Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(57)

“That’s not a great idea.” Ignoring the way her pulse kicked up at the thought, she powered through the words coming out as neutrally as possible. “I’ll be gone in a few days. The repairs to my apartment are almost done.”

“That’s then. Let’s take now. Fuck the plans, remember?” he asked, holding out his hand. “If it’s all I can get, I’ll take it.”

So would she, but as she took his hand and they walked together down the hallway to his room, she couldn’t help but realize that it wouldn’t be enough. It was too late for anything but forever to be enough—and there was no scarier realization than that.





Chapter Seventeen


For the first time since forever, Tess’s voicemail box was full, and she couldn’t bring herself to delete even a single one. That seemed to be what happened when Cole went on a road trip for a few days. Phone calls that she let turn into voicemails she could hoard for later.

“Did you know a dentist is the one who invented cotton candy? What kind of racket is that?” Cole asked in one message. The sound of a pilot telling everyone to buckle up because they were about to take off sounded in the background. “Gotta go. Call when I land. Miss you. Tell Peanut I said hi and don’t think I didn’t find that Bigfoot painting in the front bathroom. I put it in a more appropriate spot. I’m not telling where.”

She’d already found it hanging on the wall in the back of the walk-in closet in her bedroom, complete with one of those gallery lights shining down on it. Cole was such a smart-ass. Of course, she’d made sure to hang it right above the sink in the kitchen where there was no way he’d miss it. Bigfoot would be there to greet him every morning when he made his hard-boiled eggs.

Then there were the voicemail messages that were longer, filled with the sound of raucous Ice Knights players in the background celebrating one victory after another. Others were just the sound of a tired Cole trying to stay awake long enough to reach her one last time. Tess couldn’t explain why she didn’t answer when Cole’s number flashed on the screen and why she only called while she was watching him out on the ice. Was she a giant chicken? Yeah, pretty much. She needed that sense of distance, though, as a sort of moat of sanity, because she couldn’t stop thinking about him, dreaming of him, wanting him home.

That was another problem. She wasn’t thinking of the house as Cole’s museum anymore. It was just home. Tess wasn’t just entering dangerous territory, she was smack-dab in the middle of it and what was worse, she didn’t want to leave.

All of which explained why she’d started spending so much time at her shop beyond business hours. That meant by midmorning today, though, she was yawning on repeat in her tiny office while doing all the admin work that came along with running a small business.

The cup of decaf coffee appeared on her desk while she was running the monthly profit-and-loss statement thanks to the world’s best delivery driver who was now picking up a few extra hours manning the front a few days a week.

Ellis, who was so worth his weight in Gold of Kinabalu orchids, which went for six grand apiece, flashed her a shy smile. “There’s a call for you on line two.”

She thanked him and picked up the line after hitting print on the report. “Forever in Bloom, this is Tess.”

“Two questions,” Cole said, his warm honey voice doing things to her that probably weren’t legal in at least a few states. “One, do you have plans for tonight? Two, do you have objections to being seen out in public with a man in a powder-blue tux with full-on shirt ruffles?”

By the time Cole was finished, she was smiling so hard, her cheeks hurt. “Well, to answer the first question, I was going to go shopping for my creepy porcelain doll collection and then hide them all over your house.”

“Oh yeah, I’m foiling those plans for sure,” he said. “How about the tux?”

She tried to picture him in a tux, but the only image she could muster was of him the morning he left for the latest road trip. He’d been naked in the shower and the water had been cascading down his back and over his hard ass. She must have made a noise—probably by not-so-whispering a “thank you, baby Jesus”—and he’d turned around, caught her looking, and tugged her inside with him.

Oh God. It was hot in her office. Really. Damn. Hot.

“Do I get to know why you’re in a powder-blue tux with shirt ruffles?” she asked, sounding more than a little horny and out of sorts to her own ears.

“It’s a charity fund-raiser costume party with a seventies theme the team is putting on,” he said. “You should meet me there, be my date.”

Shock made her almost drop her phone. A date? With Cole? Yeah, they’d skipped right past that part and had just embraced future co-parenting without any relationship strings attached. “I’m all out of tuxes.”

Yes. That for sure seemed like the safest answer.

“Well, I just happen to have had the costume place deliver a disco diva outfit with bell-bottoms and sequins to our house.”

Of course he did. He was Cole Phillips, Thor look-alike and professional athlete in a city that adored him. “You have everything.”

“Not you,” he said, managing to make it sound like the truth instead of a pity pickup line. “Say yes.”