“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah.” The server sets our refilled breadbasket on the table and she thanks him, grabbing a piece. “But carbs make everything better, right?”
“I think peanut butter makes everything better.”
“Really? Is that your favorite?”
“Yeah, I eat it right out of the jar before games.”
“Out of the jar? Doesn’t it get all stuck together in your mouth?”
“I unstick it. It kinda melts in there.”
The smile Reese gives me is warm and sweet, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
“What?” I ask her, reaching for another piece of bread myself.
“It’s just…you’re this big, brooding guy with a dark beard, and I like it when unexpected stuff comes out of your mouth. Cute stuff.”
“Cute?” I hike my brows up, interested. “You think I’m cute?”
She hesitates before saying, “At times, yes.”
“You’re no good at playing coy. You obviously think I’m incredibly cute.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, what a coincidence. I think you’re cute, too. Sounds like I should take you out on a real date.”
“Knox.” Reese is trying for a warning tone, but it’s pretty weak.
“I’m just saying. You think I’m cute, I think you’re cute, we both love coconut shrimp…if only we knew whether we’re compatible in the sack…”
A blush spreads across her cheeks. “I thought you were good with being just friends.”
I give her a serious look. “I think we both know there’s more there.”
She sighs heavily. “I don’t deny the attraction is there, but…I don’t want to get hurt again. I’d rather have you as my friend forever than to take things further and possibly lose you altogether.”
“You can’t just be celibate for the rest of your life.” I shift in my chair. “And you can’t pretend there’s anyone you’re more compatible with than me.”
Reese holds my gaze for a second before saying, “Are you talking about just sex? Like…friends who also have sex?”
“No. Like friends who go on dates and have sex and don’t see other people.”
“That’s a relationship.” She gives me an exasperated look.
“Look, let’s start with a date. One date.” I hold out my index finger for emphasis. “What can I do to convince you to let me take you out on one date?”
She considers my proposition briefly before saying, “There is one thing.”
“What? I’ll do it.”
“I could use about two hundred thousand dollars to save the programs being cut at the shelter.” Her expression is smug, like she knows she just got out of the date because there’s no way that’ll happen.
“Two hundred thousand? For the Women’s Mission?”
“Not really. I mean, that’s really how much funding they lost, but I’d never ask you for that kind of money. I’d never ask you for any money, actually.”
“I can do that.”
She shakes her head. “I was joking, Knox. I never should’ve said anything about it, that’s my fault.”
I pull my cloth napkin from my lap and set it on the table, sitting back in my chair. “I’m serious. I can bring them a check tomorrow.”
“No,” Reese says emphatically. “You’re not giving them the money, and I’m not going out with you. Let’s move on to something else.”
“Reese, just listen to me. I’ve got lots of money saved. I’m a bachelor and I’ve been playing in the NHL for eight years now. If this would save your friend’s job and make you happy…I want to help.”
Her eyes swirl with emotion as she looks at me silently for a few seconds, before saying, “Thank you for that. It’s incredibly generous of you, truly. But I don’t want…I mean, I don’t know what the future holds for us, and I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
My heart sinks. “You’re saying you’ll feel like you can’t dump me if I’ve given that kind of money to your cause?”
“No.” She closes her eyes, looking pained. “I mean, I don’t know. I just think it would be too…tangled, to have you bailing out the shelter like that. I honestly was just joking when I said it.”
“It’s probably a tax write-off for me. And it would come with no strings attached.”
She smiles at me. “From the first time I met you, you’ve reminded me that there are good people in this world. People who aren’t always just looking out for themselves.”
“Does that mean yes to the money?”
“No. But thank you for the offer. It means more than I can say.”
I slouch in my seat slightly, feeling defeated. “So you’re just going to let your friend lose her job? And let the programs get cut? Are your classes part of the cuts?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
We sit in silence as I think about it.
“You said this is federal funding, right?”
She nods.
“Our new team owner is a mega rich businessman with lots of political contacts. Want me to see if he’ll make some calls?”
“From what I’m told, the budget we’re allowed is already decided for this year. The shelter has its funding through the end of October, and that’s it. He might be able to help with getting it reinstated next year, though.”
The wheels are turning in my mind. “Okay, so I’ll have Durand see if he can get it reinstated next time around. As for this year, our team has a foundation that raises money for charities. Let me talk to Mia about putting something together for the shelter.”
Reese looks stunned, her lips parted. “Do you think it’s possible? It wouldn’t give her much time.”
“Let me see what she can do, okay? And if we get the money raised, I’m taking you out on a date. Deal?”
Her grin is just like the one she gave me that day on the beach in Kauai. Playful, but also a little bit hopeful. It’s the smile of a woman who hasn’t given up on love just yet.
“Okay,” she says softly.
Finally. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this fundraiser happen, because if I can’t find a way to make Reese my girl soon, I’m gonna lose my damn mind. I think about her night and day.
“May I interest you in dessert?” our server asks as he approaches our table.
I look at Reese, who wrinkles her nose.
