. I went to college with a bunch of guys who did the same. But I actually want the wife, the dogs, and the kids. I want a life with someone who loves me and whom I love. I want what my parents gave me. I thought I had it with Lana… Come to find out, I did not.

Lesson learned.

“Mom thinks I should block her number.”

“Mom is a genius,” he says genuinely. “You should listen to her more often.”

I chuckle a bit as I throw my gloves into the bucket and begin to pick up all the pucks. Merry starts pushing the goal toward the boards so the Zamboni can come through. “You just want my mom to keep cooking for you.”

“Always.”

We share a laugh as we head off the ice and into the showers. I squirt some body wash on my puff that is a manly green and start washing myself. From beside me, Merry asks, “You don’t miss her, do you?”

Even though he can’t see me, I shake my head. “I don’t. That ship sailed when she set my house on fire with my dog in it.”

Merry snorts before he jokes, “But remember, Moon? It was an electrical fire.”

I roll my eyes. I still don’t understand how she got away with that. If she hadn’t had my dog in her arms when I pulled up, I probably would have been sent away for murder. My poor Sadie would be parentless. “She’s a crazy person.”

“I told you not to let her back in.”

“My parents were out of town, and I needed someone to feed Sadie. I thought she would go in, do the task, and leave. Not try to move back in and freak when I told her no.”

When he starts humming the music from Psycho, I laugh. “You’re an ass.”

“I still think you should set that as her ringtone if you don’t block her number.”

I shake my head as I wash myself free of soap and then turn off the water. After drying myself and getting dressed, I sit down while he finishes up. I lean back into my locker with my Gatorade in hand as I say, “Women are crazy.”

“Preach, son.”

“But damn it, if I don’t want me a good one.”

“Man, I don’t know. If her profile says ‘Comes hard and loud,’ beware. She could mean that she farts hard and loud.”

Of course he would say that as I’m taking a long pull of my Gatorade. When the yellow liquid comes out my nose, he laughs hard as I flip him off. “I dislike you greatly right now.”

“In other words, I’m an asshole.”

“All day. I was trying to be kind.”

“Such a good guy,” he teases, wrapping his arm around my neck and squeezing it hard. “Want to go get a cup of coffee?”

“There is that place by my new house I haven’t tried.”

“Cool, let’s go. And then I can go lie on the beach and see if I can find a sexy little honey.”

I side-eye him. “You know all women fart, right?”

He scrunches up his face. “Yeah, but isn’t it supposed to be like fairy dust or something? That chick was rank.”

I picked a great friend with this one.

We get to Perk Me Up about thirty minutes later. Malcolm Peterson Arena is built in the middle of fucking nowhere. Only thing out there is the training facilities. Not even a Walmart. It’s sort of inconvenient. The town I live in, Molten, which is where most of the team lives since it’s the closest city to the arena, has everything I need. After living in Nashville, Tennessee for almost my whole life, I was nervous to come to an area so new. Thankfully, because I might be a mama’s boy, my parents came with me.

What? I need someone to do my laundry and cook for me. That’s all changed now, especially after my shitshow of a marriage, but they’ve stuck around.