by Avery Flynn
“Are you concerned, Jasper?” Asha asked, her voice filled with concern that almost sounded heartfelt. “What is your advice to your daughter about dating someone who didn’t stop others from saying something like that?”
Jasper paused, pursing his lips together as he looked up at the ceiling, obviously trying to get his thoughts in order. “I think we all make mistakes at some point in our lives, but we should try to judge a person on the totality of what they’ve said and done.” He pivoted so he had a direct line of sight to the cameras. “I know I did when I got into a fender bender. The good folks at Miller’s Mechanical fixed me right up, and I made sure not to put myself in a position where I was going to run into someone’s bumper again.”
Asha cleared her throat, her grip on the index cards she held getting tight enough that they bent. “You certainly seem to have a lot of friends, Jasper.”
“He’s a walking commercial,” Britany said, rolling her eyes.
Jasper shrugged off the insult. “I guess I’m the kind of guy who likes to recognize a job well done and give an encouraging word here and there. I figured that as a coach, you’d appreciate that.”
Before Caleb’s mom could fire off a retort, Asha broke in. “Coach Stuckey, what made you think taking over your son’s dating life was a good idea? Isn’t that a little excessive? What’s next, calling the Ice Knights’ front office to get him out of hot water?”
“Well,” Britany said, her voice taking on the tone she used with a player who’d made the same mistake for the hundredth time. “He’d obviously made a mess of it, and as a mom, I wanted to help.”
Asha cocked her head to one side. “It didn’t seem a little overreaching to you?”
“Like I’m being a helicopter parent on steroids?” Britany let loose with her signature snort-chuckle. “Hell yes it did, but here I am because family is family, even when they mess up.”
“So what do you think of his date?” Asha asked. “What has he told you about how it went?”
“It sounded to me like it went well, and when we saw her outside just now, I gotta say you could tell they’re a little taken with each other. It really showed in their body language.”
“Who wouldn’t be taken with Zara?” Jasper asked. “She’s amazing.”
Britany crossed her arms and glared at Zara’s dad. “No shout-out to her hairdresser?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”
“The place where she gets her high heels?” Caleb’s mom continued.
Jasper fiddled with his tie, looking like a rookie who’d just tossed his gloves down before a fight with a veteran and was beginning to realize how much trouble he was in. “You can be snide all you want, but the fact that she’s willing to go out on another date with your son really shows how much of a kind person she is, and you can’t buy that in a store.”
An unnatural silence wrapped around everyone in the studio. Even the people who didn’t know Britany seemed to be hanging on the edge of the oh-shit moment.
“Sounds to me, Jasper,” Asha said, pulling them all back from the brink, “as if you’re not really all that taken with the idea of Zara dating Caleb.”
“I have some reservations.” Taking a visible gulp, Jasper cut a glance over to Britany before his attention skittered away. “B-b-but I’m trying to keep an open mind.”
Britany snorted.
Asha turned to Caleb, her smile cooling by at least twenty degrees. “What about you, Caleb? Are you taken with Zara, or is she just another nameless puck bunny?”
He could feel his breath hitching as what felt like the attention of Harbor City’s entire population zoomed in on him. In half a heartbeat, he was that kid standing in front of his class trying to read the daily announcements while the letters moved around on the page. He could feel individual droplets of sweat on the back of his neck, and the urge to get up and leave was almost overwhelming.
“Yeah, I do like her,” he said, the words coming out fast and untested. He really should have practiced this bit. Just remember you’re the one who is supposed to be already half in love. “I knew it the first time I spotted her and she came crashing into me that there would be sparks between us. She owns her own business, she’s creative, she speaks her mind, all of which are really attractive, and that’s before you even get to the fact that she’s totally hot. Zara is the total package. I could totally see myself falling for her.”
It sounded almost as stilted as Jasper’s commercial pitches, but he had to brazen through it.
“And if I told you she’d said no to going on a second date?” Asha asked.
That metaphorical kick in the balls was enough to make him slam his mouth shut hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Really?”
“Just teasing.” Asha laughed, each word sharp as his skate’s blades. “She’s right here, so let’s ask her. Zara, are you going to say yes to a second date or follow the advice of Harbor City’s women in our morning flash poll?” She pivoted to look straight into the camera. “While we’ve been talking, our viewers have been voting. Sixty-eight percent of the ladies voted that Zara should have been one and done. Yes or no to another date, Zara?”
Her knee was jiggling against his, but she answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
“Interesting,” Asha said, turning the wattage of her smile up to twenty. “I’m sure all of Harbor City will be tuning in after date number two to find out if you or our viewers were right about how it would go. We’ll see all of you then on Harbor City Wake Up.”
The red light over the camera went dark, Asha got up and started to walk off the set, and everyone in the studio started chattering at once—except for him, Zara, Jasper, and Britany.
