Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(55)

If that’s how she wanted to play it, he wasn’t about to argue. Instead, he started back toward his room, shutting off lights on his way. “Wish you’d have been there.”

“I think you did fine with the stand-in.” The muffled sound of covers being tugged into place carried over the line. “That guy was a good sport to wear that sash thing.”

“Yeah.” It was true, but that dude was also the last person he wanted to talk about when he had Fallon on the phone. “So, are you working Thursday?”

“There’s no game that night.”

“I know.” He walked into his room, flipped the phone audio to speaker, and tossed it on his bed before he started to undress. “I was hoping we could go out to dinner, maybe catch a movie.”

There was a pause long enough for him to shuck all his clothes off and crawl into bed—which was really damn long.

“You still there?” he asked.

She let out a soft chuckle. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Yes. Absolutely. “Maybe.”

“Considering what happens when there’s not plexiglass between us, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

“You’d rather just come over here?” Okay, he was completely down with that. “Or I can come over there.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He took her off speaker and put the phone to his ear again, the activity giving him an outlet for the sudden onset of nervous jitters making him not just want but need to move. “What do you mean?”

“That despite my better judgment, I’m starting to like you.”

His pulse sped up, even though he was lying propped up on a pair of pillows instead of skating his ass off to stop a breakaway, which was what this felt like. She liked him. Liked. Him. Not a coy tease or an implied maybe, but just the facts, straight out and without adornment. That was his girl.

“You make it sound like a bad thing.”

She let out a half giggle, half sigh. “More like a dangerous thing.”

“I’m completely harmless.” Yeah, he didn’t even believe himself.

“Not even when I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open will I ever agree with that one.”

“I’m gonna convince you to go out with me.” As soon as he said it, everything clicked into place. It was like seeing a play form on the ice seconds before the players moved and knowing where the puck was going to go.

This was going to happen. They were going to happen. All he had to do was get her to agree.

“Good luck to you,” she said. “I’m a stubborn woman.”

“I’ll have to play dirty then.” And he most definitely wasn’t above that—especially not when inspiration hit out of thin air in the form of an already planned Ice Knights players and family event. “How about a group thing? No pressure. No chance for us to get naked. Plus, you can shoot me with paint pellets.”

“You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?” she asked with a laugh. “What time?”

He raised his fist in triumph. “Be ready at eleven. We’ll swing by and pick you up.”

“We?”

“What fun would it be if I told you everything?” Especially since, as a total Ice Knights fan, she’d freak out knowing she was going to be hanging out with the entire team.

“You can’t just hang up now without more details,” she said, excitement making her voice higher and the words come out quicker than usual. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Now you know how I felt when you sent that selfie before my plane took off.” Curious. Needy. Wanting more. “Sweet dreams, Fallon.”

…

Fallon had no idea how she’d ended up squatting behind a haystack as paint pellets flew overhead. Scratch that. She knew exactly how she’d ended up there, and it was all because of the guy with the fabulous ass sneaking around a tower of old tires a few yards away.

When he said the other night that she’d get to hit him with paint, she was thinking more along the lines of a color run or a messy Paint and Sip. Instead, they were in a field littered with obstacles along with half the Ice Knights and their significant others playing paintball. There were only five of them left in play in this round, with all the others shooting off wisecracks from behind a ten-foot-high chain-link fence where everyone went once they’d gotten splattered with a bright yellow paint pellet.

“Hey, Blackburn,” she yelled as she stood and took aim.

He turned and must have realized halfway through his pivot that he’d made a rookie mistake because he tried to dive behind the tire tower—but it was too late. She fired off the last two rounds in her air gun, hitting him right in the middle of his camouflage vest.

“Nice shot.”

Fallon whipped around. Marti stood a few feet away, her own vest free of any paint, with a friendly grin on her face and her finger on the trigger. “Sorry, Fallon.”

The paint pellet hit her in the shoulder, leaving a yellow splotch and a dull ache like getting nailed by a hard-packed snowball.

“Don’t let the sweet smile fool you. Marti is a bloodthirsty competitor,” Zach said as they did the walk of shame together off the field.

“You know her pretty well?” Not that she was jealous. She was just curious, and the uptick in her blood pressure was the result of the paintball, that was all.