“You’ve always been exactly the friend I’ve needed. And I’m doing better now. I might not have been that way for very long, but I feel like I’m coming back to myself, only a better version of me,” I said.

“So can I call you Aubrey 2.0 then?” she teased.

“No, but you can feed me and then let me beat you at cards tonight,” I countered.

And that’s exactly what happened. We shared a great meal of steak and baked potatoes—because what guy doesn’t like his meat and potatoes? And let’s be real for a minute and admit that Lexi definitely had her guy in mind and not me when picking out the menu. Then some of his friends came over for poker. We had a blast, but I couldn’t help but be a little worried when I left and realized that my libido must not have awakened as much as I had thought. I’d just spent the evening hanging out with a bunch of hot guys, but I’d barely flirted and hadn’t found myself truly attracted to a single one of them. What the hell is up with that?

chapter 2

LUKA

“Luka, get your head back into the game,” Coach barked at me as I missed a pass.

The season so far wasn’t going great for me. I’d pushed myself too hard over the summer with all the shit that had gone down with Kat and blew my knee out. Stupidest fucking thing ever. I didn’t know what the hell I’d been thinking except that hockey was saving me from doing something incredibly foolish. Instead, I had done the most idiotic thing ever and put my scholarship at risk by injuring myself.

When I got back on the ice with the team at the start of the school year, I was behind the eight ball. I should have improved over the summer, but I messed things up and regressed. So Coach was all over my ass because I kept screwing up. I needed to push through all this shit before I found myself riding the bench for most of the season. Because it didn’t matter how well I’d played for the team the last three years. Coach was a ‘what have you done for me lately?’ kind of guy. And I hadn’t done jack shit lately.

“Dude, you okay?” Jason asked me. He was a good friend. We had both joined the team as defensive linesmen at the same time and found ourselves paired together most of the time. We’d also been roommates for the last two years when he’d convinced me to move into the apartment his parents had gotten for him.

“Yeah, man. I’m fine. I just need to pull my head out of my ass and get back into the game like Coach said,” I shrugged it off.

“You need help with that?” he asked, not letting me minimize the problem.

“Help with pulling my head outta my ass?” I joked.

Jason grabbed my face mask and pulled me forward. “No. Do you need help getting back into the game? Because I can get us some extra ice time if you need it. I already called the rink in town and they have open slots that we can use if you want ‘em.”

That right there was part of why Jason and I got along so well. He’d seen me struggling and gone out of his way to help solve the problem. He had my back all the way, both on and off the ice.

“Shit, man. Yeah. Set it up and I’m there,” I answered before slapping his stick with mine and skating off.

The rest of practice went a little better. I felt a renewed sense of purpose and hoped like hell the extra ice time would get me back up to fighting condition. Because I sure as hell didn’t want the mess with Kat to ruin my last season with the team. Hell, this was the last time I was going to play competitive hockey. I needed to enjoy it as much as possible, because after this year, I’d be relegated to men’s league games at one of the rinks back in Chicago.

****

Jason jumped on it as fast as possible, and I found myself on the ice with him every day that week. Throw in classes and team practices and I didn’t have much free time. It was probably a good thing because adjusting to my new single life was harder than I’d expected. I wasn’t used to partying with the guys all that much seeing as I’d kept it to a minimum the last three years. I hadn’t wanted to put myself into situations that could damage my relationship with Kat. Which was pretty damn ironic now that I thought about it since she’d apparently been fucking her way through campus the whole time while I hadn’t even danced with other girls. I hadn’t wanted to give anyone the idea that I’d ever even consider cheating on my girlfriend back home.

The guys used to tease the shit out of me for it, too. They hadn’t brought it up at all since we got back to campus. I figured Jason had let them all know it was a sore subject for me and they respected me enough to let it go. Instead of talking it to death or razzing me about what had happened, they’d dragged me to party after party and all the bars in town. They figured I’d be all for hitting everything that moved because I finally had my freedom. What they didn’t know was that I’d lost my taste for easy pussy. Sure, I’d banged some chicks back home to work through everything. Hell, I’d even fucked Kat’s best friend, thinking it would make me feel a little better. Only my revenge had made me feel worse because I realized that nothing would fix what was broken.