by Avery Flynn
“Yes.” Opening her eyes, she shook her head and let out a sigh. “It’s probably just because I was half awake.”
Not his technique? Not even a little? He let out a grunt of protest.
“Sorry, what I mean is that we agreed that this”—she gestured between them—“is a temporary arrangement and not a relationship, so there’s no pressure. Sex can just be sex. I don’t have to think about how it will impact anything once we have our clothes on.”
Pride pricked, he turned that over in his head for a minute. Sex for him had always been about wet friction and hard orgasms for all involved—but not for Zara, and that made him want to beat the crap out of all her old boyfriends again.
“What a bunch of selfish assholes,” he muttered. “You wanna give me names and I’ll go pay them a visit?”
…
It wasn’t a sincere offer, but it made Zara smile. Her last boyfriend would shit a brick if he ever opened his front door and Caleb was standing there. That mental image alone was almost as good as the wine-and-chocolate cramp cure and the way he didn’t freak out when she spilled the beans about her broken bean.
Thank you, wine on a chips-and-candy-bar stomach for that bit of wordplay.
“It’s not only the guys’ fault, although yeah, they were not all that into making sure I came or changing what they were doing to get me there.” Why was she talking about this with him? She needed to stop. She was gonna stop. The words came out anyway. “I saw a therapist. She said I needed to live in the moment more.”
He looked skeptical. “Did that help?”
“Not really.” She scooted over on the couch, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Telling herself to just relax got about the same results as when other people told her to. It wound her up more. “It’s hard for me to turn off my brain. I’ve had to keep six steps ahead of things my whole life. I don’t even mean to do it. It’s just how I am.”
It was how she’d grown up. She’d always had to be the responsible one, the one who made sure things got done. While her dad was out cheering up a neighbor, she was home calling in the grocery order or adding the second-notice-overdue bills to the magnetized chip clip on the fridge so he’d remember to pay them.
She always worried about something. It had become her neutral point—and that caused difficulties in ways she hadn’t expected. Every time things got serious with a boyfriend and they had sex, she fell into that what-do-I-need-to-take-care-of stress spiral.
“I tried a glass of wine before sex to relax me. It just made me sleepy. I tried meditation and even tried thinking about the porn I enjoyed during my alone time, but that was a no go. I was too busy thinking about everything else from was his tongue starting to develop a cramp from being down there so long to did I remember to put dog treats on the grocery list. Ultimately, unless I gave myself a helping hand, it didn’t happen. I’m broken.”
Just like they weren’t supposed to be sharing secrets, she was not supposed to be sharing tears, but her cheeks were wet anyway.
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and inhaled a sniffly breath, trying to focus her gaze on the TV instead of the man sitting next to her. It gave her some mental space to get everything put back into its correctly labeled emotional box. That worked out great right up until the screen went dark, showing off the reflection of the ten miniature scenes she’d picked out for the cocktail party celebrating tickets going on sale for the Friends of the Library ball. All the worries and the doubts about the one thing in her life that only she was in charge of and, therefore, could control slammed into her. Were they good enough? Was she just selling herself one of her dad’s pipe dreams thinking they could be?
Fragile sense of equilibrium lost, Zara dropped her head to her knees and let out a pitiful moan. She’d warned Caleb that she was at peak crampy period misery, and he’d shown up anyway—no doubt a decision he was now regretting.
“You’re not broken, and neither is your clit,” he said, laying his big hand on the back of her neck and rolling the pad of his thumb over the knots there with just enough pressure to make her sigh.
“Why?” she asked. “Because you made me come? Do you subscribe to the magic tongue school of thought?”
He chuckled and continued to massage the tension out of her neck. “No, I think you might have had it right the first time. With us, it’s different not because of my skills—although, for the record, I want it noted that I have them—but because I don’t matter. I’m just temporary.”
