“Glassware,” he said, reading the sticker I’d labeled a box with. “I’ll let you unpack that one.”
“Are you sure you guys don’t want pizza?” I asked.
“Yeah, we have to eat at this cookout we’re going to,” Ford said.
“I’ll have a couple pieces of pizza,” Dom said. “I’m wasting away over here.”
I needed to take a shower and unpack. But all I wanted was to sit here and keep talking to Ford. Every time he took a sip from his beer bottle, I wondered what it would taste like on his lips.
Thirsty kitty, party of one. Being single for more than a year had made me, well…hot and bothered. I didn’t like to admit it, but my battery-operated boyfriend just wasn’t the same as a real live man. With muscles. And dark scruff. And an intense gaze that made me glad I was wearing a padded bra beneath my tank.
“I’m ordering pizza,” I said, opening an app on my phone. “What do you guys like on your pizza?”
“Pile of mail,” Dom said absently, sifting through the boxes that he was still unpacking. “I’ll just leave”
“Pizza toppings?” I asked. “This is your opening for a sausage joke, Dom.”
“Eleanor Lawrence?” Dom stared at me, looking dumbfounded after reading my full name on a piece of mail.
“My friends call me Elle,” I said, scrolling through the topping choices on the pizza restaurant’s app.
“Eleanor Lawrence from the Denver Chronicle?” Ford asked, his serious tone making me look up.
“That’s right,” Sam said proudly. “You’re looking at the youngest columnist in the Chronicle’s history. My girl’s a word ninja.”
Ford’s expression was different now. The warmth was gone from his gaze. Why had everything suddenly changed?
“We should go,” he said, standing up.
Dom was already halfway to my front door. Sam and I exchanged a confused look. I’d thought the four of us were becoming friends who would hang out after today. Now Ford and Dom couldn’t get out of here fast enough.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Both men had their backs to me. Dom turned his face toward Ford, waiting to see if he was going to say anything. Finally, Ford turned around, his brows lowered and his jaw set in a tense line.
“If we had known who you are…” He shook his head. “And if you’d known who we are…” He cleared his throat.
I gave Sam a what the hell look and she shook her head, as clueless as I was.
“We both play for the Colorado Coyotes,” Ford said.
My heart raced as his words sank in. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Guess two overgrown frat boys helped you move in,” Dom said coldly.
I’d written several columns about the Coyotes. I was strongly opposed to construction of a new professional hockey arena in Denver. Actually, I was strongly opposed to professional hockey in general. And football, due to the overwhelming evidence that both sports caused brain trauma. In one particularly fiery column, I’d called the athletes who played pro hockey “overgrown frat boys who get paid an obnoxious amount of money to play a game for a living.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, at a loss. “I wouldn’t have taken your help if I had known.”
Not because I didn’t need the help, or because I didn’t appreciate it, but because it wouldn’t have been right.
“You don’t know anything about what we do,” Ford said, his steely gaze unnerving. “You don’t know how much work we put into our careers or what this game means to some of us, or even to the fans who look up to us.”
“What makes you an expert on what I do and don’t know?” I demanded, arching my brows in challenge.
He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it immediately. “We’re leaving.”
“Maybe you should drop another couch on her foot,” Dom muttered.
Ford gave him a warning look and it clicked into place—he was the team captain. I knew his name well, but until today, I hadn’t known his face. He was a new player on the team, and since the end of the last season had been cancelled due to the arena explosion, the Coyotes hadn’t played a game in a long time.
“Whatever’s going on, you don’t need to be dicks about it,” Sam said.
“Honey, we’re not the dicks in this situation,” Dom said.
“Oh, hell no,” my best friend said. “You did not just call me honey.”
I shot her a look. “Just let them leave.”
“Right, so they can go slash the tires on the moving van? Or throw a flaming bag of shit on your front porch?”
Ford’s expression was aghast. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Now we’re criminals? Just because we play hockey?”
Five minutes ago, I’d been fantasizing about pepperoni pizza. Things had quickly devolved into a shit show in my new living room.
“No,” I said emphatically. “Our friends need to stop running their mouths. Thank you both for your help.”
Dom gave me a fake smile. “And thank you for mocking my life’s work. It’s been a pleasure, Eleanor.”
Sam gasped in disbelief and Ford practically shoved Dom out the door, closing it behind them.
“What the hell was that?” Sam asked.
I sighed heavily. “Long story. Why don’t we go return the moving truck and get some food? I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
“Yeah, okay.”
It was probably exhaustion that made me burst out laughing as I hobbled out to the moving truck in Sam’s flip flops, my toe swollen and throbbing beneath the makeshift paper towel and duct tape bandage I’d put on it. If only my family could see me now. Smashed toe, driving a moving van, and getting into an argument with the professional hockey player next door. They’d say it was all very uncivilized.
It was exactly what I wanted, though, surly neighbor and all.
CHAPTER THREE
Ford
I always ate two Reese's Peanut Butter Cups about an hour before game time. One time in high school, I ate a package of Reese’s cups before a game and scored four goals. It became one of my rituals after that. One of our sports medicine interns, Ross, had been tasked with delivering my pregame snack this season.
“Did you sing the song?” my teammate Colby asked as Ross offered me the package of Reese’s cups.
Ross’s eyes went wide. He was a nineteen-year-old kid who looked nervous as hell most of the time.
“Song?” he asked, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“They didn’t tell him about the song,” Colby said while shaking his head, selling this prank like a champ.
I kept my head down, because I wasn’t going to encourage him, but I knew Ross had to take some razzing to be accepted in our locker room.
“I’ll help you out,” Colby said, clapping Ross on the shoulder. “You hold the peanut butter cup package in both hands, like this.”
Ross cupped his hands around my snack reverently, looking intently at Colby for further instruction.
“It goes like this,” Colby said, maintaining a serious expression as he started singing. “Ford Barrett, I know you’re gonna tear it…open! And consume it, eat it all, and then you won’t fall…score some goals, I know you hate foals. Boom!”