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After I shimmy Donut into the harness my dad gave her for Christmas—it’s covered in illustrations of sprinkled donuts—I take her leash in my hand, and we step out into the night. The moon hangs low in the sky, casting a soft glow over the quiet neighborhood as we leave the stone path and head onto the sidewalk. There’s a gentle breeze rustling through the trees, carrying with it the faint scent of freshly cut grass and grapes, the promise of a rich merlot, the possibility of a crisp chardonnay.
Hollis walks beside me as Donut pulls eagerly at the leash, her tail wagging. I glance at the man by my side, catching the hopeful twinkle in his eyes.
The moonlight illuminates his features, highlighting the strong lines of his face, the fullness of his lush lips, the scruff coasting over his jaw. Even with Rhys’s attention at the table, Hollis’s note still repeats in my head—If you want to teach me what you like, I’d like to learn—and anticipation flutters in my chest all over again.
“So, about your note…” I begin, searching for the right next words.
Hollis chuckles softly, his warm breath mingling with the night air. “I was hoping you’d bring that up.”
“It took me by surprise. The gift and the note.”
“Why?”
Because no one has ever offered. Most of all because no one has ever noticed I fake it.
But the words stick in my throat. Saying them requires opening up in ways I just don’t like. Ways that are terribly uncomfortable. After my dad’s warnings came true with Steven—I opened up to that man’s man about my hopes and dreams and then he tried to steal my cat—I’m gun-shy. Vulnerability’s always been hard for me though, given the way I was raised, the guardrails my father erected with his words, the way I saw my parents’ romance splinter then leave shards in all of us.
My father who’s resigned himself to being alone, my brother who barely dates, and me who dates…badly.
This isn’t romance Hollis is offering though. It’s sex, it’s communication, and it’s experimentation. Isn’t communication part of what this whole contest is about too? Rhys is offering to play my boyfriend and Hollis is offering to be…a sex student. Takes a lot for a man to say teach me. I dig down and admit the hard truth. “No one has ever noticed before.”
“Have you always faked it?”
“Yes,” I say, and it feels even sadder to say it out loud.
“Briar,” he says, then wraps an arm around me. It’s a friendly gesture—affectionate, from the guy I play pool with. “We have to get you a happy ending.”
I laugh at his playful way of speaking, then swallow my laughter, digging down once more. I meet his blue eyes and whisper another confession: “I can’t stop thinking about it though. Your offer.”
His smile burns off too, his deep voice resonating through the quiet night as he rubs his hand across my shoulder sensually, igniting sparks across my skin. “Same here.”
My chest flips, my body urging me to say yes. But something nags at me. Is he offering because he thinks he’s failed? If this is an ego thing for him…I don’t think his plan will work. “But why? Why do you want to get me there?” I ask.
He stops, tilts his head, studies my face. “Because, call me crazy, but I have a feeling you’ve been dating the wrong kind of guys.”
“What gave it away?”
“I’ve dated the wrong people too.”
I was not expecting that. He seems so carefree, the kind of guy who breezes through life and rarely makes choices that irk him. “Really?” I ask as we resume our pace.
“Yeah. Really.” He takes a deep breath, looks away, then back at me. “I don’t trust a lot of people. I trust my family. My friends. My team. But when I date, I wind up…forgetting that. Trusting the wrong people. People who want the idea of the athlete rather than the reality.”
That’s an interesting way to put it. “The fantasy of the hot hockey player?”
“Your words.”
I let my eyes roam pointedly up and down his muscular body. “You’re hot. Empirically.”
An eyebrow arches in challenge. “Just empirically?”
“Fine. Empirically and actually,” I say, faux begrudgingly.
“There. That wasn’t so hard.” He squeezes my shoulder, and I do like this affectionate side of him—the way touching comes naturally to him in a way it doesn’t to me. He continues, “Anyway, I wind up dating women who don’t want the reality. The guy who’s traveling, who’s dealing with tired muscles, needing lots of sleep, time to practice. Someone who’s obsessed with the job. But I have to be. I take care of my family. I’m the one who’s going to put my little sisters through college. I’m the one who helps my mom out because she deserves it.” There’s passion in his voice, but frustration too.
“You do that for them?” I ask, touched by his caretaking.
“Of course,” he says, but not like there was no choice—more like it’s one he was grateful to make. “My mom’s the best. She’s my biggest fan. All of our biggest fans. She came to every single game of mine, and she went to every play Maggie performed in, and helped on every science project Maya worked on, and she made sure we helped around the house, and she was just…there.”
