9. Kate
KATE
I’m not saying I like Adam Foley now, but I do like that he hates Phoenix so much.
I also like that he’s using his thumb to stroke the palm of my hand right now.
And the way he circled the edge of his wineglass with his fingertips earlier.
And the fact that he worked so hard growing up and that he has a nice relationship with his billet parents. It shows that he has good character. When he’s in, he’s all in.
But that’s it.
I hate everything else about him.
Especially the way he’s making me feel tonight.
In front of all these people.
The bastard.
I really want my ex to see how over him I am, but I am not going to let Adam Foley win this stupid date.
“Well…” he says, glancing down at our joined hands.
“I mean, I could go on all night, but the main thing—aside from the fact that his name is Phoenix… The thing that initially pissed me off about your ex is that I never saw him at the rink when you were skating. Not at Kincaid Arena when you were practicing. Not at the outdoor rink. I never saw him at your competitions. And that told me a lot about him. If he wasn’t showing up for you when you were skating, then I knew he wasn’t showing up for you in other ways either. ”
Well, that was unexpected. I thought he was going to say that he hated how Phoenix doesn’t give a shit about hockey. Or that he has long wavy hair. Or that he didn’t like his music.
“So, were you okay with that?” Foley asks. “No judgment. I get how fucked up relationships can be. I’m just wondering why you stayed with him for ten years.”
“I was only with him on and off for ten years,” I correct him. “There were always months when we’d be on a break.”
“But did you ever date anyone else?”
I’m not going to answer that. He knows the answer to that.
That’s just rude to ask. “To answer your original question—I wasn’t okay with it, exactly.
I didn’t like that he was never there. But back in high school he told me it made him nervous to think of me falling.
Or not winning. And he didn’t want to make me nervous if he was there.
So he thought it would be better for both of us if he didn’t watch me skate. So he never did.”
Foley closes his eyes and shakes his head.
Not like he’s passive-aggressively making fun of me.
Like it actually pains him to hear this.
Which is so much worse. “That is…” He opens his blue eyes again and looks directly at me.
Like he’s mad. Not at me, but for me. “In Fort Worth we used to call that a steaming pile of horse shit. Did you think it was better if he didn’t watch you skate? ”
My cheeks are getting hot. I feel attacked. What is he playing at? “I thought Phoenix was hot and I liked that he was in a band. Okay? He wrote two songs about me. So. He wasn’t a totally horrible boyfriend all the time.” No judgment my ass. All he’s doing is judging me right now.
Adam Foley slow-blinks at me. I never noticed how pretty his eyelashes are before. What kind of world do we live in? Why does that jerk get to have long eyelashes? “You deserve a lot better than a not-totally-horrible boyfriend, Kate.”
I wait for him to add a joke, but it never comes.
Just like you with your ex-boyfriend, mumbles my uterus.
Bah-dum-bum.
Wow, I really need to stop drinking this delicious wine, she told herself while reaching for her wineglass.
“Oh yeah?” I say, as if I’m not mentally referring to myself in the third person while my uterus teases me. “And what exactly do I deserve?”
“You deserve what your friends have. Tina and Eunice, right?”
I nearly do a spit-take. “You mean with my brothers? No, thank you!”
“I mean the whole happily-ever-after thing with a guy who thinks you’re amazing and begs for blow jobs on their podcast.”
“Okay first of all, nice to know you’re still listening to the pod, and secondly, happily-ever-afters are not a real thing.
” I can sort of hear a voice in my head telling me to stop talking, but I ignore it because my clitoris is angry and throbbing and it wants me to say more.
“Everyone knows they’re a myth. Like sasquatch and orgasms with another person and the myth about cold pucks shooting faster. ”
Foley’s eyes widen and he raises his free hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up.”
“It’s true. We did an entire episode about hockey myths. Warm pucks actually—”
“No, sweetheart. The second thing. You think orgasms with another person are a myth?”
There it is. Judgment. “What’s your point? Not everyone has them—that’s a fact.”
He slow-blinks and shakes his head again. “That fucker never gave you an orgasm, did he?”
“What?” I finally pull my hand away and look around for a breadstick or something carby to put in my mouth. Why isn’t there a bread basket on this table? “No!”
“No, he didn’t give you an orgasm ever?”
“No, it’s none of your business!”
