Chapter 3
Gray
“Let me get this straight,” Celena says as she cradles her glass of Chardonnay later that night at the local wine bar.
I want to explain that wine glasses have stems for a reason – so the heat from her hands doesn’t warm the wine – but I bite my tongue. I’m an admitted wine snob and also what they call in the wine world an ABC drinker…Anything But Chardonnay.
“A tall, gorgeous professional hockey player just walks into your office today,” she goes on, “asks you to fix his trash talk problem, and offers you an obscene amount of money to do it?”
“Technically the HR guy offered me the obscene amount of money,” I correct, “but otherwise, that’s the gist of it.”
Celena takes a long gulp of her wine before setting the glass down.
“I hope you bought a lottery ticket before you got here,” she says, “because the stars must be aligned.”
“No lottery ticket. I still haven’t accepted it happened.”
“Have you told your boss yet?” she asks, leaning forward. “Don’t you have classes and shit?”
“I did, and I do, but Melinda tentatively okayed it. I still have to teach classes and advise, but she agreed to suspend all my other university obligations, and she all but promised me tenure if I make this happen. The funding they’re offering is too good to pass up.
She just wants the university’s lawyers to look at the contract to see if we can negotiate around the NDA so I can publish any results that come out of the… I’m not even sure what to call it.”
“Do you get to go to games?” Celena asks. “Will you meet the rest of the team? Ooo! Can you get me an autographed jersey?”
She gets more excited with each question, but I have to burst her bubble.
“I’m not even sure I’ll agree to it yet.”
She looks at me like I just told her the beehive hairdo is coming back in style and I’m thinking of getting one.
“Gray, why wouldn’t you agree to it?” she asks incredulously. “Between the money and the opportunity to work with a professional athlete, this is a no-brainer. And have you seen the man, for God’s sake?”
“Oh, I’ve seen him. That’s the problem,” I counter. “How the hell am I supposed to work with a man like that for the next few months?”
“How the hell can you not?” she shoots back.
I sigh and take a sip of my Malbec. I opted for the heavy stuff tonight.
“Look, that’s not the main reason I’m wavering,” I say.
“If I have to, I’ll give myself a few orgasms before I meet with him, then put on my big girl panties and do what I can to help him.
My bigger problem is that I don’t actually know how to help him.
All my work is theoretical. He needs a practical solution, and I don’t have time to research and test one for him.
Best case, I may be able to put a bandage on the problem.
Worst case, I exacerbate things, he’ll be kicked off the team or sent back down to the farm league, or whatever they do in hockey, and I’ll have wasted thousands of dollars of Kaladin’s money and pissed off not only a billionaire, but the entire state of Connecticut. ”
Celena stares at me, then takes another healthy sip of her wine.
“Or,” she says, holding up her forefinger, “you could succeed in finding a solution and pioneer a psychological treatment that turns him utterly trash talk-proof. He, in turn, helps the Hydra win the Stanley Cup, and the entire state of Connecticut rejoices and re-embraces professional hockey. Both Ash Gunnarsson and Max Kaladin are so grateful that the three of you become a throuple, and you live happily ever after with your billionaire and hockey star husbands, which I swear I saw in a novel somewhere.”
I roll my eyes. “Polygamy is illegal. I could only marry one of them, and how on earth would I choose?”
Celena lets out a long groan. “Jesus Christ, Gray. How does your brain always fixate on the one negative in a sea of positives?”
Celena is the ever-optimist to my little cloud of doom. Give me any situation, and I can tell you the ten different ways it can go sideways. Celena, on the other hand, is still convinced she’ll one day take that flight into space she’s always wanted.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but this could derail my whole career if it goes wrong. I’m just getting traction, and I can’t do anything to jeopardize it.”
My phone pings with an incoming text, but I ignore it.
“You’re writing a book, aren’t you?” Celena asks. “Can’t this be like a case study or something? Just take lots of notes about working with this guy, then turn them into a book.”
“I can’t do that unless the university’s lawyers get the NDA thrown out, or at least changed.”
Celena considers this. “Okay fine, but I think our first step here is to get you back on a dating app.”
I blink at her. “What? Why is that our first step?”
“If you’re going to work with this guy, you’ll need a boyfriend. You need to be getting sex from somewhere because, let’s face it, that man puts some models to shame.”
I deflate. She has a point. Regardless of how things work out with Ash, it may be time to put myself out there again, but I’m not excited by the idea. I dread it.
Aside from my introversion, there’s also the way my last relationship ended.
The one that turned me into a paranoid stalker by the end.
The one where I spent the entire day before a date in a state of raw-nerve anxiety until the guy, Drew, inevitably canceled on me at the last minute, and I fell apart.
My phone pings again with another incoming text, and I swipe in the pattern to open it. I frown as I see who the texts are from.
“I’ve got two messages from Ash Gunnarsson,” I tell Celena.
Her eyes widen in excitement. “What do they say?”
I open the texts, and there’s a short message as well as…
“Holy shit!”
“What is it?” she asks, peering over my phone to see the screen.
“He sent me a God damn dick pic.”
“What!” Celena grabs the phone out of my hand, and her eyes blow wide as she looks at the screen.
“Holy fuck,” she says. “That’s…that’s a really nice dick.”
I grab the phone back from her and read the texts. The first came in about a minute ago.
Ash
I was thinking about you. We should get together.
That message sits above a picture of an erect cock that lays across a toned stomach.
It’s hard to tell its exact size from the picture, but I’d guess it’s above average both in length and girth.
There’s a slight upward curve to the shaft, and the base is nestled in a short smattering of curly brown hair.
