Chapter 20
Twenty
Faye
I don’t know what wakes me.
Last I remember, I was watching the Grizzlies game, hard-pressed to remember why I didn’t enjoy my previous attempts at hockey viewing.
I’m not saying that I’m going to seek it out or become a diehard, eighty-two-game-plus-playoffs viewer, but…
It’s a whole lot more interesting when I know someone on the ice.
Someones.
Because my gaze hadn’t just been glued to Gray out there—I’d also spotted Aiden and Leo and Ryan and Smitty.
It was fun watching them.
Not as fun as watching Gray of course.
But still different than before.
I guess I just needed the personal connection.
Because I’d been glued to the television.
I don’t remember turning it off, though maybe I had after Gray’s interview had finished and the commentators started droning on and on about line combinations and defensive metrics.
I’d been thinking about Gray’s wink during that interview. A wink that had matched one he’d given the camera right before it cut away to a commercial break in the second period.
A wink that had my heart fluttering.
No. It was two winks that had my pulse skittering through my veins.
Gorgeous man.
Talented player.
Soft, sweet heart.
Sighing, I curl onto my side and deliberately push my thoughts down. It’s early, the sun just beginning to peek over the hills to the east, to shine gently through the window, turning the room into soft shades of gold and pink and orange.
Pretty. But I’m tired. It’s been a trying—more than trying, that’s for damned sure—few days.
And I’m sure Gray is tired too. The game didn’t end until after ten and he had the interview, had to change and shower then drive home.
And he probably had some sort of postgame routine.
All of my hockey heroes did.
Plus, the Grizzlies had won.
Handily.
So he might have gotten together with the guys and celebrated.
In which case, he’d have been out late.
So late it won’t matter if I close my eyes against the growing brightness and go back to sleep.
Because Gray will still be in bed.
Smiling at that sensual thought, I draw the blankets up a little further, bury my face into the pillow and allow my lids to slide shut.
A deep breath.
A deliberate relaxing of my body.
Then my eyes flash open.
Because I hear it.
I smell it.
Rumbling.
Burning.
Gasping, I sit upright in bed, searching the room for smoke and when I don’t find any, or none in the immediate vicinity, I take a moment to calm myself. Then I grab a sweatshirt from the closet, shove my feet into the sneakers, snag Gray’s phone from the nightstand.
The scent of burning still lingers in the air and my stomach twists.
Smoke equals loss.
I can’t let that happen to Gray.
A gentle touch of the doorknob.
Finding it cool to the touch, I carefully turn it and pull it open, searching the hall for any sign of smoke.
I still don’t see any.
But I smell it, stronger now.
“Shit,” I whisper, hurrying down the hall. I don’t know exactly where Gray’s room is, though, presumably, it’s upstairs.
I need to locate the source of the fire then find him and make sure we both get out, that we’re both safe.
Like he did for me.
But even as I’m searching for flames and planning my exit route, I hear it.
The rumbling.
Only…it’s not the flames burning through the floorboards, tearing through the walls, the foundation, the noise of destruction reverberating all around me.
It’s a…stand-up mixer?
And Gray cursing—an impressive string I couldn’t have come up with in a book, not even on my most creative day in Writing World.
I turn the corner, get a full look at him…and the mess that’s the kitchen.
Flour is dusting the counters, the floor, the cabinets, even that mixer, like fresh snowfall. And Gray isn’t immune to it either.
It’s on his cheek, sprinkled throughout his hair, dotted on his beard.
It coats his bare chest, his abs, the waistband of his low-slung sweats.
Holy hot baking fantasy.
I tug at the neck of my sweatshirt, needing some cool air since my body is suddenly hotter than the oven.
He curses again as a cloud of flour blooms, the mixer going too fast, and now I know exactly how the snowfall of flour was created.
But I’m too busy watching to intervene.
Too busy taking it all in.
The mess.
But also fresh bags of groceries and several bunches of bananas, a tablet perched up on the counter, a video playing, describing how to make…
Banana bread.
My heart convulses.
Because I also spot the source of the burnt smell.
Loaves—at least a half-dozen of them—spread out on counter.
All charred within an inch of their lives.
Like seriously, they could be bricks, could be used to build a wall.
“…add one egg and combine well…”
Gray opens the carton, pulls out and egg and tries to crack it on the bowl.
Tries because he makes a mess of it, the shell going everywhere, the white exploding, the yolk breaking.
“Fuck,” he hisses.
“…then add your oil and—“
“Slow down,” he snaps at the iPad, hurrying to the trash can and dumping the abused egg inside. He washes his hands then wipes them on a towel as he turns back to the mixer.
Which is still rumbling.
But he only makes it a step before his head flies up and his eyes come to mine and—
“Now pour your mixture into a buttered and floured loaf pan and…”