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That soft settled deeper. “No.” Still barely audible. “It was just the right amount of hockey.” One corner of her mouth curved further, humor in those blue depths. “Especially since I’m a Gold fan.”
“Ouch,” I laughed, covering her hand with my own, pressing it lightly, not wanting her to stop touching me. “Them’s fighting words.”
Laughter and warmth.
So much better than ice and fury, sadness and death.
“Don’t worry,” she said lightly. “I have Rush colors too.”
“Damn straight you do.” I slid my fingers along the back of her hand, trailed them along the arm, discovering that she had a tiny tattoo on the inside of her forearm. Small and a faint gray. How had I not noticed that before?
I’d kissed my way across her naked body.
Though, I supposed, I’d kissed my way across all the fuckable parts. I hadn’t really focused on the others, hadn’t made love to her. Not in the way I should have.
Something else I would feel guilty about later.
“What’s this?” I murmured, brushing my fingertips along the fine, overlapping lines.
Her eyes flicked down, and she went quiet.
I worried I’d stepped on something painful again, something like Billy, knew that was the truth when her face went blank.
I waited to be shut down, to be snapped at.
Instead, her fingers pressed lightly against my jaw before she pulled back.
I let her go.
I had to, even though I hated it.
“Another time, yeah?”
My phone chimed.
She heard it, repeated, “Another time.”
My cue.
This time I listened to it. I released her, stepped back, and watched her walk away from me.
A-fucking-gain.
Twenty-Four
Billie Rose
“Tell me the truth,” I said, three glasses into my own personal bottle of wine and enjoying every sip of it, “how are youreallyfeeling?”
Bailey had weathered a curveball—one that had ended with her having a step kid and a baby mama in her life.
Both of whom were now living in my niece’s house.
Bailey, meanwhile, wasn’t doing what I would have been doing—chugging wine.
Instead, she looked…serene as she sipped at her beer and said, “I’m good, Billie.”
My brows lifted.
