Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(47)

“It helped, but the one thing I wanted more than anything was for things to stay the same. When the opportunity came to play for Coach Peppers with the Ice Knights, it was like finally coming back to the comfort zone I’d made growing up. Marti was here. A few of the other guys I’d played juniors with were here. It was the right spot and I knew it.”

She could picture him, a little lost boy loved but without a sense of home. Here she’d been teasing him about his routine and museum of a house where nothing was out of place while the whole time it had been for a reason. She wasn’t the only one still fighting those childhood insecurities.

The urge to put her mug down and walk over to him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him that he was home now, hit her right in the chest. But she stayed where she was because he didn’t want to be home with her. He wanted to be home with Marti—Lucy had warned her at the wedding that he only wanted her—and instead was here with Tess because, as he told his parents, he knew his responsibilities.

“Change is hard,” she said, needing to break the silence that had fallen between them.

Cole looked up at her, an intensity in his blue eyes that nearly jolted her. “I’m learning that sometimes it’s worth it, though.”

Anticipation sizzled across her skin, heating her up and leaving her wanting for something—she had no idea what beyond the fact that it began and ended with Cole. “Why did you tell me about you growing up?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, not coming any closer but not needing to. She was fucking overwhelmed by him. The need to run closer and away battling it out inside her, gluing her to her chair, her hands wrapped around the half-drunk cup of herbal tea.

“It only seemed fair for both of us to unpack our baggage, since we’re in this together,” he said.

“Friendly teammates,” she said, the words coming out like a squeak.

He stalked closer, stopping across the table from her, every move controlled but on the verge of breaking free. “Something like that.”

But the look he gave her at that moment was anything but platonic. It was hot and wanting and dangerous. It was the kind of look that sent a warm wave of desire through her, that stole her breath and set off her you’re-in-danger-girl warning sirens.

“Did you know Mark Twain was the first author to give a manuscript that had been typed to his publisher?” she asked, her nerves getting the best of her.

And there she is, the Tess Gardner guaranteed to make people take a distancing step back. Nice to see you again.

“Nope.” He took the mug from her grasp, his fingers brushing hers and sending a jolt of oh-my-God-yes through her, and set it aside. “Did you know that Alexander Graham Bell invited him to invest in the telephone and he turned it down?”

She clasped her hands together, desperate not to give in to the urge to climb over the table and rip off his shirt. “Bell invented the world’s fastest speedboat in 1919.”

“How fast did it go?” he asked, his gaze moving over her, slow as a teasing touch.

Was the oven on? It was getting so hot in here. “Almost seventy-one miles per hour.”

“Is this how you flirt with everyone, or do I just make you nervous, Tess?”

“Who said I was nervous?” You mean besides reality?

There was that knowing smirk, the sexy one that made a mockery of panties and good intentions. “Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell’s speedboat.”

“I have to go.” She stood up so fast, her chair screeched on the tile floor. “It’s girls’ night with Lucy, Gina, and Fallon.”

“Chickens aren’t totally flightless; they can fly enough to get over fences,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

The move drew her eyes back to his exposed forearms and her mouth went dry. “I did know that one.”

He stepped to the side, giving her plenty of room to walk by him. She didn’t trust herself, though, and went the long way around the table. And then she made like a chicken and got the hell out of there before she did something she shouldn’t—again—even though she couldn’t shake the voice in her head telling her it was exactly what she needed to do.





Chapter Fourteen


Tess had managed to avoid seeing Cole—if not thinking about him—for a whole day thanks to wedding-season business, but that break for her overworked libido was over now. The Ice Knights arena was rocking as Tess and Fallon walked down to the seats right at the glass that had been Fallon’s since she became the team’s—and more specifically Zach Blackburn’s—Lady Luck. Tonight wasn’t Tess’s first Ice Knights game. She’d been to several, but never as somebody with more than a tentative connection to anyone on the team. Nerves strung tight, she sat down next to Fallon and watched Cole skate around the ice, taking practice shots and talking to other players.

She’d been watching him play on TV. Hockey was fast, rough, and trying to keep track of that stupid puck was nearly impossible, but she’d had fun. This wasn’t fun. It was twist-her-gut-up-like-a-carnival-balloon levels of anxiety. On the screen, it all seemed distant and safe. Up here against the glass, the chill of the rink making the tip of her nose cold and the chippy swish sound of blades on the ice in her ears, it all seemed too real.

Tess rubbed her palm over her belly. “There is no way this is a good idea.”