Chapter Three
Dani
I t's amazing how quickly adrenaline wears off once you're not responsible for keeping a six-foot-three beast of a man from dying on your watch.
The entire way to Trent's place, I'm a shivering wreck with the emotional regulation of a five-year-old. My hair is also doing that thing where it looks like I just got electrocuted…which is precisely the look you want when you're about to spend the night with the man of your dreams.
In short, conditions are not ideal.
But I shuffle Trent up the sidewalk, anyway, propping his weight on my shoulder. He's not really half-dead anymore, but the odds of me getting him from the curb to his front door without one—or both—of us faceplanting into the snow are still iffy .
His building is ridiculous. Like, the sort of high-rise you only see in movies. You know, the ones where the character is either a billionaire CEO or an assassin-for-hire? Yeah, it's that kind of luxury.
The lobby has a fountain. The elevator has a chandelier. The foyer has a freaking museum-quality painting of several sheepdogs playing poker, which is simultaneously so impressive and so unhinged that I have to stop and gape at it for a second.
"Can you make it the rest of the way?" I whisper, trying to keep my voice down so we don't alarm the concierge, who is already watching us like he expects Trent to vomit on the pristine marble tiles.
"I'm a professional athlete," Trent grumbles, pulling himself upright. He immediately overshoots, nearly pitching forward onto the marble floor.
I grab his arm and steer him toward the elevator, trying to ignore how good his biceps feel under my hands. For a guy who almost died of anaphylaxis this morning, he's surprisingly…solid.
We reach his penthouse, and the door swings open like it's been waiting for us.
The inside is even more absurd than the lobby.
There's a grand piano, a wall of glass that overlooks the entire city, and a rug so soft I want to bury my face in it and nap for the next decade.
There are also three hockey sticks, a stack of signed jerseys, and a bottle of ibuprofen the size of my head sitting on the coffee table .
He drops onto the couch with a groan, his arms flopping across the top like he's preparing to be painted like a French girl.
"Home sweet home," he sighs.
"Let's get you some water," I say, heading for the kitchen. "Then you're going to bed, and I'm going to sit vigil until I'm sure you're not going to choke on your tongue and die." I pause, realizing I have no clue where he keeps his glasses. Or anything, really. "Uh, where are your cups?"
He gestures with a wave of his hand. "Above the coffee maker, left side. Not the right. That's my protein shake shrine."
Sure enough, when I open the cabinet to the right, it's jammed with shaker bottles, whey tubs, and enough pre-workout to fuel a small CrossFit cult. Yuck.
I opt for the other side, grab a glass, and fill it with filtered water. There's a bowl of fruit on the counter, which I pointedly ignore. I prefer the miniature, gummy versions, thank you very much.
When I return, he's flipping through channels on the remote, but as soon as I hand him the water, he sets it down and smiles at me, like nothing makes him happier than a glass of tap water delivered by a woman in wrinkled orange scrubs.
"Thanks, Sunshine," he says. His voice is back to normal, and his lips are definitely no longer Muppet-shaped. If anything, he looks better than he did this morning.
I narrow my eyes. "You're not supposed to look this perky after a trip to the ER."
He tips his head back and laughs. "Would you be mad if I said I may have been exaggerating a little bit for the last hour or so?"
"Yes, actually. I've been texting fifteen people to update them on your condition all day. If you're not at death's door, I'm going to smother you with one of your fancy pillows."
His grin widens. "Who have you been texting?"
I instantly regret saying anything. "Liz, obviously.
Coach, because if you croaked and I didn't inform him, I'd get blacklisted from every team in Illinois.
Sandra, because she keeps a spreadsheet of every player injury, and I don't want to be the one to ruin her data.
And half of your teammates, because I figured ignoring them would only result in them showing up in the ER. "
He makes a noise somewhere between a snort and a cough. "Good call. We definitely didn't need them around. And you're the only reason Sandra's head hasn't exploded. If she fires you, we're all fucked."
I try to hide the flush climbing up my cheeks by focusing on his face, looking for any sign that he's still at risk of keeling over. "How is the itching?" I ask, as clinically as possible.
He shrugs and lifts the hospital gown, exposing a strip of abs that I'd really like to lick.
There are a few angry red marks on his ribs, but they're fading fast. I pretend I don't notice the abs, even though my brain immediately creates a familiar slideshow of what the rest of him probably looks like naked.