Caleb sat there dumbfounded. He got that he was a dipshit. He got that Asha and probably most of Harbor City wanted to give him a public comeuppance, which he could take. What he didn’t understand was why he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was personal for the TV host.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Zara before hustling over to where Asha was talking with a guy in a headset who was holding a clipboard. “Thanks for having me.”
“You have no idea who I am, do you?” she asked.
Trick question? Maybe, but he was going to play it straight. “You’re Asha Kapoor.”
Glaring at him, she took a step closer and lowered her voice so only they could hear. “One of your teammates slept with my sister a few months ago, but he wouldn’t know who she is because she was just some rando puck bunny, I guess.”
Seriously, getting slashed in the face with a stick a hundred times would be worth it if he could go back in time and have another chance to call out his friends for saying such stupid shit. Most of it really was just talk—they weren’t bad guys—but they’d acted like it, and that was just as awful.
Guilt twisted his gut. Up until this moment, he hadn’t really thought about how the video going viral had impacted the women he and the other Ice Knights had slept with. Yeah, that pretty much confirmed it. He was pond scum. “I’m sorry. I should have said something. I deserve the response I’ve gotten.”
“You do.” Asha jabbed her finger into his chest. “And not because of some sex shaming but because these women were human beings, not pussy sleeves for your dicks. They have names.”
“You’re right.” He took a step back and stopped himself. “Please tell your sister I’m sorry.”
Asha glared at him, a divot forming between her eyes, but didn’t say anything.
Taking the hint, he turned away and walked out of the studio with his mom, Zara, and Jasper. Zara and her dad gave them space, chatting quietly in the corner. From what he could catch, it sounded like Zara was giving her old man the what-for about all the commercial plugs he’d dropped during the interview.
It wasn’t until the elevator started going down that his mom pulled him aside and said, “That was rough. You okay?”
“I’ll live.” He let his head fall back so it thunked aga
inst the elevator wall. “Do you think I can come back from this?”
Giving him a considering look, his mom paused, seeming to gather her words. He knew what that meant. Coach Britany was on duty. “Let me ask you this, how would you feel about someone who said what your teammates did about your sisters?”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “Like smashing his face in.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a shitty, dehumanizing move and they deserve better.”
His mom nodded. “So why do I have to make the connection between your sisters and these other women for you to realize the shittiness of this kind of locker room talk, if that’s what you want to use as an excuse?”
She shouldn’t have to. That was the water his mom was leading him to, and as soon as he was standing over the pond looking down at his reflection, he saw it all. Epic-level dickery.
“So what do I do now?” he asked.
“Act the way you know you should,” she said as the elevator doors opened. “Use this opportunity not just to make yourself look better but to be better.”
And how exactly he was going to do that, he had to figure out—and soon. A few floors later, he was holding the elevator doors while everyone walked out. His mom and her dad said their goodbyes and walked out, but Zara lingered in the lobby, her fingers wrapped tightly around the strap of her purse as her gaze flicked from one part of the busy lobby to another without ever landing on him.
“You got a minute to chat?” he asked.
This wasn’t going to go well. More than likely, she was going to move over to the side of the 68 percent of the city’s female population who were ready to kick him to the curb. Who could blame her? Not him. Still, it needed to be done.
“I understand if you want to end this here,” he said, walking with her toward the doors. “No hard feelings.”
She looked up at him, her gaze wary. “Were you serious up there? Are you really sorry you didn’t act or that you got caught?”
“I’m ashamed I didn’t say anything.” He shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration, mad at himself. “I should have, and I fucked up.”
Zara didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at him. Instead, she watched the people hustle around them in the lobby. Then she took out her phone and opened the Bramble app. The yes or no to date number two confirmation notification popped up immediately.
She tapped yes. “Let’s see what the Bramble folks have planned for date number two.”
Caleb let out the pent-up breath he’d been holding, and they walked out together into the bright Harbor City morning.
Chapter Five
The next day, Caleb was waiting for Zara outside of The Adventure Place, which was housed in a huge warehouse down at the harbor’s edge where Bramble had organized an event for matched couples. About twenty people were waiting outside when he got there, each of them pairing off into couples—with the exception of one group of three each wearing “poly proud” T-shirts and looking like they’d all won the Bramble lottery. His date, though, was a no-show.
He checked the Bramble app on his phone for the billionth time. The last message he’d gotten through it informed him that Zara had checked yes for a second date. No updates since then that she’d changed her mind. Shoving his phone in his pocket, he scanned the area, looking for her again.
Finally, just as he was about to give up hope, a small lime-green car turned onto the long drive leading to the warehouse. A Great Dane had his head poking through the open sunroof, the tongue hanging out of its mouth bigger than his mom’s Chihuahua.
As soon as the car came to a stop near the entryway, the passenger door was flung open and Zara scrambled out, her face flush as her gaze darted from one couple to another. When she finally spotted him, she hurried over, making faster time than he thought possible in a pair of sandals that boosted her height by two inches.
“Sorry I’m late.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail as the fall breeze did its best to whip it around her face. “My dog took one of my shoes again.”
