Page 25

Myles is right at my side, chuckling as he leans forward on the bar, ordering his boys another bucket of beers.

They had a good game tonight, won 3-0, complete shutout, and he didn’t fuck things up, like the last time when I was at the arena.

Rowan and I also didn’t have the best seats in the house either. Which was fine. Maybe it kept us from getting kicked out again. It was a fun night. I never thought I’d actually like hockey, but you know, stranger things have happened. Like fighting and flirting with a hockey player.

Wait, not flirting.

Fighting.

Aren’t they supposed to be fighting with other hockey players? Guys their own size?

“Hey, Pint Size,” Myles mocks.

I ignore him. Because what else am I supposed to do? What else can I do? Rowan fucked things up for me. She grabbed my phone and texted him on that dating app. She told him to get lost because she thought he was a catfish, not an actual hockey player.

None of that matters because it’s what he did after that with pretending to be Conrad and standing me up that is unforgiveable.

I pretend not to hear him. Maybe if I act like he doesn’t exist, he’ll take his beers and disappear.

But I can’t be that lucky. I’m never that lucky.

No, instead, he steps closer, invading my personal space. He’s right next to me, his hand firm on the bar, leaning in, making sure I can smell that perfectly good scent of his.

Damn him.

At least he can’t tell what it does to me. I avoid meeting his stare, keep my eyes away from his, because if I lift my head, he just might see the flush of my cheeks and my pupils dilating.

“Funny, she ignores me.” He doesn’t let it go. “You weren’t doing that the other night, when we got you kicked out the arena.”

“Ah ha!” I turn and jab a finger up at him. “I knew it was you!”

He had to have been the reason we were kicked out of the Ice Dragons game last week. There was no other reason for it to have happened. None. At least we weren’t put on some list banning us from that place forever. I’d been a little worried, Rowan hadn’t seemed to so much as flinch at the idea when she showed up at my place with tickets, surprising me for tonight’s game.

“Finally, she doesn’t give me the silent treatment,” Myles says, smirking.

“I wasn’t—” I start, but he’s right, I was giving him the silent treatment. I mean, he totally deserved it. “What do you want?” I grind, doing my best not to seem too interested or invested in this guy.

He opens his mouth, leans in close to my ear, and a shiver slides down my spine when I feel his breath tickle my skin.

“Well?” I snap, yanking back. He’s too close, invading every inch of my personal space, and it’s making me nervous. I stare up at him, waiting for him to answer. Wondering what asinine thing will come out of his mouth next, because it’s always something with him. I’ve barely spent more than five minutes with him and we already hate each other.

“I want you to accept my apology,” he says, and the sparkle in his gray eyes makes him almost look sincere.

Rowan reaches across the bar, her arm toward Myles. “She accepts.”

“No. I don’t,” I grit between clenched teeth. My eyes are wide and I kick my leg back under the bar at Rowan for even suggesting that I’d accept anything that Myles gives out.

He’s a fucking cockroach.

A bottom feeder.

He is the kind of guy that I’d never date.

Rowan ignores me and doesn’t seem offended in the slightest by my foot smacking her ankle. She ignores me. “My bestie, Juniper, has something she’d like to tell you.”

Myles’s gray eyes lighten a shade and widen as he stares at me. “You do?” It’s like there’s hope in those swirling gray eyes, and I refuse to give him any reassurance at all.

“Shut up, Rowan.”