The message attached to the pic reads, “In case you need some incentive to think about the offer.”
I force myself to click the phone screen off.
“Gray,” Celena says, “if you needed a sign from the universe about what to do, I’m not sure it can get much clearer than that.”
“It’s a sign alright. A sign I should run for it.” I shove the phone back in my purse before taking a big gulp of my wine.
Celena sighs, downs the rest of her Chardonnay, and clunks the glass onto the table. She takes one of my hands in both of hers.
“Honey,” she says, “I’m not sure where you got this fear of life, but I’m telling you now that, as your best friend, I’m not letting you turn down this opportunity.
I don’t know what prompted this man to send you a dick pic less than six hours after meeting him, but whatever happens with that is incidental compared to the opportunity you’re being given to work with a professional athlete.
Let’s not make assumptions just yet. Maybe the pic was a mistake. ”
I blow out a long breath. I suspected the same. He must’ve meant to send the pic to someone else. The thought eases my mind in some ways but not in others.
“You’re probably right,” I say. “He’s drunk, and he sent a booty call to the wrong person.”
“Exactly. Just disregard it for now. In the meantime, we need to update your dating apps and get you back out there.”
Gray
Later that night in bed, I scroll through one of the dating apps Celena put me on.
It’s a new one where you can search through potential partners based on a set of criteria and then, for each result, you tag the person with up to three categories.
The categories range from “Cross to the other side of the street” to “Good for a one-night stand” to “Dear Future Husband.” The more people you tag, the more the algorithm learns what you like and curates a list of people you may wish to reach out to.
If you and another person select at least one of the same categories for each other – all except for the cross the street one – the app will notify you both that your goals match. The name of the app is InSync.
Celena also has me on one of the older, more established apps as well. She wanted to put me on four or five dating apps, but I don’t have time to check them all, so I limited her to two.
Celena also created my profile for me. I’m listed as a teacher, because I learned that listing my occupation as “professor” intimidates men. According to my profile, I like sports, talking dirty, and drinking wine.
The picture of me she chose was taken at the beach this past summer.
She’s cropped out of it, and I look pretty good in my bikini.
My breasts are a C cup, and they’re decently perky in this top, but I worry about the message the picture sends to the men on the app.
I’m not looking for just sex. I want an actual boyfriend.
I look over the profile of one guy who works in finance and likes to take his boat out on Long Island Sound during the summer. He’s decently attractive and a couple years older than me. I tag him as “Let’s have coffee” and “Down to have dinner,” then shut down the app.
It’s late and I have one of my early classes tomorrow, followed by two back-to-back ninety-minute committee meetings.
I can get out of at least one of those meetings in the future if I start working with Ash, but I have some serious concerns about accepting this project, not the least of which is having to see the man whose dick pic still sits on my phone.
I stare up at the ceiling.
I will not look at the dick pic. I will not look at the dick pic…
I grab my phone and open it to pull up the dick pic. I really need to delete it, but I can’t bring myself to do it. If I were a different kind of person, I’d be on the phone with the tabloids auctioning it to the highest bidder. Fortunately for Ash, I’m not that kind of person.
Unfortunately for him, I am the kind of person who’s going to pull out my vibrator and masturbate to the pic before bed.
Celena was right. I need to get laid.
I reach into the second drawer of my nightstand and pull out my vibrator and a dildo. It usually takes both to get me off, and I take one last good look at the picture of Ash’s cock before setting the phone aside, turning on the vibrator, and laying back on the bed.
I press the vibrator to my clit to get things going, and when I feel myself get wet, I slide the dildo in. I haven’t used it much lately, so it fits tightly, and I can’t help but wonder how Ash compares. I think he’s bigger than the dildo, but I can’t tell for sure from the pic.
I start to rock against the toys, and the sensation builds quickly. I imagine Ash above me, moving between my legs as I grip his shoulders and rock my hips into him.
What would he be like in bed? He’s a hockey player, so aggression must be in his nature, but he’s also got that boy-next-door look about him. Would he be a gentle lover, or would he take me hard and fast?
I always tell myself I want the former, a man who’ll make love to me slowly, but it’s the thought of the latter that sends my body into overdrive.
I come as I imagine Ash driving into me while he tells me what a great fuck I am. I cry out as I hold the vibrator to my throbbing clit, and my muscles spasm around the dildo.
When I finally come down from my orgasm, I shut the vibrator off and lie there to let my breathing return to normal.
A minute later, I pull my phone off the nightstand and google, “When does the NHL season start?” Opening night is October 7 this year, a week and a half from now.
I do a search on the Stanley Cup playoffs. Those start in April and go anywhere from mid-June to late June, depending on how many games have to be played. Each round is the best of seven games, so teams might play only four games, or they might need all seven.
Six to nine months. That’s how long I could potentially work with Ash if I agreed to do this.
Six to nine months to come up with an intervention that will ‘fix’ him.
Six to nine months of having to look him in the eye after masturbating to the dick pic he almost certainly sent me by accident.
I sigh and reluctantly delete the pic from my phone. If I’m going to do this, I need to start with a clean slate. No more fantasizing about him. I had my one lapse, and now it’s time to be professional.
I shut my phone down and plug it into the charger. I’ll double check with Melinda tomorrow that I’m okay to do this, then I’ll email Kaladin’s people. They can tell Ash. There’s no way I’m texting him, since I don’t want him to think his dick pic was a deciding factor.
I grab my toys and head into the bathroom to wash them off. My clean slate starts with rinsing the evidence of my shame down the drain.