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I have breakfast with the team and Baxter. Listen to Rux wax poetic about some muffins Cammy made for the team but he accidentally ate. Grady keeps giving me the side-eye like he’s got some kind of sixth sense about my sex life. Which is disconcerting as hell.
I meet with the coaches and hit the ice. After, I talk with the press about what we’re expecting from tonight’s game and whether, as a new father, I’m getting enough rest.
I tell them yes because as a rule, it’s true. Sure, I got significantly less sleep last night than is ideal, but I know without question I got more than I would have if Nora hadn’t come to my room.
And I’m sharp.
Yeah, there’s a part of my mind that keeps circling back to Nora.
To the feel of her beneath me last night, the taste of her. The sounds she made when I pushed inside her tight body. The way she said my name. How fucking right all of it felt.
But most of all, I keep coming back to this morning. To the way she looked at me.
What was she going to say?
It’s after two when I get home, and Nora and Otto are at a baby group she connected with, so I climb into a bed that smells like her and knock off hard. When I get up, they’re back, but Otto’s gassy and crying, and we spend the little time I have left at home trying to console him.
True to her word, Nora gets a good burp out of him, and he settles down, but there isn’t time for the conversation we still need to have. So, I stick to the safe subjects. Like how the baby playdate worked out and if she got any sleep today. We talk, but every time her eyes meet mine, it’s like we’re right back to last night.
She’s giving Otto his bath when it’s time to leave. I come up behind her and wrap my hands around her shoulders, my front meeting her back before I drop a kiss at her cheek and give Otto a belly tickle that makes him squawk and both of us laugh.
Then it’s time to go.
The game is intense. But after being down in the first two periods, we come back in the third and take the win when Rux scores in overtime. The guys decide to grab some dinner, but I’ve waited long enough. I’m walking to my car when I get the first text.
Nora: Do you think last night was a mistake?
I’ve spent hours on the ice today, but it’s walking through a covered parking structure that I nearly wipe out, tripping over my own feet.
Me: Never.
I throw my gear in the back and get in the driver’s seat.
There’s another text.
Don’t look.
I grip the wheel at ten and two, feeling like I’m about to lose control even though the engine is off.
Nora: What would you do if I came to your room again tonight?
* * *
Nora
He hasn’t replied.
I can’t believe I sent that text.
And at the same time, I can’t believe I managed to hold off from asking for as long as I did. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him, about what we did, since this morning when he asked me what I wanted.
All day, I’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about how right it felt. About whether there was a chance we could—
The front door bursts open, and I suck a breath as Axel stalks inside, his blazing eyes locking on me. “You trying to kill me, Nora?”
“What? Are you okay?”
This isn’t right. It’s not how Axel Erikson looks coming home from a game. The neat lines of his post-shower gelled hair are broken, the length of it falling in different directions, his usually loosened tie is yanked sideways, and the top button of his shirt is hanging by a thread, the one below missing completely.
