Chapter 21 #3
“Relax. Not taking it off.” He untucks one side and pulls me closer instead, wrapping the edge around both of us against the cold.
My brain fully leaves my body. Every inch of him is suddenly there.
Warm skin. Bare thigh against mine. “You’re shaking,” he murmurs, bringing me into his lap.
Face to face, our breaths intermingle as he rubs his lips against mine.
It’s an intimacy beyond kissing, open eyes, sweet friction, and warmth.
The alarm stops. The silence after it is enormous.
Two seconds later, the card reader on the door behind us beeps twice and the red light turns green.
Then the door swings open and Dave appears with his radio and his medical kit and an expression that moves through confusion, assessment, and professional neutrality in approximately one second.
He registers the towel. The skate socks. My hand in Max’s hand, me in his lap. The folding chair. The general situation. “False alarm,” he says. “Steam from the Zamboni exhaust. System reset.” A pause. “You two locked out?”
“Yep,” Max says.
Dave looks at the ceiling. Looks at his radio.
“Right,” he says. “Team’s coming back in.
Skate in ten.” He holds the door. We go through it.
In the corridor, the team is filtering in from the front lobby, boots on concrete, voices loud with the specific energy of twenty-two men who have been standing outside in October complaining about it.
Fuze is at the front. He sees us. He sees the towel.
The skate socks. My hand, which I have removed from Max’s, but possibly not fast enough.
The general situation. His mouth falls open.
“Oh my God,” he says. “Is this—” he gestures vaguely between us “—a new training protocol or—”
“Service exit,” I say. “We were locked out.”
“On the east dock,” Max adds. “By the dumpster.”
Fuze looks at Anthony. Anthony looks at Trey. Trey looks at me with the expression of a man who has captained this team for four years and has seen many things, and is choosing his words. “Everyone gets dressed,” he says. “Ice in ten.”
The team moves. But Fuze already has his phone out and I see the angle he is shooting from and it is aimed directly at us and I am still close enough to Max that the composition of the photo is going to be extremely clear and there is nothing I can do about it because I am a professional and professionals do not tackle rookies for their phones in facility corridors.
Max clocks the phone. Clocks my expression. His mouth curves. “Evidence,” he says.
“Of what, exactly?”
“That you were cold, and I was the warmest thing available.” He tilts his head. “Professionally speaking.”
I unbutton my blazer. Straighten my badge. Put Toni back in place. The Antonia who said she was scared stays on the dock and meant every word. “Ten minutes,” I say. “Don’t be late.” I walk toward the elevator and press the button without turning.
“You should put on clothes,” I say.
“Why?”
The doors slide open. I step inside, finally glancing over my shoulder. “Because staring at you shirtless is becoming a workplace hazard.”
The doors close. I stand there grinning like an idiot. Burning eyes and the smile are mine alone. I keep both in the elevator.
My phone goes off at seven p.m.
I open it.
The photo is surprisingly good for a man who was ostensibly being casual about it.
Me in the blazer, badge clipped, hair slightly wrecked from the wind.
Max in the towel and the skate socks, six inches taller, messy head of hair, looking at me with an expression I cannot name but which is going to require significant processing time.
We are close. The dumpster is visible in the background.
Piper: THE DUMPSTER TONI
Piper: I’M CRYING
Scarlett: This is art. I refuse to elaborate.
Sophie: The socks are doing a lot of work here.
Harper: She’s done.
I set the phone face-down on my kitchen counter.
Elena appears from the living room with her wine. Studies my face. “What happened?”
“Fire alarm.”
She waits.
“We got locked on the service dock,” I say. “For twenty minutes. By the dumpster.”
She waits more.
“He told me he looked for me,” I whine. “After Rockford. For a year.”
Elena goes completely still.
“And I told him I almost went back in.” I squeeze my forehead with my fingers. “And that I was scared.”
Silence.
“I held his hand, and we almost kissed,” I sob. “On the dock. By the dumpster. While he was in a towel.”
Elena sets her wine down on the counter. Very precisely. She turns to face me with the expression of a woman who has been waiting for a specific thing for a long time and has now received confirmation of it.
“Antonia Maria Amato,” she says.
“Don’t.”
“You are so—“
“I know.”
“Completely—“
“Elena.”
“Gone,” she says. She picks her wine back up. Raises it. “Welcome.”
My phone buzzes again.
Max: [star emoji] [snowflake emoji] [dumpster emoji]
I stare at it. The emojis are absurd and specific, and completely him. I do not smile. I smile so wide my face hurts and put the phone down before Elena sees it.
She has already seen it. “Gone,” she says again, with great satisfaction. “Completely gone.”
She is not wrong. That’s the problem.