She lifted her head, the meaning of his words cutting through her own misery. Damn. She was a bitch. “I didn’t mean it to sound so mean. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I’m tough. I can take it.” His hand moved from the back of her neck to her ponytail, his fingers sliding through the length of it before he pulled away from touching her completely. “Still, we owe it to science to figure out if my hypothesis is correct.”
The words had come out light, fun, almost teasing, but there was something real underneath the tone that called out to her. Still, it couldn’t happen. What if that one time was just that—the one time? Then she would be back to having mediocre sex. Or it could happen again and then her ever-spinning brain wouldn’t rest until she figured out why and what it meant.
“You gotta be kidding. That’s the plot of a bad movie, and they always end up together.” Her pulse picked up as she turned the idea over in her mind despite knowing it was probably a worse idea than the time her dad put their electric bill money on a sure-thing pony at the track. It was ridiculous. And foolhardy. And a disaster waiting to happen. And…oh God…she wanted to say yes anyway. “I’m not in this for orgasms. I want to go to the ball, but I’m not looking for Prince Charming in or out of bed. I most definitely am not looking for love or a relationship. Depending on other people is for suckers—I learned that the hard way.”
Caleb tapped the bump on the curve of his crooked nose and raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like anyone’s prince?”
That’s where he was wrong. He might not have shown up at her door tonight on a white steed, but he’d come bearing chocolate and wine in her time of need. That counted for something—really, it counted for a lot.
“I’m serious,” she said. “If I’m gonna consider this, I have to be able to depend on you sticking to the rules.”
Because she wasn’t so sure anymore that she could, and they both knew it would never work out between them. They were too different.
He held up one hand, three fingers extended toward the ceiling. His gaze slid down to the left as if he wasn’t sure, but he grinned at her anyway even if it didn’t look totally genuine. “I solemnly swear that I’m only trying to get into your pants and not your heart.”
The tension inside her broke, and she laughed, hard and until she couldn’t catch her breath. Anchovy wandered over from under her worktable and sat in front of them, squeezing his big body between the coffee table and the couch. As he switched his focus from her to Caleb and back again, she could practically hear the dog’s thoughts that the humans had obviously lost it.
“We are six kinds of fucked-up,” she said, once she finally got her lungs to function again.
“Probably,” he said.
“I need a show of good faith that I can trust you to stick to it.” Because she couldn’t shake the prickly doubt that she might not be able to, and that scared her all the way down to her pink-painted toenails. “I told you my biggest secret tonight. You should reciprocate so we keep this an even playing field.”
Caleb sat there for a while, scratching Anchovy under the chin until the dog nearly passed out from bliss. Finally, just when she thought he was going to call the whole thing off—and yeah, that may have been a little self-sabotage there on her part—he started talking.
“I can’t read,” he said, not looking at her.
She waited for the just kidding. It didn’t come.
Three words, one syllable each, and they stopped the
world from spinning. Images flashed in her mind. Caleb standing in front of her TV picking out a Law & Order episode, his jaw tight and gaze narrowed at the screen. Caleb sitting on the Harbor City Wake Up set and his mom asking him if he wanted her to read the release form. Caleb’s teasing grin after they’d swapped from text to FaceTime, which they almost always did. Everything fell into place, and she had no idea how to react. Shock froze her.
“Okay, not technically, but it feels like it sometimes. I have dyslexia, but we didn’t realize until middle school. I’d just figured the letters danced around the page for everyone,” he said, continuing to pet Anchovy with slow, deliberate brushes of his palm over the dog’s head. “I was good at covering, plus I’d had really great teachers who made learning fun even though it was hard. Then, in sixth grade, I got a teacher who was counting down to retirement, and his big thing was students reading out loud in front of the class.”
Caleb paused, and she nearly reached out to him, but there was something in the hard line of his broad shoulders and the tight way he clenched his jaw that warned he didn’t want her comfort, her pity. She understood. Some old hurts did that, burrowing deep under the skin until they were a part of a person’s makeup, indistinguishable from what had been there before and what came after. And here she was making him pull back all the protective layers. Guilt and regret tugged her down low against the couch cushions.