“Just the check, please,” I say.
After he walks away, she leans across the table and whispers, “I tried their dessert last time I came, and it was terrible.”
I quirk a brow. “Was it, or do you just have high standards?”
“Probably both,” she admits. “I was thinking we’d sneak in the back door of Magnolia and get one of my chocolate baskets. If you have time.”
“Of course I do.”
I pay our bill and we catch an Uber to Magnolia. Our driver recognizes me and talks hockey the entire ride, not stopping until he parks at the front entrance of the restaurant.
“Do you get that a lot?” Reese asks me as we walk around the building to the back door where supplies are delivered.
I shrug. “I wouldn’t say a lot. I think Anton and Jonah are the most recognized guys on our team.”
“Jonah, he’s the one who lost his wife a couple years ago, right?” she asks as she scans a tag on her key ring to open the restaurant door.
“Yeah…man, I guess it has been about that long. Sometimes it still feels like it just happened.”
As soon as we walk inside the building, the sounds of a busy kitchen surround us. From sizzling flames to raised voices giving orders, my ears try to take everything in. We’re in a small storage room, but as we round a corner, I can see inside the compact but organized kitchen.
The place is like an intense episode of a timed cooking show.
“Plate it,” a man in a white uniform says, immediately turning to someone else to say, “I want it grated fresh tableside.”
Reese leads the way down a hallway, turn
ing around to whisper, “I’d take you in if they weren’t so busy.”
“Hey Reese,” a female server clad in black says as she zips past us in the hallway. She gives me a quick smile, but is gone too fast for an introduction.
Reese leads me past a tiny room with three desks crammed up against the walls. All three desks have paper everywhere, but only one desk is super organized.
“My office,” she says, pointing inside. “I share it with the chef and the manager.”
“I assume your desk is the organized one?”
She grins at me over her shoulder. “Really? You still don’t know me all that well, then.”
“I thought you were off tonight,” a male server says to her as he passes us in the hallway.
“I’m not really here,” she says.
He nods and glances at me. Two women pass us next, both studying me closely. Everyone seems curious about the guy Reese brought here.
When she opens a huge stainless-steel door and leads the way into a big walk-in cooler, the sounds of the busy kitchen vanish with the closing of the door. I briefly take in the racks lined with eggs, milk, butter and all sorts of containers, but I can’t focus on anything but Reese for very long.
Her cheeks are rosy and her smile is pure happiness. She’s in her element here, and seeing it makes me fall even harder for her.
“So I made this yesterday,” she says, walking over to a set of shelves in the corner and bending down to get something from the bottom shelf. “It’s not perfect yet, so no one but me has tried it. But I’m curious what you think of it.”
She takes out a small tray with a fancy little basket made entirely of chocolate. It even has little lines that make it look woven. When she breaks off a piece and hands it to me, I frown.
“That’s unbelievable to me, Reese. That you made that. It’s amazing. Seems a shame to break it.”
Laughing, she says, “Well, that’s the way you eat it.” She holds back the piece of chocolate before it reaches my hand. “Close your eyes; you’ll taste it differently.”
I comply with a huge grin. “I see, you brought me in here so you could have your way with me.”
“Uh huh. Open your mouth.”
“There are so many dirty things I could say right now.”
“Knox…” She laughs, and I open my mouth.
I feel the warmth of her fingers as they approach my lips. As soon as the chocolate touches my tongue, I close my lips around her fingertips, eliciting a sharp inhale from her. She brushes her fingertips over my lower lip as she takes them from my mouth.
The creamiest chocolate I’ve ever tasted is melting in my mouth, hints of coffee and vanilla cream mixing with it. I give a low moan as the flavors combine. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.
I open my eyes to see Reese looking at me expectantly.
“Holy shit,” I say softly. “That’s incredible, Reese. Seriously. You made that?”
She shrugs like it was no big deal, but the shine in her eyes tells me she’s pleased by the compliment. I don’t want to speak, because there’s magic in this moment. As our gazes stay locked on each other, I cup Reese’s cheek in my hand, brushing my thumb over her cheek. She leans into my touch, and it hits me all at once.
She doesn’t want to admit she wants me, but she can’t deny the truth I feel every time we’re together—she needs me. There’s more than just an attraction between us. I’ve never let her down, and I never will. That need I feel to be close to her, to take care of her and if I’m really fucking lucky, be taken care of by her, isn’t fading. It gets stronger every time I see her. Hell, every time I think of her.
When she tips her chin up slightly in approval, I lower my lips to hers, using all my self-control to start the kiss soft and slow. But as soon as Reese melts against me with a small moan, I slide my other arm around her waist and let my tongue brush against hers.
Kissing her is like coming home. Inside, I’m roaring with the force of a packed arena because finally, Reese is in my arms again.
She presses a palm to my chest, sliding it up to my shoulder. We both need to come up for air, but I can’t make myself stop. I’ve waited fifteen months to kiss her again, and I never want it to end.
