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Elio leaned back in his chair. “You mention Sam a lot.”
“Shit. Yeah. I do,” Gianna said. “It’s not because I’m still hung up on him. But…”
“You dated a long time.”
“My entire adult life has included him, so now it feels like I’m trying to figure out who I am without him.”
“I get that.”
She gave him an incredulous look, and he knew why. He’d talked about his lacking relationship history, but he still understood where she was coming from.
“I do get it,” he insisted. “You spent your adult life with Sam. I’ve spent mine on the ice. When I leave the game…who am I?”
“Oh,” she breathed. “Yeah. God, you do understand.”
Elio dealt another hand. Gianna lost. After the first couple of shots, she’d made a disgusted face when the liquor hit her tongue. This time, she tossed the vodka back like it was water.
He lost the next two hands and realized it wasn’t his head spinning so much as the room. “Shit,” he muttered, as he counted two empty tequila bottles and three empty vodka ones.
Gianna giggled, weaving in her chair. She was drunk.
“Come on,” he said, standing up on unsteady feet. “Let’s go sit by the fire.”
Gianna took the hand he proffered, the two of them stumbling across the room together. She dropped down onto the bearskin rug, a little more heavily than she might have if she’d been sober.
“Oopsie-daisy,” she said, just barely catching herself from falling to her back.
Elio laughed as he joined her, his descent not much steadier than hers. “Oopsie-daisy? What are you? Five.”
Gianna laughed and Elio did too.
“I’m shit-faced,” she admitted.
“Yeah. Me too. It was probably a bad idea to switch from tequila to vodka.”
She laughed again, louder. “Yeah. It was switching liquors that really did us in. Not the number of shots we took in a very short time frame.”
Elio winked.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked, slurring the “s” on something.
“Of course.”
“I liked the way you kissed me under the mistletoe.”
Elio leaned closer. “Oh yeah?”
She cut the distance between them by half. “Did you know you’re only the second guy I’ve ever kissed? In my whole life?”
He hadn’t considered that, though he probably should have. “So you haven’t gone out with anyone since Sam?”
She shook her head.
He could feel the heat from her breath on his face. Three more inches and his lips would be on hers.
“I made a list,” she confessed.
“Another one?” he murmured, his gaze dropping down to her lips. Aware that it was the alcohol doing the thinking and the talking for both of them.
