Page 49 of Icing on Top

“At least it’s clean. Levi has a beanie from when he was on this competitive snowboarding team, and it’s nearly brown from sweat. Jada’s tried multiple times to get rid of it, but somehow, he always finds it.”

Miah’s nose wrinkled.

“Hockey stench is awful, but snowboarder stench is just as bad,” I said. “Like wet dog mixed with sweat and a hint of musk.”

“Zoe!”

“Sorry. Too detailed?” I giggled.

He bent down to press a kiss to the tip of my nose. “It’s a good thing your kitchen is filled with the delicious smell of baking cookies right now.”

At the reminder of cookies, I twisted around in my spot to check the time. I gently nudged Miah back far enough that I could slide off the counter. Bending down, I switched on the oven light and peered through the little window at the cookies to gauge their readiness.

“I’d say about two more minutes.”

“You know that just by looking at them?”

I stood upright, hands propped on my hips. “When you’re baking nine hours a day, five days a week, you get pretty good at it.”

Grabbing the wax paper, I prepped the counter my butt had previously occupied for the cookies to cool on. Miah opened a drawer to retrieve oven mitts and waited for my cue before removing the cookies from the oven.

“Good?”

I looked them over, analyzing the ratio of golden edge to soft center, and then nodded. “Perfect.”

He held the tray for me as I scooped the cookies off and onto the wax paper. Then he placed it on the stovetop before returning the oven mitts to their designated drawer.

“So…” He casually took a step closer, a dark eyebrow raised. “Somewhere comfy now?”

His hands found my waist before I could even string together a response. My brain had short-wired seeing his eyes go dark again.

“Somewhere comfy.”

Chapter 20

Jeremiah

I’d filled up two pages in my sketchbook this afternoon leading up to dinner with Zoe’s aunt and uncle. My nerves made zero sense, but anxiety didn’t exactly care about logic. Sure, it was only a step down from meeting her parents—Calvin and his wife being pseudo parents for her ever since she’d moved to Denver—but I’d known Calvin since Charlie joined the Puffins three years ago. I hadn’t been dating his niece back then, though. Being a parent of one of his players was worlds away from being the boyfriend of his niece.

My heart stuttered at the title. Boyfriend. I still wasn’t used to it, but damn, did I like it.

As predicted, all the worrying was for naught. Calvin didn’t act any differently around me, and I found myself relaxing back into our familiar banter.

“Zoe here told me that she beat you playing one-on-one.” He smirked, eyes darting back and forth between the two of us.

My jaw dropped in shock, and I looked at Zoe incredulously.

“Excuse me?” I scoffed. “It ended in a tie, thank you very much,” I reminded her.

Zoe pointed a finger at me. “I would have had that last shot if you hadn’t cheated and picked me up,” she argued.

“Yeah, Daddy had to go to the penalty box for holding,” Charlie chimed in from across the table.

Calvin’s eyebrows rose, his amused smile just making me even more flustered as they teamed up on me.

I raised my hands to ward off any more jabs. “Hey. All’s fair in one-on-one.”

Especially when you had a crush on your opponent and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what it felt like to hold her.