“It’s okay—you don’t have to go on,” she said.
He gritted his teeth, his gaze going up to the ceiling for a few beats before he let out a deep sigh as if he’d made up his mind.
“He’d call on me every day,” Caleb said. “I’d get up to the front of the class and stumble through on a good day or freeze on a bad day. It pretty much sucked, and that feeling of everyone staring at me just waiting for me to fuck it up, it stuck with me. That’s why I love being out on the ice. While I might literally be in front of thousands, it doesn’t feel like it. During a game, it’s just me, the puck, and my boys. The letters might dance when I look down at a page, but when it comes to reading a play, everything is solid. It all makes sense at first glance.”
It took all of half a second for Zara to swap places with where Caleb had been earlier. She was more than ready to put on her shoes and go kick a stranger’s ass. To torment anyone like that was awful, but to do it to a kid who was at that age when the only thing they wanted was to fit in instead of standing out? Definitely a punch-in-the-junk-worthy offense. And it was one that stuck with a person, had them going into defensive mode even when they may not know they’re doing it.
“That explains your viral video.” She sat forward, realization pulling her spine straight. “You’re still trying to make sure no one sees you as that outsider standing in front of the class.”
“Nah, that’s just…” He let out a harsh breath and turned to her, his jaw slack. “Fuck. You’re right.”
What a pair they were. Totally blind to themselves and yet able to see the other so clearly. That was a disturbing thought. She did not need to go there with Caleb Stuckey. Five dates and done. That was the unbreakable rule, because there was no way they were compatible. She was a woman who craved stability, and he was a guy whose job demanded travel nearly ten months out of the year, plus he could be traded to another team at any moment. It was a bad mix in the long term. But in the short term? That no-emotionally-invested-sex rule? Well, that was on the table…or the couch…or the bed.
Caleb got up, the hem of his T-shirt raising above the waistband of his jeans when he stretched his arms, giving her a tantalizing glimpse of the top of his deep V-cut. She must have made a noise of appreciation because he let out a chuckle at the same time as Anchovy cocked his head to the side. Okay, could she embarrass herself any more tonight?
“I hate to analyze and run,” he said. “But I still have to pack for tomorrow’s game in Toronto and Detroit after that.”
Yes. Hockey. Lots of road trips. She sent up a prayer of thanks for the reminder of the most obvious reason for their incompatibility at a moment of weakness. She stood up and walked him to the door, pulling it open and standing to the side so he could leave.
But he didn’t.
He got halfway through before stopping, his body so close to hers that his pheromones wrapped around her as solid as a touch as his eyes roamed her from head to toe. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. She heard every heated want, every naughty vow, every dirty thought as if he were whispering in her ear, and it made her knees weak.
“Let me know when you’re ready to see if we can make the magic happen again,” he said.
She shivered. There was something in his rough tone that stripped her naked. “What makes you think I will?”
One side of his mouth curled upward in a sexy smirk that said everything he didn’t need to, because they both knew the score. Then he turned and walked away while she stood in her open door, trying to catch her breath, already half on the verge of coming.
You are in so much trouble, girl.
Chapter Twelve
Per Coach Peppers’s theory that early-morning activities equaled team cohesion, Caleb was in a suit getting half choked by a tie, walking across the tarmac to the team jet at six in the morning. As a solid member of team Sleep In, his eyes were barely open as he climbed the steps. Because he’d hardly slept at all thanks to a continual fantasy reel involving Zara Ambrose in all of her naked glory, he was a walking zombie. He sat down in the first empty window seat and yawned big enough that his jaw popped.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Phillips said, plopping down next to him. “Out late with your date? Will there be another video soon?”
At the mere mention of the word “video,” Christensen’s and Petrov’s heads popped up above the seats in the row in front of them like meerkats on one of those nature shows his mom liked to watch.
