“So, what do you want to do tonight?” Alex asks me as we head toward the locker room.

I look back over my shoulder at him to tell him I’m not doing a damn thing with him tonight when I crash into something warm and soft. My arms immediately go out to catch whomever I just plowed into and I get a big handful of breast even as my head swings back around.

“Oh…shit…I’m so sorry,” I say as I release her breast, and my hands reach out to balance her by her shoulders.

A beautiful dark-haired woman laughs and stares back at me with big gray eyes. “It’s okay. It’s not every day I get plowed over by the Garrett Samuelson.”

I give her a grin and let my arms drop from her. Ordinarily, I’d use this opportunity to continue touching and ramp up my flirting, but this woman before me holds no interest.

“Maybe you could buy me a smoothie to make up for it?” she suggests in a confident manner, and normally that shit would turn me on. No coy flirting, no guessing games. Let’s go get a smoothie…and, hey…let’s fuck too.

“As tempting as that sounds, I’m on a tight schedule. But I am sorry for almost knocking you over,” I tell her with an apologetic smile.

“Sure, no problem. See you around,” she says with disappointed look, and then she’s forgotten.

I head off toward the locker room, but Alex’s hand on my shoulder stops me. “What the fuck was that?” he asks in astonishment.

“What?” I ask, bewildered, as I shrug off his hand and sit down on the bench in front of my locker.

“Turning down that woman. She practically invited you out for a quickie,” Alex said pointedly.

“So what? Not the first time that’s happened. Sure it won’t be the last,” I tell him blandly.

“Yeah…but that is the first fucking time you’ve turned a woman down.”

Snickering to myself, I understand Alex’s befuddlement. And I feel absolutely no need to enlighten him at this point. It’s sort of fun watching how this confuses him.

“Big deal,” I tell him nonchalantly, and I try hard not to laugh over the look on his face. Opening my locker, I take out my toiletry bag and towel, and head toward the showers.

Alex blinks as if to clear his head, opens his mouth as if to argue with me about my apparent lack of interest in women, but then snaps it shut as he follows me into the showers.

I step up and turn a nozzle on the long row of showerheads protruding from the walls. Alex takes the one next to me, and does the same.

I briefly consider doing a quick shave while I’m in the shower, but last night Olivia had admitted to me during our postcoital glow that she loved the scruff on my face. So I decided to leave it for now, even though it scratches like hell and is uncomfortable in the summer heat.

“So, anyway,” Alex says as he lathers up his head with some shampoo. “What do you want to do tonight?”

“Tonight?” I ask dumbly.

“Yeah…I told you Shelley was coming in to visit Sutton for a few days, and they’re going out tonight with some friends. Remember? We were going to hang. Maybe go on a pub crawl or something.”

“We made plans?” I ask blankly, because I seriously can’t remember this.

“Yeah, dumbass. Remember, because we don’t have practice tomorrow since we’re scrimmaging in the afternoon, so we both figured we could go tie one on tonight and sleep it off in the morning?”

Okay, I am now having a vague recollection of this, but doesn’t matter…my plans have definitely changed.

“Can’t,” I tell him while I step under the spray to rinse off the body wash I had been soaping over my skin. “I’ve already got plans tonight.”

“Damn right you do,” Alex growls. “With me. We made these plans last week.”

“Sorry, girlfriend…I’m going to have to break up with you. I have someone much prettier than you that I’m going to see tonight. I hate it if I’m breaking your heart,” I tell him with a grin.

“No fucking way,” Alex snarls, and throws a bar of soap at me. It pings harmlessly on the wall behind me. “I’m getting stood up for one of your one-night stands? You can get that anytime.”

I know Alex isn’t really that angry, and I know he thinks that I’m going out for my standard, par-for-the-course pussy banging, but the fact that he is wrong and he’s talking about Olivia that way causes me to grit my teeth a little.

“It’s not like that,” I tell him as I turn the water off and grab my towel to loop around my waist.

“Then how is it?” he asks me curiously, because apparently my tone of voice told him that something unique and different must be going on with me.

“I’m actually going out on a second date with someone. We went out last night and there was a connection.”

Alex laughs and punches me on the shoulder. Turning off the water on his own shower, he chuckles. “Good one, dude. No, seriously…what do you have going on tonight?”

“I’m serious, man. I went out with a woman that I really like, and I expect tonight’s not going to be the last time I see her either.”

“Holy shit!” Alex exclaims. “I can’t believe it. The great pussy master Garrett Samuelson has fallen for someone.”

“I haven’t fallen,” I say carefully. “But I do like her. She’s really great.”

Alex steps by me and his voice loses every bit of teasing and male crudeness. “If that’s the case…I’m seriously happy for you Garrett. So, how did you meet this woman?”