Caleb took a wild guess. “That horse of a dog?”
“Yep.”
A woman opened the glass double doors to the warehouse. “Come on in, Bramble folks. Let’s do this.”
The this in question turned out to be an indoor zip line obstacle course. There were lines that crisscrossed the overhead area of the warehouse with platforms and balance lines along with rolling padded bars that participants had to run across as the bars spun.
The whole thing started with a twenty-foot climbing wall dotted with different-colored holds that stuck out from the surface. The instructor let them know they had to climb up the wall, cross the obstacle course, and then descend the platforms on the other side. As each couple made their way through the course, the leaderboard would show everyone’s time.
“The goal is to get across first?” Zara asked as she exchanged her sandals for a pair of climbing shoes provided by their group leader, Charlotte, who’d spent the last five minutes explaining the equipment to everyone in a lecture that included tips about creating harmony with the universe and achieving balance.
“No, it’s to learn to communicate and work together,” Charlotte said, handing Zara a safety harness. “This is one of those activities that help build connections between couples. You are a team.”
Yeah. That sounded like some BS right there. “Is there a course record?” Caleb asked.
Charlotte shook her head, her serene earth-mama expression not shifting in the slightest. “The Adventure Place is about the journey, not the stats.”
“And no one knows the course record?” Zara asked.
After letting out a sigh that sounded a lot like a whispered plea for serenity now, Charlotte answered, “Six minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Now if we can move the discussion back to setting your personal intentions for the moment.”
Their guide continued on, but Caleb wasn’t listening anymore. He and Zara exchanged a look of understanding as they pulled on their harnesses and tightened the straps around their waists while the rest of the Bramble daters seemed to be hanging on Charlotte’s every word.
Under the guise of adjusting his climbing shoes, Caleb squatted down beside Zara and kept his voice low. “We’re gonna go balls out on this thing, right?”
“Hell yes.”
There was no missing the epic level of kick-ass-or-have-your-ass-kicked competitiveness glimmering in her brown eyes. The woman wasn’t here to play or get in touch with her inner compass. She was here to dominate.
“You know,” he said, grinning at her. “You’re all right.”
She tipped an imaginary hat at him as they followed Charlotte and the rest of the Bramble daters to the wall. “Let’s do this.”
They started up the wall. He set the pace slow, taking it easy and reaching for the different colored holds. Everything in him was screaming to go faster, but he wanted to continue the conversation, and his wingspan was probably as long as Zara’s entire body. Something bright red flashed in his peripheral vision. It took him a second to realize it was Zara ascending the wall like Spider-Man, her ponytail swaying from side to side along with her heart-shaped ass.
He sped up, catching her quickly. “So, what did you think of my ‘already got the hots for her’ answer in the interview?”
“It was something.” She didn’t look his way, just kept her attention focused on picking out the best hold to help leverage her way up. “You were laying it on a little thick, but I suppose you’ve got to fix your fuckup. Really, what were you guys thinking by saying all of that shit? Did you really have to prove the athlete stereotypes true?”
“That’s the thing.” He followed a path upward that was parallel to hers, the movements requiring the kind of concentration that was usually taken up by making sure his mouth wasn’t going off without his brain. “For some of us, it’s not true. I haven’t even slept with that many women. It was just talk for some of the guys.”
He squeezed his eyes closed for a second and swallowed a groan. Talking and climbing was probably not the best combo for him—too much of the truth spilled out.
“Yeah,” she said with a scoff. “Tell that to the women of the world who’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of ‘just talk’—the ones who are made to feel small so guys like you can feel like a big man.” She paused, arching back far enough that when she gave him the stink eye, it was without the belay rope in her line of sight. “So how many women have you slept with?”
His grip slipped, along with his ability to keep his mouth shut. “Fifteenish.”
“This year?” She shrugged and continued upward. “That’s kinda a lot. Not to slut shame you or anything, just to point out that a professional athlete’s definition of ‘a lot’ and a regular person’s might be different.”
And there it was, the assumption that made the reality stand out that much more. “Not this year,” he said, wishing like hell that he could shut up already. “Total.”
She paused, considering her next handhold carefully. “Are you a serial monogamist?” she asked without nearly as much judgment as he heard inside his own skull.
He shook his head, embarrassment burning a hole in his stomach lining. “Just shitty with the women.”
Zara paused mid-reach for the last hold and turned to look him in the eye. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”
And with that, she climbed up onto the first platform, unclipped the belay rope, and attached the obstacle course safety line to the carabiner on her harness. He took off after her, but the woman was sprinting across the fifteen-feet-long tightrope over a net. She was across to the platform on the other side before he’d even gotten his new safety line clipped in place.
“Come on,” she called out. “You can do it.”
Fuck. He flew down the ice on blades three millimeters wide and managed to stay on his feet even when someone slammed into him—well, mostly. So why was a rope nearly four times as thick making his gut clench? A million possibilities of all the ways this could go wrong ran through his head.