Parental Guidance (Ice Knights #1)(23)

Caleb: A little of that, but more that I’d rather get a root canal than have everyone in the room staring at me.

Okay, she’d credited his tension during the interview to the video, but maybe there was more to it.

Zara: You do realize your job involves having people stare at your every move and judge you the entire time, right?

Caleb: I never notice when I’m out on the ice. Too busy making plays and winning games.

Zara: Don’t worry, I’m sure my dad will have a whole slew of friends’ businesses to plug. At least there are only four more interviews to go.

Caleb: You sure you’re still in for four more?

She had considered running for the dating hills after she’d seen the video of him in the Uber with his hockey buddies. The Bramble app allowed for an emergency out from the five-date rule if needed but tried to get everyone to give each person they matched with five dates. She hadn’t been able to do it, though, and it hadn’t just been because she needed to be Gemma’s plus-one or because her dad was hilariously and somewhat bizarrely working to get his acting chops recognized. There was just something about Caleb that made her feel like there was more to the story than what the Uber driver had posted.

Zara: We made a deal. I’m sticking to my side of it.

Caleb: It is in the rules.

ZARA: Exactly.

Caleb: Any idea what the setup is for the interview tomorrow?

Zara: All I know is that it’s you, me, and our parents all together again. What could possibly go wrong? Don’t answer. I can come up with enough nightmare scenarios on my own.

Caleb: So what are you doing tonight?

Zara: Cuddled up with my dog, Anchovy.

Caleb: Anchovy??? How could you name him that?

Zara: I rescued him as a puppy, and he must have rolled in something nasty before I found him in the alley, because he smelled bad.

She gave her guy a good head rub, and he answered with one of his signature talky growls that almost sounded like words—and in this case a complaint that they weren’t both asleep by now.

Caleb: What kind of dog is he anyway?

Zara: Part Great Dane, part shoe thief.

Caleb: I need a full pic. I only saw his head before.

She scrolled through her phone, found one where he was standing with his front paws on the island holding one of her shoes in his mouth, and hit send. Obviously annoyed at her, Anchovy jumped down from the bed and padded over to the light switch. She knew what was coming next.

“Anchovy, don’t—”

Too late. He reached up and turned the light off before coming back to bed.

“You are such a pain in my butt, dog.”

Anchovy’s only answer was a talky growl as he flopped down next to her.

Caleb: That’s a horse, not a dog.

Zara: Yeah, one that just turned out the light. I think he’s trying to send a message. See you tomorrow.

Caleb: Night.

After making sure she’d set her alarm, she plugged in her phone and put it down on the nightstand. Then she closed her eyes. And opened them. And closed them. And tossed. And turned. And opened her eyes. And yeah, it was gonna be a long-ass night, because she knew that tonight was going to be just like last night. Her subconscious was going to play a game called Let’s Have Sexy Times With Caleb, and in her dreams she’d have the best toe-curling orgasm ever—because that’s the only place where all her orgasms with other people happened.

She never should have made that bet with Gemma. All it had done was rouse the oh-yeah-that’s-what-you-think part of her brain, and it had doubled down on images of shirtless Caleb that she may or may not have found while doing Google searches for purely scientific reasons.

Sticking her foot out from underneath the covers, she inhaled a deep breath and gave in to the mental image of Caleb’s bare chest with its dusting of dark hair across his hard pecs, his chiseled abs, and those V lines that drew a person’s gaze to the bottom edge of the picture. That was okay. She had all night to imagine everything below where the photo had been cropped.

And hope like hell her dreams didn’t make her turn fifty shades of red for the cameras when she saw him tomorrow.





Chapter Seven


“Why are we here so early?” Britany asked as soon as they stepped off the elevator.

Caleb looked around the Harbor City Wake Up studio where they were set to pre-tape their interview, scanning for a flash of distinctive red hair. “No reason.”

There were fewer people now than during the live show last time, and it should have been easy to spot Zara even if she was so much shorter than probably everyone here. It didn’t take long, though, to confirm his first impression that she wasn’t here.

“So,” his mom said, giving him a pointed look. “It has nothing to do with the fact that Zara is going to be here?”

Okay, this was definitely not a conversation he wanted to have with his mom ever—let alone in public and especially not when he’d woken up an hour early and the only thought in his head was that he was going to get to see Zara. Yeah, he’d rather get cross-checked by an elephant than tell his mom that. Having her in control of his dating life was bad enough without adding in that she’d made a decent choice.

“Weren’t you the one who taught me that being on time was being late?” he asked in a verbal deke.

She lifted an eyebrow. “You can blame eight years in the military for that one, and I’m not buying it.”