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He pointed at her. “I’m holding you to that.” He returned to the refrigerator, opening the door and peering inside. “Because you missed a scorcher last night. I scored twice.”
“Wow. Mindy really goes the extra mile, doesn’t she?”
He glanced over his shoulder, rolling his eyes, and then decided to hell with it. She was having too much fun at his expense. Time to give some back. “Twice on the ice. Three times in bed. Mindy’s the Energizer bunny.”
“TMI, hotshot.”
“Remind me again, Doc. When was the last time you scored?”
“On the ice? Never.”
Blake leaned back into the fridge. “Always denying yourself.” He shook his head, tutting in disappointment. “And it’s not just sex. Where the hell is your food? Because it looks to me like you’re living on condiments.”
Erika drifted around the counter until she stood behind him, peering into the refrigerator as well. “There’s yogurt in there.”
He rose, closing the door and crossing his arms. While Erika liked to give him shit about his casual hookups, Blake tended to return the favor when it came to her complete inability to feed herself properly.
“Erik. I thought you were going to start using Instacart, since you hate going to the grocery store.”
She sighed, no longer calling him to task over his nickname for her. The first few hundred times he’d called her Erik, she’d attempted to correct him. Nowadays, he got the sense she liked the name, though God knew she’d never admit it.
“I have a cart half built,” she said. “Just haven’t managed to finish it and place the order.”
“What are you eating for dinner?” he asked.
“I’ve been on nights this week. So I grab something from the vending machine or takeout from one of the restaurants in the hospital.”
Blake shook his head but didn’t bother issuing his standard lecture. It would be wasted breath. “I’ve got bacon and eggs at my place. I can make us some breakfast.”
Erika perked up at the sound of bacon. “Awesome. Let me grab a shower real quick and I’ll meet you back at your place in ten. I’ll bring the yogurt over to contribute to the meal.”
He grinned. “Great, but I get the blueberry.”
“That’s my fav—” She stopped, then sighed. “Fine. I’ll eat the peach,” she grumbled.
Blake left her apartment, crossed the hall to his place, and started to tidy. He wasn’t a messy guy, per se, but he also had a tendency to treat his living room like an extension of his closet.
He grabbed a jacket off the floor and hung it up, then grabbed the two pairs of shoes from the living room floor and tossed them into his bedroom. He’d strip the sheets after breakfast and get a load of laundry going.
Blake wouldn’t call himself a neat freak, but he also wasn’t a slob like Tank. He kept his apartment tidy, and he paid a woman to come in once a week to clean. It was the same housekeeper Erika used because, like him, she liked a clean house but didn’t have the time—or the desire—to do it herself.
Grabbing a frying pan from the cabinet, he pulled the ingredients he needed from the refrigerator, scrambling half a dozen eggs while the bacon cooked. He checked his messages once the eggs were in another pan. There were a couple texts from Tank, asking if he wanted to go out for a drink after practice today, and one from the assistant coach with some general information regarding their next road trip. They were flying to the West Coast the day after tomorrow for three nights.
The regular season had just begun, last night the first regulation game following two weeks of preseason. Winning the first game felt like a good omen to him, especially since they’d gotten knocked out of playoffs at the end of last season. He was looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.
He’d been playing for the Baltimore Stingrays the past four years, traded to his hometown team after six years with San Jose. While he’d enjoyed his time in California, there was nothing like coming home and playing for his dream team. He’d grown up worshiping the Rays, swearing to anyone who would listen that one day, he was going to be playing in the Baltimore arena and wearing the blue-and-white jersey.
There’s nothing like a dream come true, and that was what he’d been living the past four years. Initially, he’d shared an apartment with Tank, his new teammate offering the room vacated by another player who’d been traded to Vegas. While he and Tank were truly the best of friends, it hadn’t taken them long to figure out that friendship wasn’t going to survive if they remained roommates.
So three years ago, he’d moved into this apartment, and a month after he’d settled in, Erika took up residence in the place across the hall. He’d flirted with her pretty hot and heavy the first few months because, one, flirting was second nature to him, and two, Erika was a natural beauty. However, she’d rebuffed every single one of his advances.
Blake didn’t consider himself a cocky guy, but her continued refusals had started to sting, simply because he wasn’t used to being rejected.
Finally, he’d point-blank asked her why she wouldn’t go out with him, and Erika—who always shot straight—told him she wasn’t about to shit where she ate. She’d asked what he was looking for, and when he confessed he wasn’t interested in a serious relationship, she’d informed him that was exactly what she wanted…someday. Casual sex wasn’t her thing, so when she was ready to hop back into the dating pool—after her residency was over—she’d be looking for a prospective husband, not a one-night stand.
Since the H word gave him hives, he backed off on the flirting.
Erika successfully convinced him the two of them would be better off as friends, since they both loved their apartments and planned to stay there for the foreseeable future. When she pointed out how awkward it would be to run into each other after hooking up, he realized she was right.