“Is she ready to dump your ass yet?” Christensen asked. “Because I would totally tap that. Forget a defenseman—she needs a forward with some skill and finesse.”
“Nah, a center is more her speed,” Petrov said. “I have the flexibility to go wherever she needs.”
The two knuckleheads jabbered between themselves, each stating his case as that all-too-familiar unease had Caleb’s every nerve flinching. There wasn’t a spotlight and he wasn’t standing in front of a class full of people—hell, he knew damn well they were just busting his chops—but still, the urge to play along to sink into the familiarity of the group was there. He could stay silent like he had in the Uber. Zara might never find out, but he would know, and he wasn’t going down that road again. He let out a breath and took the metaphorical puck down the ice.
“You two are idiots,” he said, giving them the glare they deserved. “Stop talking like a pair of privileged assholes—better yet, stop thinking like a pair of privileged assholes.”
If they were offended, they didn’t show it. Instead, they both stared at him, shit-eating, we-got-you grins on their faces.
“I think he likes her,” Petrov said.
“Definitely.” Christensen nodded. “Our little boy is falling in love.”
Caleb flipped off the other men. “Is that what that was, just a way to rile me up?”
“Pretty much,” Petrov said. “Thanks for falling for it.”
Then he sat down, Christensen following suit.
Keeping his mouth shut, Caleb took a deep breath in through his nose, filling his lungs until they were just about to burst and letting it out slow and steady. The jangle of his nerves was more of a hum than a loud clanging, and the tightness in his lower back that always weaved its way up his spine didn’t appear. Mild annoyance instead of gut-churning anxiety that made the back of his throat burn with bile.
“Don’t let them get to you,” Phillips said as he took his earbuds out of the case that looked like a floss container. “They’re just giving you a hard time because neither of them can keep a girl for longer than two dates.”
“It’s not that�
�it’s that I should have been able to do that months ago in that stupid Uber, shut the rookies down.” Which was the truth of it.
“No argument there.” Phillips shook his head and pushed the button on the armrest to lower the back of his seat. “So was it a pocket-size redhead who helped you understand the stupidity of your ways?”
“Pretty much.” Zara told it like it was, and that was one of the things he really liked about her.
“Sometimes we need someone else to get us to see things from another perspective, and then shit makes sense.”
“Speaking from personal experience?”
“We’re not talking about me,” Phillips said, his tone easy but the pulsing vein in his temple giving away the fact that they were talking about him. “But take it from a fellow moron: text your girl before takeoff and hit her up again when we land. Communication is everything.”
“She’s not my girl.” But the phrase sounded good in his head. “It’s just an arrangement.”
“You forget I’ve been at the fork in the road that either went to the good place or the bad place. Don’t follow my footsteps. Text your girl.” Then Phillips put his earbuds in, hit play on his phone, and closed his eyes.
Okay, taking advice from the guy who had such a messy personal life probably wasn’t the best idea, but the man made sense. Caleb swiped his phone on and hit the text icon. He thumb-typed each word slowly, being careful to make sure each one was the one he wanted.
Caleb: Thinking of you.
And being a giant cheese-ass about it.
He hit the back button until all the words were gone.
Caleb: Taking off for Buffalo.
Hello, it’s Itinerary Man here to text boring things.
Delete. Delete. Delete forever.
Caleb: Have a kick-ass day.
And now I’m a motivational bot.
He held his thumb down on the text and clicked select all and delete.
It shouldn’t be this hard—with other women, it wasn’t. He wasn’t a player like Christensen or everybody-just-naturally-likes-me chill like Petrov, but he wasn’t a clueless dork, either. Why couldn’t he figure out what to say to Zara? Finally, after staring at the empty message box for a solid three minutes, he scrolled to the gif section. He picked one of a Great Dane who looked a little like Anchovy pulling a blanket down from on top of a crate as he walked inside of it and lay down, totally covered by the blanket. He hit send.