“Are you thinking about that chick?” Hammer guesses immediately that I’m preoccupied with Luce but can’t believe it. He asks in astonishment, “How can you miss her? Didn’t you spend all night hauling her ashes?”
“Hauling her ashes?” I shake my head. Hammer’s getting stranger and stranger.
“No bueno?” He pulls out his phone.
I shake my head. “It sounds like she’s dirty inside.”
“Hmm. I don’t want that.”
“Why are you even asking? Aren’t fuck, sex, laid, and tapping it good enough?”
“I’m writing my next article about obscure sexual euphemisms.” He makes a few notes in his phone.
“How the hell did you decide to write that?”
He grins. “Apparently the magazine gets a lot of searches for that topic, so we’re beefing up our search engine optimization by writing on topics people are interested in. What do you think of doodling the alphabet?”
“Only if it’s oral, but are you really doodling? I mean, if you’re doing it right, you should be applying some serious pressure down there.”
“Fuck, man, since when are you requiring dirty sex terms to be so damn precise?” He presses the delete key on his phone a little harder than necessary.
“I don’t know.” I reach for my beer. This conversation requires me to be a lot drunker than I am. “You asked for my opinion and I’m giving it to you.”
“Yeah. Yeah. How about sheathing the sword?”
“Doesn’t sound very obscure. That’s been around since the Middle Ages.” I drink half the bottle. If I get drunk enough, I can drown out Hammer and forget Lucy. Actually no, if I get too drunk, I’ll probably end up outside Lucy’s apartment.
I did agree to only one night.
Or did I?
I mean, she said one night, but I don’t remember making any explicit promises that I’d stay away.
“What about caulking the tub?”
I raise my hand. “Caulk the tub?”
He grins. “It’s white. Sticky. You’re spreading it all over her.”
I want to give him shit, but he’s kind of right. “Is this a list for construction workers or women?”
He makes a face. “Good point. Was it any good?”
Normally I didn’t have a problem sharing details with Hammer. Hell, we’d even double-teamed a girl or girls from time to time. So why did the thought of him knowing anything about Lucy’s body, her thready moans, her propensity to fuck with her lips slightly parted and her eyes squeezed shut make me want to put a fist through his face?
“What? Not telling me?” He sits back with a smirk. “Are you in love? Should I shake my tux out of storage? I barely hung the thing up after Masters' wedding.”
“I like her. Deal with it.” I scowl and pick up the controller again. How’d this off-season become so damned complicated? One minute I was bathing in champagne and the next I’m stressing about the team and now a girl.
“You’re not messing with her, are you?” Hammer’s concern for Lucy should piss me off, but it’s Hammer.
“How come Masters didn’t get this lecture?”
“Because he was a virgin. It was obvious he was in love with Ellie or he wouldn’t have given it up.”
“You think I’m an amoral dog? You wanted me to date your sister, for Christ’s sake.” Okay, now it’s starting to piss me off. Hammer’s done his share of the dirty deeds when it comes to girls. “Do I need to bring up suitcase girl?”
“Nah, man.” He flushes under his dark skin, and I feel a tiny bit guilty bringing it up. Hammer always says his lowest moment was that night. “Look, you’re a good dude and an awesome teammate, but the whole ‘girl hiding in a suitcase’ is exactly why I’m worried. We’ve done some shit neither of us are particularly proud of.”
Casual sex had been our modus operandi since I broke it off with Megan at the beginning of my sophomore year. Hammer had never been able to stick with one girl, no matter how hard he tried, so we figured the next best thing was one-night or two-night stands with girls who wanted the same thing—no-strings-attached fun in the sack. Or the bathroom. Or the nook by the ice machine in a hotel. The out-of-town girls were the absolute best. They knew you were coming in for the night and didn’t expect anything but a good time.
I delivered on every occasion. Lucy wanted the same thing, so why didn’t it sit right?
Hammer does write for a women’s magazine. He’s got sisters. Of all my friends, he’s the most qualified to give advice...I think. Fuck it. What do I have to lose by getting another point of view here?
“Lucy was the one who wanted one night. Think she means it?”
“Dunno. Why not text her and find out?”
Why don’t I just text her? She did, at least, give me her phone number last night before kicking me out. I want to slap myself on the forehead. And I told Luce to stop overthinking things.
I pull out my phone and start typing.
“How about surfing the curve?” Hammer says.
My fingers pause over the screen as my mind takes a minute to figure out exactly what the hell Hammer is talking about. “I think I read that on the Black Twitter hashtag.”
“Fuck. I think I did, too.” He presses the backspace on his phone.
Shaking my head, I text Lucy.