The Fifteenth Minute: A Hockey Romance (The Ivy Years Book 5)

Lianne

NOTE TO SELF: anger and adrenaline can make even a drunk girl move fast.

By the time I make it inside my entryway door, I’m seething. Stomping up the steps to the fourth floor does nothing to improve my mood. The asshole paparazzo has ruined a perfectly good kiss. And there aren’t that many kisses in my life. It’s not like I have kisses to spare.

What must DJ think? It’s a pain in the ass to hang around with me, that’s for sure.

I’m still angry as I brush my teeth, still irritated as I climb into bed.

Falling asleep is difficult, too, as my mind runs through a blurry reel of the evening’s spectacular events. Maybe they’re not spectacular to anyone else. But look at me! I hung out on a Saturday night, just like anyone would do. I made an a cappella singer jealous with video game weaponry. I drank a margarita or four. I rehearsed Lady M’s part with the hottest boy at Harkness.

And he kissed me again. Many times. But even when I was brave and kissing the stuffing out of him, he wouldn’t take me to bed. He brought me home instead.

Damn.

In my mind, I replay the kisses several more times, because that’s more fun than worrying. Then I sleep.

It’s noise that wakes me up in the morning, as usual. I almost wrap my pillow around my head in the standard evasive maneuver. Then I realize that the noise I’m hearing isn’t the sound of Bella and Rafe in the mad throes of passion, but my phone ringing.

Grabbing it off my bedside table, I see DJ’s name on the display. “Hello?” I squawk after swiping the screen.

“Aw, you’re sleeping?” he asks.

“No.” I clear my throat. “Okay, yes.”

He chuckles into my ear. “It’s late. I thought it was safe to call.”

“Damn.” No wonder the room is so bright, and there’s nobody yelling, pound me, Rafe! Harder! I’d slept through it. “What time is it?”

“Eleven.”

“Wow, really?” I don’t know if I’d ever slept so late before. “My dragons must be hungry.”

DJ barks out a laugh and says something under his breath. It may or may not end with so fucking cute. “How’s your head?”

I give this some thought. My head is perfectly fine. But why is he asking? “Um… It’s okay. Shouldn’t it be?”

There’s that chuckle again, low and soft in my ear. I just want to climb through the phone and rub that sound all over my body. But I guess that would be weird.

“You got a little tipsy, that’s all,” DJ says softly. “I think it was the tequila.”

“Right.” Now that I’ve had a moment to wake up, the details of last night are coming into focus. The video game and Amy’s ornery face. The tasty margarita Bella and Scarlet gave me. And the one Pepe poured me after that. The dancing. And then DJ in the kitchen… Oh my God. I groan out loud.

“I thought you said your head was okay,” DJ prompts.

“It’s not that.”

“Your stomach?”

“Ugh, no.” It’s my poor injured dignity. “Did we…talk in the kitchen?” I remember sitting on the counter. We kissed, and I said… Holy hell. Please, Jesus, let me not have said those things out loud.

DJ’s silence is not encouraging. And when he speaks, the amusement in his voice is unmistakable. “We may have talked in the kitchen.”

“Right.” And I said I wanted to treat your body like my own personal lollipop. “Oh man. So that’s what happens when I drink tequila.” DJ’s chuckle is audible through the phone. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” he says, his voice amused.

“Can we never speak of this again?”

“Okay?”

“I’d better run,” I say quickly. I need to get off the phone and hide under something. Preferably forever.

“Wait.” DJ laughs. “There’s a favor I need to ask, too.”

“Really?” I can’t imagine what. And if he’s going to make a joke about licking, I will die.

“I have, uh, something I have to do next Saturday. And there’s a women’s hockey game I’m supposed to DJ at five o’clock. There’s a sub I called once last year, and he was okay. But I wondered if you wanted to do it.”

I’m listening so hard for him to tease me that it takes a minute to sink in. “Really? You’d let me DJ a game?”

“Of course. You’d be great. The pay isn’t much, though. Fifty bucks. I’m sure you usually work for a lot more than that.”

“I don’t want the money,” I scoff. “I want the power.”

He laughs. “Don’t ever run for office, babe. Or if you do? Pick another slogan.”

“This is going to be great.” Seriously. I can’t wait. “Saturday, right? I have six days to prepare.”

He rewards me with another warm laugh. “Don’t spend too much time on it. I know you’re busy.”

DJ may know me better than any other guy at Harkness. But he clearly hasn’t witnessed me on a tear. And I have so much to do before Saturday. So much. “Can I choose my own playlists?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you!” I squeak. “Gotta go now.” I need to find some sporty, ass-kicking songs by women. Like, dozens of them.

“Okay, sweetheart. Have a good morning.”

“I will. Later!” We hang up, and I’m halfway to my computer before I remember again that I told DJ I wanted to lick him everywhere.

The groan I let out probably shakes the walls. Because Bella opens my door and sticks her head in the room. “What is it now? Another bad sex scene?”

I wish. “No. Just regrets.”

Her eyes widen. “Really? How’s your head, anyway?”

Why does everyone keep asking that? “It’s fine, actually. I might be one of those people who doesn’t get hungover.”

“Of course you don’t. Then how’s your sex life?”

“Bella!” The question catches me off guard, and my cheeks immediately flame like the coils in a toaster.

My neighbor grins at me. “Ah ha! You two finally did it! Your number just doubled, you hussy. How was he? DJ has that quiet, serious thing going on. I’ll bet he’s a very focused lover. And good with his hands…”

I clap my hands over my face. “Stop! Even if there were juicy details, I wouldn’t share them.”

“Wait—no details? You didn’t make the monster with two backs?”

“Ugh. Nice image.” I fling myself on the desk chair. “We didn’t. For a minute I thought maybe we would. But then we didn’t, and he brought me home.”

“Well, okay,” Bella says, twirling the end of her bathrobe tie. “That’s progress, right?”

“Right.”

“You could always ask for it, you know.”

“Um…” Actually I don’t know. “Not sure I could put it into words. Not sober, anyway.” Too embarrassing.

Bella snorts. “Sure you could. Repeat after me, okay? ‘DJ, let’s get naked. I want to bounce on your dick.’”

Yuh! “That is not a sentence you will ever hear me say.”

“Never say never,” Bella chides me. “If you can’t say what you want, how do you expect him to give it to you?”

I made a grumbly noise. “It’s so obnoxious of you to make sense.”

“Honey, I know. Now get dressed. If you don’t have juicy details, I need brunch. Right now.”

“I need a shower,” I whine.

“Then take it already. Feed me food or sexual exploits. It’s one or the other.”

I’m hungry too, I discover. So I do as she suggests and head for the shower.