Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(28)

Hey, jackass, she probably doesn’t want anyone to see her like this.

And if she’s throwing up, she obviously needs help.

It was the second option that won out.

He peeked in. She sat on the edge of the tub, her eyes closed and her lips pursed. Her skin had that pasty just-threw-up sheen to it. He got one foot inside the door before the reality of the situation slammed into him like an illegal elbow to the head. All right, you’re here, Phillips. What the fuck do you do now? He had no clue. Hug her? Call a doctor? Tell her it was better out than in?

Standing awkwardly in the door, half in and half out of her space, he asked, “You okay?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, her voice rough and scratchy, before she stood up and grabbed her toothbrush. “There’s nothing like heaving the absolutely nothing in my stomach every morning like clockwork.”

Every morning? How had he missed that before?

Because ever since she told you that she’s knocked up, you’ve been an asshole ignoring her as much as possible. Her moving in a few days ago made that harder, but you proved you were up to the challenge.

That asshole voice in his head was starting to sound a helluva lot like Petrov. And as much as he’d like to go bake the shit out of a pineapple upside-down cake to block out that fact, Tess needed him—or maybe he needed to do something, anything, to help so he’d feel less like the dick who fucked up her life plan by using expired condoms given to him as a gag gift.

“Should I call your doctor?” Because he sure as shit wasn’t doing a damn thing to improve the situation.

“I just need to do this”—she put toothpaste on her brush—“and take another minute to catch my breath. Maybe some water.”

Okay, that he could do. “I’ll be right back.”

By the time he’d returned from the kitchen with a glass of water and a handful of Saltines, she was just rinsing off her toothbrush. Kahn—the little jerk—was sitting on the closed toilet lid, eyeballing the toilet paper.

Cole didn’t notice the way Tess’s I’d Rather Be Sleeping shirt came to mid-thigh, giving him a great view of those legs she’d wrapped around his head when he’d gone down on her that night. And the hard tips of her nipples poking against the shirt? Yep, didn’t even glance that way because his dick did not control him. He was an adult, not a horny teenager, and the woman had just had a very rough morning. So of course that meant it was totally out of the question to notice how the blue cotton material clung to her hips, or how her face had regained its color, or how the disarray of her blond curls gave her a just-fucked look.

And yet… Yeah, he was the jerk who noticed it all.

If he thought closing his eyes would help, he would, but the opposite had proven itself every night when he went to bed. His routine was to spend the last thirty minutes of the day going over plays. He was doing that, but they had nothing to do with the puck and everything to do with getting Tess to make that oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-I-just-came-that-hard face again. He was going to get calluses on his right hand with the rate he was going.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the water he’d forgotten he was holding and drinking down a third of it in one take. “What a way to start what is going to be an absolutely crazy day.”

“Things get that busy at a flower shop?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Oh yeah, insult her business right after she’s had a hell morning. Way to go.

“You have no idea,” she said, not seeming to be insulted by his question. “I’m going in two hours early so I can get the billing and accounts out of the way before we open.”

“You can’t fit that in between customers?”

Yes. Tell her how to run her business. Every entrepreneur is dying for advice from a guy who hasn’t ever even held a job that didn’t involve lacing up skates.

Tess put away her toothbrush and squeezed by him out the bathroom door into her room. “Usually I do.” She opened her suitcase lying on top of the bench at the end of the bed and took out some clothes—yes, including a purple pair of panties that he did not notice. “Today, however, I’ll be making deliveries during the slow times because my driver quit last night without giving any warning.”

“Is it good for you to be that active right now?”

And now you are a doctor. Never mind you barely passed biology and have spent exactly zero minutes with anyone who was pregnant besides her.

Could he staple his mouth shut? It would be preferable to the stupid things coming out now, since all his blood seemed to be headed in the opposite direction of his brain.

Tess rolled her eyes at him. “Women have been having babies for eternity under much more difficult conditions than this. We’re not exactly fragile.”

“Point taken.” Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Of course, it was too late. He had a hated day off. She needed help. “I can do the deliveries today.”

She let out a snort laugh and shook her head. “That’s not gonna happen.”

He raised an eyebrow in question.

“Come on,” she said, crossing her arms just under her tits, which he did not even take a glance at. “You’re an Ice Knights player in one of the most hockey-mad metro areas outside of Canada. You’ll get recognized and mobbed.”