There’s a slight whooshing sound as the door to the walk-in cooler is opened. Reese immediately steps back from me, bringing her fingertips to her lips to try to hide her smile.
“Hey, sorry,” a man in a white uniform says as he steps inside. “I just need to grab some butter.”
All three of us stand in awkward silence as he walks over and gets a giant slab of butter, then waves at us as he exits the cooler. Once he’s gone, Reese and I just stare at each other, both of us smiling.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she says softly.
“Said with absolutely no conviction.”
She gives me a look. “It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s just…”
“I know. You’re afraid of getting hurt again.”
Reese’s look turns sharp. “I’m happy with my life as it is.”
“You keep saying that like you think you have to give something up to be with me, but you don’t. Just give it a chance and you’ll see.”
There’s sadness in her mossy green eyes as she says, “You don’t understand, Knox. I don’t trust people—not even myself. Eric did what he did right under my nose, and I had no idea. I’d be suspicious of you all the time, and forever asking myself if I was doing enough to keep you happy.”
“That’s not fair, because I’m not Eric.”
She rubs her temple, agitated. “Kauai was perfect. Why can’t we just leave things like that?”
“I don’t want perfection, Reese. I never did. I just want you.”
Tears pool in her eyes as she stares at me. I can see the war happening inside her—whether to trust me or doubt me.
She looks away and moves toward the door, and I see that she decided on the safer route.
“We should go,” she says.
Reluctantly, I follow her. It was almost painful to have a short, sweet taste of her again. Because even though Reese is only a few feet away from me as we make our way down the hallway and out of the restaurant, she’s still incredibly far away.
Chapter Fourteen
Reese
The shelter’s kitchen is quieter than usual when I walk in the Thursday morning of the same week Knox kissed me. That seems to be how I measure time now—how long it’s been since that kiss, because it’s pretty much all I’ve thought about since it happened.
“What’s up?” I ask lightly as I set my canvas bags full of supplies on the counter. “Did you guys get into it about the Cubs and White Sox again?”
Angelia looks up at me from the stove she’s wiping down, her expression somber. “Danielle went back to her husband.”
“No,” I cry in protest. “No, no, no.”
She nods and turns back to the stove. “She and the kids left last night.”
“We tried to get her to stay,” a resident named Gina says, shaking her head. “Her husband bought her a diamond bracelet and said he’ll never hurt her again.”
Angelia scoffs. I feel a surge of shame over my preoccupation with a kiss when the women here are dealing with such heavy issues. Danielle’s husband has given her several black eyes and broken her arm. Thinking of her and her three sweet kids back under the same roof as him makes me feel sick.
I sigh heavily and unload produce from my bags. Everyone works in relative silence, the mood glum, for the next hour. When Angelia wipes her hands on her apron and leaves the kitchen, I follow her.
She goes into her “office”—a cramped space that barely has room for her makeshift desk and a single chair. The space is drafty in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. No matter the temperature, though, the clear glass vase on her desk always has a few fresh carnations in it. She buys them from a homeless man she passes on her walk to work. Her current carnations are a pretty pale pink.
>
When I knock softly and open the door, sticking my head inside, Angelia is sitting at her desk, her head in her hands.
“Hey,” I say, sliding inside and closing the door behind me. “Want to talk about it?”
Angelia’s expression is tortured as she looks over at me. “What was she thinking? Bringing her babies back into that mess…I thought she was smarter than that.”
“Me too.”
I sit down as Angelia gets a tissue and wipes her eyes. All the staff and volunteers at the Mission are very careful what we say about women who go back to their abusers when we’re around the other residents. We don’t want to shame anyone.
“I’m okay,” Angelia says with a weak smile. “I’m just having a hard week, I guess. I got my official layoff notice on Monday.”
“Hey, I actually have news about that.”
“Yeah?”
I was late getting to the kitchen today because I was meeting with Monica, the director of the Women’s Mission. And now that I told her the good news, I can share it with Angelia.
“That guy who came in here to see me that day—the one I went out with, Knox—”
Angelia cuts me off. “Lord in Heaven, if you tell me you’re getting married, I’m gonna cry some more.”
“No! That’s definitely not it.” I think of the kiss again, damn it. “He plays hockey with the Chicago Blaze, and—”
Angelia stops me again, scrunching her face in confusion and putting a hand in the air. “Hold up, what? You’re dating a Blaze player, and you’re just now mentioning this to me?”
“We’re not dating.”
She rolls her eyes. “Is this some of that new age bullshit? Are you just hanging out?”
“Will you just listen? This is way bigger than me and Knox.”
Angelia clamps her mouth shut, though I can tell it’s an effort for her. I continue.
“I told Knox about the shelter’s funding getting cut, and he talked to the people who run the Chicago Blaze Foundation, and they’re doing a fundraiser for us. For the shelter. It’s a week from Saturday.”
“Are you serious?”
I nod. “They’ve got some wealthy donors, too. I think most of the team will be there, and the owner. I’m hoping they’ll raise a lot of money.”
Knox: A Chicago Blaze Hockey Romance Page 9