I've gotten myself off to that self-made slideshow a lot.
"They're fine," he says, pulling the gown down. "The drugs did their job. I just itch a little."
"Don't scratch," I say. "You'll make it worse."
He smirks. "You going to punish me if I do?"
I refuse to answer. Mostly because I might say something I live to regret. Instead, I dig through my bag for the travel-size lotion I always carry and lob it at his head. He catches it one-handed, smirking even harder.
"That's not the kind of punishment I had in mind, but I'll take it," he teases.
If I had the energy, I'd hurl something heavier at him, like a dumbbell, or perhaps the coffee table. He has no idea what his flirting is doing to me. And he's probably too high to even know he's doing it. It's cruel and unusual.
I move to tidy up the living room, because that's what I do when I'm frazzled. I clean. But, aside from the stuff on the coffee table, his apartment is already sparkling. I wonder if he actually lives here, or if he's just squatting. He spends so much time at the arena, he might as well live there.
When I finish refolding the throw blanket for the third time, I glance back at him. He's watching me with that lazy, satisfied-cat expression, one arm draped over the couch, the other hand twirling the lotion tube.
"Are you really okay?" I ask, my voice softer now. "Like, really, really okay?"
He shrugs. "Was never worried."
"You nearly stopped breathing, Trent!"
His smirk is wide and infuriating. "Would've been a pretty good way to go."
I glare at him. "You want your tombstone to read, 'Death by Fudge?'"
"That's a legacy. People would talk about it for years." He gives me a sidelong glance. "Plus, it would've been your fudge. Worth it, Dani."
He's flirting again. And I forget how to breathe for a second. Maybe it's because he's big, handsome, and so far out of my league that he orbits in a different solar system. Or maybe it's because, despite how infuriating he is, he's an incredible guy.
I am so screwed.
I barely manage to function like a human being around him in the safety of the training facility. How am I supposed to do it in the privacy of his luxury living room?
"I'd rather you live to regret eating it," I say.
He shifts, swinging his legs up so his feet land on the ottoman. "Not possible. It was the best fudge I've ever had. "
I snort. "You've probably only had, like, three kinds of fudge in your life."
He grins. "And yours is the best. Case closed."
He's laying it on thick, and I'm too tired to tell if it's genuine or just the Benadryl talking. I decide to play it safe and stick to caretaker mode. I probably won't say anything that will make things awkward after the holidays that way. Probably.
I point at the hallway. "Go to bed. I'll check on you every hour."
He pouts, which is both childish and weirdly sexy on a man his size. "You're leaving me alone already?"
I blink. "Uh, yes? You need sleep, not entertainment."
He shakes his head. "That's where you're wrong. I definitely need entertainment." He pats the couch next to him. "Just until I fall asleep. It's medical best practices."
I hesitate, which is the first sign that I've completely lost the plot.
Actually, that's not true. The first sign was agreeing to stay in the first place.
I should be halfway back to my apartment by now, preparing to eat ice cream straight from the carton and doom-scroll social media until my eyes bleed.
Instead, I sit at the farthest edge of the couch.
He stretches toward me like a lazy bear, head tilted back, eyes half-closed. For a second, he looks so peaceful that I almost believe the whole day was just a bad dream. But then his eyes flick open, and he pins me with that intense, green-eyed stare.
"Why did you become a physical therapist?" he asks, his voice low and curious.
I blink. "What?"
"You could've done anything," he says, waving a hand. "Why sports physical therapy?"
I'm not prepared for the question, or the way he asks it—like he genuinely wants to know.
I think about the answer for a second, then shrug. "I guess because I was always the one taping up my foster brothers after their Little League disasters. Because I like helping people. Because…I don't know. It seemed like a job where I could actually fix something for someone, you know?"
He stares at me intently. "You were in foster care?"
I nod, avoiding his gaze. "From the time I was eleven until I turned eighteen."
"I didn't know that," he says softly.
I shrug uncomfortably. "Don't talk about it much. The fact that my mom was an addict who spent half of my life in prison isn't really something that rolls off the tongue."
"Damn, baby," he says softly. "I'm sorry."
"Me too," I whisper, desperately trying not to think about the fact that he just called me baby.
"Well, you're damn good at your job. "