My outraged date smacks his hand down on the table, and I don’t know why I wish the table was my ass, but I do and I hate it. “That selfish bastard. I knew it.”
“You don’t know anything.” It feels like my sweater dress is on fire.
Why am I so hot? I scoot my chair back, causing the chair legs to screech as they scrape against the hardwood floor.
When I stand up, I get caught up in the stupid balloon ribbon.
When I smack the balloon heart out of the way, it hits a busgirl in the back.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I tell her as I grab my leather pocket organizer to take with me to the ladies’ room.
“The window in the ladies’ room doesn’t open enough to climb out of,” the asshole informs me as I smooth my hair down and walk very gracefully to the hallway at the back of the restaurant, refraining from making eye contact with anyone.
Shockingly, there’s only one toilet in this ladies’ room, but that’s great because it means I can lock the door and I won’t have to talk to anyone in here.
Why am I letting that guy get in my head, and why do I keep picturing his head between my legs?
After relieving some tension from my bladder, it is disappointing to find that there is still so much tension in my clitoris.
I wish this stupid little leather pocket thing had enough room for a vibrator.
I remove the largest item in the pocket—my phone.
I’m going to group-text my besties and ask them to come pick me up.
If they aren’t too busy blowing my brothers.
There are an astonishing number of DM notifications from social media, which is not too surprising.
But there is one very surprising text notification that is screaming at me—from Phoenix.
Hey, it says. That’s all. Just Hey. I haven’t heard from him in three months, and he sends a hey on Valentine’s Day when I’m out with Adam Foley.
I click on the conversation to see if there’s anything else from him.
An emoji. A GIF. An ellipsis. But no. Nope.
Just Hey. Nice to know he’s still a man of few words.
But he probably did find out about my date with Foley somehow, so…
Mission accomplished, I guess?
I think I’m done.
I think I need to go home before I break a chair over my date’s head when he asks me how many people I’ve slept with.
Do I really need to spend another couple of hours with Adam Foley to make it worth the insane amount of money my excruciatingly sweet, idiot friends and family donated?
No. I don’t. I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.
I fluff up my hair and apply lip gloss before marching out of the ladies; room to return to the table.
I’m going to ask the waiter if I can get my grass-fed beef to go, and then I’m going to go home and hate-vibe myself.
Or maybe if the busboy who delivers the flowers to my place tomorrow is cute I can have sex with him because clearly I need to get laid. By anyone except—
I’ve only marched three steps before someone grabs my arm and pulls me back around a corner, through a door and into a dark room.
He shuts the door, presses me up against a wall.
My body knows before my brain does that this someone is Adam “The Brooding Buckaroo” Foley.
I don’t even try to scream because his lips crash against mine.
His calloused fingertips are touching my face.
They’re in my hair. They’re dragging down the side of my neck.
They’re grabbing my hips and pulling me into him.
“What the hell are you doing?” I mutter into his mouth. My left hand asks another question of his left ass cheek, and that question is HOLY SHIT HOW MANY SQUATS DO YOU DO IN A WEEK?! “I’m leaving,” I tell him. “Where are we?”
“Supply closet,” he whispers into my ear. “Nobody ever comes in here during the dinner rush, but you have to be quiet.”
“I don’t have to do anything in the supply closet with you,” I hiss. Except get my hand under your sweater so I can touch your abs real quick. “God dammit, how are you this ripped?”
His lips press against the skin just below my ear, and oh my God, what just happened? I think I just got electrocuted. In my lower abdomen. He kisses my neck, and I have no idea why it feels so good. Maybe if we stay in the dark and he doesn’t talk I can just pretend he’s someone else. But who?
Because the only man I’ve seen when I’ve closed my eyes for years is Adam “Get Out of My Head” Foley.
“Let me make you come,” he says. His hands follow the curves of my hips, up my waist, and he maneuvers my arms up over my head as he presses the hardening length in his pants against me.
“What? No way. How? When?”
He finds the leather pocket organizer I’m still gripping in my right hand and takes it from me. “Right now.” His breath is hot against the side of my face. “Right here. I’m putting this thing in my back pocket so you don’t lose it.”
That is annoyingly thoughtful of him. “Pah!” I step my feet apart and squeeze my legs around one of his thighs, grinding down on him. It’s his right leg. The good knee. “That’s not happening.”