Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(60)
“Bullshit.” Marti jabbed him in the chest with one of her long fingers. “And shame on you if you can’t admit that a little shock to the system is exactly what you needed.”
Fuck. Why did everyone seem to have a better handle on the situation than he did? “I guess things don’t always work out the way we expect.”
“Yeah, sometimes they’re even better.” She glanced back at the big guy who did a very unsubtle chin nod toward the door. “I gotta go, but take some advice from an old friend and put it all out there with this one. Don’t miss your chance just because change wasn’t part of your daily routine.”
But missing his chance was exactly what he did for the rest of the evening. It seemed like the fates were conspiring against him, sending every other player on the Ice Knights to dance with Tess while he ended up taking an endless number of selfies with fans who had donated warm coats to the city’s homeless shelters. Normally he didn’t mind that part of his job—especially when they were all there to help such a great charity—but it took what seemed like forever for him to get back to Tess.
She was on the dance floor with Christensen of all people, who was holding her a little too close. The other man’s fingertips resting just above the curve of Tess’s ass had Cole tensing, and he was on the dance floor tapping on the forward’s shoulder before he could even process the thought that he needed to get over there.
“No cuts, Phillips,” Christensen said with a smirk. “You left your girl alone, and I’m entertaining her with stories of my many daring exploits.”
Tess snorted and shook her head. “He’s telling me how he got caught stealing women’s underwear when he was twelve.”
“I was dared to do it!” Christensen said. “It wasn’t like some perv move. Plus, I got caught and they called my mom.” He shook his head. “There is nothing scarier than having my pissed-off single mom having to cut out of work early to come to store security and pick my scrawny self up for being a dumb-ass.”
Cole looked over at Tess. Her cheeks had turned a little pink and she was gnawing on her bottom lip. Shit. Adding to her worries about impending motherhood was very much not on his to-do list. Fucking Christensen. Acting purely on the need to turn her thoughts back to a better place, he all but hip-checked Christensen out of the way and led Tess farther onto the dance floor.
He pulled her against him so they fit perfectly, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back, and dipped his head down to her ear. “You won’t have to do it on your own.”
She let out a sigh. “I know you feel obligated, but—”
“That’s not how I’d describe it.” Obligation was pretty much at the bottom of his list at the moment. At the top? Wanting to make life as good for her as possible. Of course, getting her out of this disco outfit was pretty close to the top, too. What could he say? He was an asshole.
“Oh really?” She rolled her eyes. “A baby just fit perfectly into your ready-made plans?”
She had him there, but his plans were changing, evolving, becoming more flexible. “No, but—”
“Okay, folks,” the DJ interrupted. “It’s time for the disco dance-off. Who is ready to get their Bee Gees on?”
Tess’s gaze skittered from one part of the room to another without landing on him. She was ready to make a break for it and damn his selfish soul, he couldn’t let her go.
Cole raised his hand and hollered out, “We are.”
“No way,” she said, her eyes huge behind her glasses.
“Come on, be spontaneous with me.” Sure, it felt weird, kinda like putting on someone else’s skates or using the wrong color tape on his stick, but he was willing to push out of his mac and cheese comfort zone for her.
Tess narrowed her eyes and gave him a hard look. “Who are you and what have you done with Cole Phillips?”
“Dance with me and find out.”
She hesitated, but only for the first two beats of the song. “Did you know the Bee Gees tried to change their name to Rupert’s World?”
He released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That is a trash band name. You ready to do this?”
She nodded, and that was all the encouragement he needed. They hustled and did the pointy-finger-up-in-the-air move and he spun her around—all of it as if they’d been dancing together for years. And when Coach Peppers came around with the charity CEO and handed Cole and Tess the trophy that looked like a disco ball, Tess’s smile was back in place and her two-colored eyes were bright and sparkly. He hadn’t made that change happen, but he’d helped, and he’d never felt more like he’d conquered the world—not even when the Ice Knights won the cup.
Tess and the baby had never played into his well-thought-out plans before, but now he couldn’t imagine home without them. And it wasn’t just making them part of his normal routine. It was more. He was falling for her. Hard.
He was still riding high when they walked into the house and found what looked like an explosion of toilet paper in the otherwise perfectly clean and organized hallway. Kahn sped by in the middle of having the zoomies with a streamer of toilet paper stuck to the claws on one of his back paws, jumped onto a console table, and—while maintaining perfect eye contact with them—took a swipe at the playbook. It slid over the side and hit the floor in just the right way that the clasps holding the pages opened and paper went everywhere.