In the seat beside me, Axel rubs his face to wake up. He feels around for his phone, then smiles at whatever message is waiting for him from his wife.
“New picture?” I prompt when he gets that sappy look on his face.
He grins wider, but the way he presses the screen to his chest instead of showing me makes me think it’s not Otto’s drooly grin that put the look on his face.
“Hear from Boomer?” He sits up to stretch his back with a muffled groan I’m guessing has something to do with that hit he took in the third.
Pulling out my phone, I show him the text from around the end of the first period.
“Jesus,” he says, pulling it from my hand and then scrolling and scrolling. And scrolling. “Think he’s struggling sitting out?”
The text is a running commentary on the game, on how “the new kid,” aka Gulls, and I play together, which plays had him sporting wood, how boners used to be fun, what April made for dinner. And then he wraps it up asking if that red-headed bunny from the last time we were in Philadelphia was at the bar.
“Struggling? Little bit. My man has a hard enough time off-season. He’s got to be losing it stuck at home and missing actual games. I’m heading out to see him tomorrow after practice.”
Axel puts out his fist for a bump. “Any idea when he’ll be back on the ice?”
“Last I heard, at least a couple of weeks. Fucking infection.”
That sigh says it all. It sucks for him and for all of us who want our teammate back on the ice with us.
“He’ll be happy to see you guys.”
Plural. It catches me off guard because I’ve spent years training my brain not to jump to her. But of course I’ll bring Piper out with me. He’s her brother. Her family.
It would be weird not to take her.
And I didn’t even come up with the idea, so it’s not like I’m breaking any rules. Boomer’s or my own.
Once they let us off the plane, we head to our cars and drive home.
I always ride with Boomer, and no matter how long the road trip was or how hard we played, the guy’s permanent setting is “On.” He’s a talker, always has been. So this quiet on the way home is different. Nice. It gives me time to think, room for my mind to wander. But when it finds its way to the blue eyes and soft laugh that keep me up at night… nice turns to not-so-nice, and I flip on the hockey channel.
The apartment is dark when I let myself in, so I adjust the lights to their lowest setting and toe off my shoes so I don’t wake Piper. I’ll text her in the morning to see if she’s free to drive up for a visit.
I grab a glass of water and a protein bar and am stealthily making my way back to my room, determined not to look at her bedroom door as I pass. I don’t need to open it and make sure she’s home. I don’t need to let her know I’m here.
Do I?
Behind me, I hear the front door rattle and then open. I turn as Piper lets herself in. And everything inside me goes a little off.
She’s wearing miles-high heels. Her legs are bare up to the hem of a skirt so short it takes more effort than I thought I had in me to get my eyes off it. But things only get worse as I keep moving up her body. Her jacket doesn’t seem warm enough for a night in the low forties. Her hair is done up in this sexy twist that shows off the slender lines of her bare neck and shoulders. And that makeup.
“Big date tonight?” I ask before I think to stop myself.
She jumps with a little shriek that has me holding up a hand.
“Just me.” I point to my spinner bag. “Got home a couple minutes ago.”
“You scared the shit out of me.” Letting out a gusty breath, she locks the front door. “I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow.”
“Technically, it is tomorrow. But I should have texted to let you know.” We aren’t the kind of people who text each other. Except now we’re sharing space for a couple months… so maybe we should be? And maybe then I’d know who she was out with. “So… date?”
She ignores the prompt again, slipping out of the heels and then doing that thing women do where they hook their fingers into the toes to carry them. It’s… distracting. And yet another example of how off the mark I was, thinking she’d leave her stuff everywhere the way her brother does. The way she used to as a kid.
This place is even tidier than it was after I had it cleaned the day she moved in.
It’s weird how she can be so much the same and so different all at once.
“I’m wiped,” she says, pulling what looks like a half-length shish kabob skewer from her hair.
She says something else, but like a total asshole, I miss it completely. The entirety of my focus is on the pale silk spilling down past her shoulders in waves so soft—
“Anyway, congrats on the dub tonight.”
She’s brushing past me when I do the unthinkable. I reach out and touch her.
Not her shoulder.
Not the crook of her elbow.
Not any of the places still covered by her jacket.
I catch her bare, slender wrist, my fingers wrapping loosely around it as I pull her to a stop.
For a beat, we stare at that point of contact.
Jesus, the feel of her skin beneath mine— it’s like a shock to the system, waking up parts of me I’ve worked fucking hard to put to rest. I don’t like it.
“Bowie?”
My head snaps up, and I retreat a step, letting her go with an inarticulate grunt that only adds to the confusion already shining in those heavily shaded eyes.
Trying to undo this epically awkward moment, I scramble for something to say that doesn’t convey just how far off the rails I’ve gone.
Boomer. The visit. Right.
Except then she slips out of her jacket, and my tongue turns clumsy in my mouth.
“I want to go down—” Shit. Wrong. Where’s the rest of her dress? “Do you want to come—” I’m starting to sweat. I can feel it. I make my living performing with an arena full of eyes on me, but for some reason having this girl watching me when she’s dressed like some kind of a fantasy— some forbidden fucking fantasy —has all the words jumbling up in my head.
“Are you growling at me?”
Shit. I almost reach for her again. What the fuck is wrong with me?
At the last second, I shake my head and get it together.
“Sorry. Long night. I’m going to see Boomer tomorrow afternoon. You want to come along?”
The confusion clears, and she nods. “Yeah, I was going to catch the Metra up on Sunday.” She hesitates. “But if you don’t mind, a ride would be great.”
Piper
“You ready?” Bowie’s leaning against the back of the couch, those long, powerful legs filling out a pair of jeans in a way I’d really rather not notice. Same with the cashmere crewneck I picked out but my mom gave him for Christmas. I knew it would be gorgeous against his warm brown skin.
I spend a second digging through my slouchy bag in search of a distraction from the body and face I swore I deleted from my fantasy file. Finding nothing but the hair elastic I was looking for last night, I straighten with a smile like it’s exactly what I need.