Iced Out (Leighton U #1)(59)

“You tell me. You’re the one giving it.”

“I didn’t realize I was!”

We both laugh then, the intensity of the moment broken.

It feels great to laugh and joke with him, and even exist peacefully in a way I didn’t know our relationship could be. Two people who finally found common ground, and as it turns out, it’s all we needed to understand each other.

Which is why I’m not at all surprised by his next words.

“It’s just that you’re nothing like I expected.”

I feel my eyes crinkle around the edges with humor. “Uh, thanks?”

He laughs again. “I promise I don’t mean it in a bad way. You’re just…” He trails off and shakes his head. “I dunno how else to say it. Just unexpected.”

“Try explaining it, then.” I close my textbook and drop it off the edge of the bed, only to wince at the loud thud it makes when it hits the floor.

“Hayes is gonna think we’re fucking now,” he says, arching his brow.

I give him a dirty smirk as I spread out on my back. “I mean, we could be, but—”

“Not a chance in hell.”

I chuckle, rolling to my side and hitching up on my elbow. “You were talking about me being different than you thought?”

His eyes roll at my less than smooth reroute of the topic, and he mirrors my position.

“I guess when we’re on the ice, I’ve always had this picture of you in my head. The hotheaded bad-boy of the team who gets in more fights than Muhammad Ali and Rocky combined. Brash and reckless. A rebel, in a way. And so, I sorta just assumed it would extend to who you are off the ice too.”

I search his brown eyes for a minute. “And now you’re saying it doesn’t?”

He shakes his head and sinks to his back, eyes locked on the ceiling now. “No, you are. But you’re more than those things too. Like sure, you’re still a pain in my ass ninety-eight percent of the time when you’re causing chaos on the ice—”

“I don’t do that anymore.”

“—but over the past couple months, I’ve started seeing your cockiness and attitude shifting into confidence in yourself and your abilities, not letting anyone tell you otherwise. And I guess...I kinda admire that.”

“Confident enough to corner you and suck your dick in the middle of a party,” I muse.

He snorts. “You say it like it was in the middle of the crowd dancing downstairs when we both know it was a lot more private. Again, surprising considering your reputation as a manwhore.”

I make a buzzing sound with my lips. “Ah, see. You should know by now, slut shaming doesn’t work on me, baby. I embrace who I am, flaws and all.”

I expect him to come back with a witty retort, but the way his eyes grow wary and distant after I stop speaking tells me I said something wrong. It only takes me a second to realize what it was.

Baby.

I’ve called him that before, whether it be as a taunt or in bed. But never in place of his name. Never as…an endearment.

“I—”

“It’s fine,” he says, his head rolling from side to side against the mattress. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

Except, that’s where he’s wrong. I think…I did mean it. But instead of letting the anxiety of this revelation get to me, I play it off with a smirk on my face and change the subject.

“So tell me. Are you gonna finally try a new pair of socks tomorrow?”

A funny look crosses his face. A mixture of humor and confusion, I think. “I hadn’t really thought about it yet. I kind of just pick a pair each day. Whatever I’m feeling.”

Lame.

“What do you mean finally?” he asks a moment later.

“Because I’ve been checking to see if you’ve worn them yet, and you haven’t.” Obviously. It’s not like I sneak into his room and go through his dirty laundry.

“You’ve been checking,” he repeats.

“Hell yeah,” I tell him, a grin on my face. “I try to check before every game while you’re getting dressed. Gotta make sure you’re still as dedicated to the cause as I am, Cappy.”

“I hate when you call me that,” he grumbles, rolling his head away from me to face the wall.

“Why? Chris Evans is hot as fuck.”

A deeper, richer kind of laugh comes from him. “You’re unbelievable.” But then he pauses, turning back with a seriousness taking over as his eyes narrow in on me. Suspicion radiates off him, and for a second, I worry I did or said something wrong. “You watch me get dressed?”

My lips quirk, and I lean in closer, my mouth inches from his. “No. I watch you get undressed.”

He grins some more and mutters, “Wow. What a creep.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you should just be flattered that you’re the one guy on the team who caught my eye.”

The arch of his brow tells me he begs to differ. “Flattered, huh? That’s what we’re going with?”

“Absolutely. Takes more than a hot piece of ass to get my attention.”

He tries to fight a smile—covering his face with his forearm and everything—but fails. Miserably. At first, I think he’s trying to hide embarrassment. That’s when the laughter starts, and I yank his arm back down.