But he doesn’t remember any of it.
I sink my teeth into my lower lip.
I don’t know what to do about that, or if I should tell him why we slept together. I don’t have the strength to tell him what I told him last night. What if he was just drunk? What if he didn’t really mean it? But then where does that leave us? A part of me is hurt that he forgot. Another part of me is relieved.
I sigh heavily, taking a bite of my cold eggs. Either way, getting into bed with Grayson Wolfe has altered our relationship, and now I need a way to navigate it while making sure I don’t get hurt in the process.
I drop my fork, my appetite gone. Why are my thoughts so tangled? I keep jumping from one thought process to another, anxiety eating at me. So far, Grayson has quite obediently accepted my scolding and anger. But I know this man, and he’s cunning. He knows exactly how to wear me down, and he’s going to have questions about how we ended up in bed last night.
“Why me?” I groan.
Burying my head in my hands, I wish the ground would just swallow me whole today so I don’t have to face the consequences of my reckless actions from last night.
The universe does showme the occasional kindness.
As I sit on a bench three days later, I thank every deity out there for making Coach Ramirez drag Grayson away for grueling practice sessions for their “friendly” match on Saturday. The poor man is so exhausted by the time he gets home that he just collapses in bed face down and is out of the house by first light.
He and I haven’t managed to have any conversation, much less an interrogation. Three days have passed like this, and I let myself relax as I watch the game. The padded bench sits behind the players’ area, a half wall of plexiglass between us and the rink. Ethan is glued to my hip in a puffy coat two sizes too big for him.
I have never been to a hockey game from this side of the glass.
The cameras started the moment we walked in. Six in the tunnel, four at the family entrance before Grayson’s publicist whisked me past a press line with one hand at my back like she’d been doing it her whole life. Now they’re aimed at me from the press box, from the boards, from the row above us where two photographers are pretending to take pictures of the rink while taking pictures of me.
I tuck Ethan’s face against my coat without thinking.
“Easy, mama bear. We’ve got a strict no-faces rule on the kids at family games. Family entrance only, no press inside the rope.”
Brody drops onto the bench next to me. He’s the big one that Grayson once described as a refrigerator with feelings. After two months of practices, he and I have an arrangement: I tell him his protein intake will kill him before he’s thirty, and he tells me I’m a buzzkill.
“I’m just paranoid,” I mutter, dropping my hand from Ethan’s face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Must be plenty considering you chose Grayson to go out with.” He smirks, flexing his arms. “I mean, you passed up on this.”
“It keeps me up at night,” I drawl, and he grins.
As I adjust Ethan’s sleeves, Brody chuckles. “No wonder Coach approved of your relationship. You’re so protective of the kid. You almost seem like one of us.”
I open my mouth to ask what he means by that because the phrasing snags on something, but a body hits the boards in front of us with a crack. Brody is already growling low in his throat, every line of him gone tight.
Grayson is on the ice on his back.
My stomach drops through the bench.
The opposing player skates away with both hands lifted in mock apology while a referee glides toward the spot, hand on his whistle, taking his time about it. Grayson is up before the refreaches him, shaking his head once like he’s clearing static. Then he turns, picks his line, and skates back toward the player who hit him.
I’m on my feet, tense.
What happens next takes maybe four seconds.
Grayson reaches the player, drops his shoulder at the last instant, and drives him into the boards so hard the plexiglass shudders. The player goes down. He stays down. Grayson glides past with his stick loose in his hand, lifts one gloved finger at the ref to show exactly what he thinks of that earlier call, then turns the finger on the player still grunting at his feet.
The player swears at him in a string of words I can’t catch.
Grayson grins. Then he flips him off.
A laugh cracks out of me before I can swallow it.
Brody is wheezing beside me. “Yeah, he’s fine.”
