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Because besides her broken heart, there was something else holding her back that she continued to keep secret from him.
She didn’t know how to tell Ryan that despite all her best efforts to ignore it, she couldn’t shake it anymore.
She needed to get Tyler Hayes out of her system.
Slightly Infatuated (12)
“So, which one is he?”
The thunderous thump of a puck slapping against the boards where they were standing jolted them both. It’d come off Ryan Baylor’s stick. Amara looked through the glass at him, and he sported the biggest smile she’d seen on him yet, clearly surprised to see her. “Seriously? You literally met him before!”
“I can’t fucking remember. Point to him.”
“That one. Number 21,” she replied, gesturing towards Ryan, as she and her new friend from work stood rink-side watching Bridgeport’s warmup skate.
Amara had almost forgotten what it was like to have a female companion. She’d lost touch with most of her female friends over the years, and the only ones she’d had recently bailed after the divorce.
Dani was a little younger than Amara, at 35. She was the lifeblood of The Bull, and all the patrons knew her by name. She was on the curvier side, with huge boobs and long hair that she’d let go almost completely gray, but it worked for her. She had a boisterous personality; if she thought it, she said it, no matter where she was or whether it was appropriate or not.
“I gotta warn ya, baby girl. I ain’t got no filter on this thing,” she’d told Amara the first time they’d met.
She’d trained Amara and they’d worked nearly every shift together over the past few weeks, where they’d spent a lot of time getting to know each other. Amara had told her all about the drama with Ryan and had dabbled in a little talk of Tyler as well. Since they both had this Saturday night off, she decided to surprise the boys by showing up at tonight’s home matchup against the Hershey Bears.
It’d been three weeks since the start of the regular season, and she hadn’t made it to a single game. She’d been busy; between working on a long freelance article whose deadline was looming, bartending, and banging the absolute shit out of her boyfriend, free time was in short supply.
That’s right.
Boyfriend.
After falling asleep and waking up in his arms after their first time together, she’d caved and reluctantly agreed to date him, even though he snored like an asthmatic grizzly bear. She had serious reservations about it, unsure if either of them was ready for it.
Amara’d consoled herself with the fact that she wasn’t the first smart woman in history to make a stupid decision just because the dick was on point, and she wouldn’t be the last. The next morning over coffee, she laid out some ground rules for him.
“So, if we’re gonna do this, we need to take it slow.”
“Um, my tongue was just in your asshole. Take it slow as in…?”
“As in you don’t post me on social media. Like, at all. I don’t want the attention and scrutiny that comes with that. And I don’t want our business thrown around in that locker room. Leave me out of there. Also, you’re not allowed to say the ‘L’ word. Ever. Until I die, then if you wanna say it at my funeral, that’s the only exception.”
“Amara. I mean this with all due respect. You’re the weirdest fucking woman I’ve ever met in my life.”
“These are your terms and conditions. Check the ‘I accept’ box or hit the ‘back’ button on your browser, kid.”
“Fine,” he said, standing behind where she was seated and wrapping her in his arms. “I accept.”
“And you do know that having a girlfriend means you don’t get to have sex with five Instagram sluts a week anymore, right?”
He sighed. “Fine. I mean, I can try to cut it back to like, three a week if I have to. Yes, Amara. I kinda figured that.”
“Just making sure. I mean, you’re a bit of a whore, Ryan.”
“I guess no one’s ever given me a reason not to be.” He reached an arm around to her face, grabbed it, leaned in, and gently turned it towards his. “Hey: I want this. I’m gonna do this. I…I can do this.”
“Let’s just both agree to give it our best shot, OK?” she said softly, still unsure about how all of this was going to play out, but physically unable to tell him no.
“Does this mean you’ll come to a game now?”
“I don’t know anything about hockey, Ry. Not a damn thing.”
