TYLER

“What are you doing over there?” Donovan calls out to me from across the other side of the living room.

My house is so big this place makes some of the episodes of MTV Cribs look like a rowhouse in comparison. Because of the size, the vaulted ceilings and open concept floor plan make the room appear four times the size of the entire house where I grew up.

I look up from the laptop rested on my thighs. “Nothing. Just fucking off on the Internet.”

“Porn,” he says as if that is the only thing I do on my computer, which is half right. “You can’t watch the good shit without me.”

He gets up from the lounge chair closest to the fireplace and hops onto the couch, rustling the cushions as he plops his big ass down. With his sudden movements, Roxie looks up at me with those big doe eyes and jumps off her doggy bed to join us. She nuzzles next to me, poking me with her cold, wet puppy nose and licks my forearm.

I pat her back and kiss her on the head. “Good girl.”

“Hand it over,” Donovan says, holding out his palm, “or throw it up on the flat screen. Sharing is caring.”

Donovan is one mammoth of a man with a dark, grisly beard he plans to shave now that our season is over. Despite being well over six feet and pushing two twenty, his boulders for arms and tree trunks for legs make my eight-pack and muscular build seem average. And there is nothing ordinary about me.

While this exchange between us may be somewhat strange, it’s not all that weird. Donovan snatches the laptop from me, peeking up from the screen his eyebrows arched. “This isn’t porn. What the hell are you reading?”

“It’s a blog I heard about.”

“Long Sticks and Hard Shots.” He tilts his head back and laughs. “That’s a good one.” Scanning the page, his eyes glaze over, and his mouth opens wide as he continues to annoy me. “You’re reading articles about sex. Aww, man, I can’t wait to tell the guys about this.” Taking his cell phone from the pocket of his gray sweats, he types on the keypad. “Man, I need to tell Parker about this.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” I steal the computer back from him, and he scoots closer to sneak another peek. “And it’s not like Parker will care now that he’s almost married to Coach.”

He nods. “Yeah, but what a score with that one.” Gripping the laptop with his bear hands, he tugs it away from me. “At least let me finish the article I was just reading. That shit was funny.”

‘Fine,” I snort, leaning over the computer as he places it on the couch between us.

Kennedy published an article this morning titled One-night stands: What the puck! She’s funny, I’ll give her that. Her use of hockey and sex to entertain her followers is much different from anything I have ever seen before online. Most blogs follow the same format, but her blog is original, unique—just like Kennedy. Based on her appearance alone on Saturday, I never would have pegged her as a funny, sporty, sex writer. Some people take you by surprise. In this case, it was a good one.

“Good morning, puck bunnies!” Donovan laughs at Kennedy’s use of the term for her followers and continues reading to me even though I have already read the post twice.

You know the joke that starts with a priest walks into a bar and the punch line is something stupid but still funny? Well, how about a puck bunny walks into a coffee shop and runs into her one-night stand? What do you do when that happens? Well, one of our bunnies had a run in with some hottie she took home one night, only to creep out of his bed in the wee hours of the morning to avoid the awkwardness later. But her plan backfired. Oh, yes, it failed miserably.

She bumped into him at her local Starbucks not long after getting it on. But what if you don’t live in a big city where the next Starbucks is only a few blocks away? What if you live in a town that has two restaurants and one coffee shop, and you’re stuck seeing this person every day? To be honest, I think you are screwed if that’s the case.

So, ladies, what do you do when you bump into a one-night stand? How about an ex-boyfriend? Exes are tricky because of the potential feelings that might still be there. Your feelings toward a one-night stand might be something along the lines of, Oh God he was horrible in bed or Why did I have sex with this idiot?

The worse is when you have a good buzz going, and the beer goggles are thick. Waking up next to a troll could give a girl a panic attack or maybe even a heart attack. That’s what happened to our bunny.

She woke up a few hours after their horrific sexual encounter, still drunk and disoriented, and ladies, he had a case of the baby dick. Need I say more? I don’t think so.

But our girl went through with it instead of pretending to have her period or making up an excuse. Anyway, so our bunny snuck out of his apartment, left her cell phone behind like Cinderella, and as if he were her Prince Charming, he somehow managed to track her down and find her at the local Starbucks where she gets her morning coffee. Her reaction was hilarious.

Our busy bunny told him to keep the phone and ran out of the coffee shop. But here’s the best part. He showed up every morning for three weeks until our follower had taken the phone from him.

If it were me, I would have done the same thing except I would have snatched up the phone. Is that the most mature response? No, probably not but it sure beats him asking you for another date. All I know is I would have been out the door faster than you can say, What the puck!

Donovan laughs and slides the computer back toward me on the couch. “Do you know this girl?”

“She’s the reporter we met a few days ago at Coach’s skills clinic.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “The girl you had coffee with?”

“Yeah, her name is Kennedy. She’s beautiful, smart, and likes sports. I had fun with her.”

“You’re not into her.” It’s not a question, and his tone makes me a bit defensive. I feel protective for some reason.

I shrug against the couch cushion and lift the computer back onto my lap. “So what if I am. Do you have a problem with it?”

His mouth twists in disgust. “It’s just…she’s not your type. That girl is kind of homely, not a bunny or a model.”

“Really, dude? Homely? That’s harsh.”

Propping my feet up on the coffee table, I sink into the dark leather and scroll through Kennedy’s blog post, reading it one more time before I decide to do something crazy and comment, ignoring him as he speaks.

“You know what I mean. Just not the kind of girl you’d go for. That’s all I’m saying.”

Laughing to myself, I type out, You talk about cocks way too much for a lady on Kennedy’s blog and hit submit. I made the screen name Kanenoshame07, making sure to use my last name and jersey number, so she gets the hint. I would love to see her live reaction as she reads my comment.

“She’s different, but maybe that’s a good thing. Bunnies and models just want to be famous. A girl like that wants nothing from me. And it’s not like that between us. She intends to write a story on me. I’m pretty sure she can’t stand the sight of me, thinks I’m a pig, blah, blah, blah…”

“She wants something from you alright. What kind of story does she want to write about you?”

“About my personal life.” I cringe at the thought of exposing my life to the world, knowing I can never let her write the story she needs to make headlines. “She wants to come see my house and where I grew up. Not a big deal.”

His jaw drops in shock. “You’re kidding me. What did you say?”

Roxie licks my face, and I wipe away her slobber with the my hand, running my hand down her back to massage her thick coat. “I said okay. I like her. She’s…interesting. I don’t know why you are getting all upset about it.”

“Because…” He hesitates for a second, his gaze shifting to the pictures on the mantle above the fireplace just below the massive flat screen TV hung on the wall. “Are you going to tell her about Payton and Blake?”

Looking at Blake’s picture, I shake my head. “No way. I already told her Payton and my family are off-limits. The last thing I need is everyone feeling sorry for me over the past, and it’s also none of their damn business.”

“She might expect more from you, and when you don’t give her what she wants, she may end up digging for it on her own.”

“If no one else has been able to find it after all these years, I doubt she will. She’s not the first reporter to want an exclusive about my personal life.”

“All I’m saying is be careful around her.”

Feeling left out, Roxie climbs onto my lap and barks at Donovan as if agreeing with him, crushing my computer and forcing me to set it aside to make room for her. For four months old, she already weighs a ton.

“I’ll find other ways to keep her occupied,” I say with a wink.

He laughs, settling into the cushions. “I’m sure you will.”