Chapter 23 Valuable Minutes
Valuable Minutes
Darcy
Eric and I take full advantage of the buffet. Meanwhile, the hotel staff has built a bonfire. Then they pass out s’mores kits and marshmallow roasting sticks.
“Oh, sweet,” Eric says, inspecting his stick. “How’s your marshmallow game?”
“Pro level,” I brag.
“I always get impatient and light them on fire,” he says, piercing a marshmallow.
“Amateur.”
The glance he gives me sparkles with competitiveness, so I give it my best effort. And we each toast a perfect marshmallow on the first try.
The second time, though, we get distracted by arguing about why Toronto can’t seem to put together any good defensive pairings. And somehow, we both light our marshmallows on fire.
“I’ve made charcoal,” Eric complains, looking at his blackened marshmallow. “So did you.”
“Ugly, right?” I grab his phone out of his hand and flick the hockey video off the screen. “Let’s take a selfie. Smile!” We pose in the firelight, grinning over our burnt marshmallows.
“Wait! Let me take it,” my brother says, getting out of his chair. He takes Eric’s phone. “Say cheese, losers.”
“CHEESE, LOSERS!” we both shout in unison.
Eric checks the photo and smiles. “We’re going to have to call that contest a draw. You want another glass of wine?”
“Not sure that’s a good idea,” I say with a sigh. “I’m pacing myself—we have two more nights of this debauchery.” The rehearsal dinner is tomorrow night, with the wedding the following evening.
“Coke? Mocktail?”
“I’ll find something over there,” I say, popping up and grabbing his empty glass. “And I’ll grab you a soda, too.”
The wind kicks up as I wait for our drinks. I pull my sweater around my shoulders and stare up at the fast-moving clouds in the darkening sky. Looks like rain, maybe.
When I return to the beach, a volleyball game has started up.
I end up seated on a beach chair watching Eric, Maribel, and Theo dominate over some of Theo’s college friends.
At least, I think they’re his college friends?
It’s odd to be a guest at my brother’s wedding when the person I know best here is Eric.
It’s weird, but it’s also my life story. I’ve always been an outsider in my own family. Just like I’m an outsider on the hockey team, too. I’m there, but I’m dispensable. I’ll never be in the inner circle.
But it’s difficult to care while I’m living out my Top Gun fantasies—Eric’s volleyball prowess is fun to watch. It’s not just me, either. He’s drawn a crowd. I open my phone and take a gratuitous photo of him leaping for the ball. But only one. Okay, two. But nobody’s perfect.
I’m just about to put the phone away when I get a text:
Zoe: OMG you two look so cute in that pic! Hope you’re having a fantastic time!
Darcy: Wait, what?
Zoe: On Eric’s Insta! The marshmallows?
I open the app in a hurry, and there it is—the first photo in my feed. Eric has posted one of the photos of the two of us holding our blackened marshmallows. The firelight is flickering on our smiling faces, and he’s got an arm thrown over my shoulders.
It’s a gorgeous picture, but it makes my stomach drop.
We look real together. Not just convincing, but painfully real.
His arm fits too perfectly around me, my body curving into his side like it was designed to be there.
The firelight catches the genuine laughter in our eyes, the easy tilt of my head toward his shoulder.
It’s a lie so perfect it steals my breath.
As I study the image, a sharp ache spreads through my chest. I zoom in on his face, at the way he’s looking at me instead of the camera. There’s warmth there, affection even. The perfect performance.
Damn him for being so good at this. Damn me for wishing it were more.
A hot flash of anger surges through me. He didn’t even ask before posting it. His thousands of followers will see us like this. But so will his teammates—my coworkers. Our little game suddenly has an audience, and I wasn’t consulted.
I scroll down to read the caption: “ Follow us for more lifestyle tips! #burnttoacrisp #playingwithfire”
Then I glance across the beach to where he’s serving the ball, all strength and grace, completely oblivious to the mess he’s making inside me. My yearning is like a bruise I can’t stop pressing, painful but impossible to ignore.
How stupid am I? I did this to myself. And now his half million followers can see it on my face in high definition.
By the time he’s done winning at volleyball, I’m basically seething. When he comes to stand beside me, I wordlessly hand him his Coke, and he drinks it in three gulps.
“Something wrong?” he asks, because I’m cursed with a fake boyfriend who’s uncommonly perceptive to other people’s emotions.
“Well, yeah. Zoe texted me after you put that photo up on Instagram. So now the whole team probably wonders why the two of us look so cozy on the beach.”
His face falls. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I just thought it was a great picture.”
I look over my shoulder and catch Tessa staring at me from a few yards away. My least favorite person. “This is because you heard what Tessa said earlier. Didn’t you? You must have. When she asked why I’m not in any of your photos?”
“Yup,” he admits as the wind churns his hair like a supermodel’s. “She said, ‘All he cares about is hockey.’”
“Eric!” I didn’t expect him to admit it. “We’ve been over this! I don’t need you to rescue me from Tessa.” I think back to the moment he leaned in to take that picture. How happy I was. And he was putting on an act the whole time.
He turns to me with another frown and says something I don’t understand. “God, Darcy.” He shakes his head. “You are really talented.”
“At what?”
“At assuming the absolute worst.” He sighs. Then he sets his glass down on a table and offers me his hand. “Come on. Take a walk with me.”
“Right now? I think it might rain.”
“Yes, right now.” His hand remains outstretched. With a grumpy sigh, I take it. His warm fingers close around mine, and the ache in my chest redoubles.
Then he leads me away from the party, holding hands like a real couple. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t think about the team seeing that picture. That was an oversight.”
“You know they gossip more than housewives on a reality show.”
“Yeah, my bad. And I’ll delete it right now if you want. Even though that’s kind of shutting the barn door after the cow gets out. But you still have it all wrong—I didn’t post that photo to fool Tessa.”
“You just admitted it!”
“No, I didn’t.” He gives me an exasperated look. “I said I heard what she said about me. It’s almost the same thing that DeLuca said to me once—that if my social media were a person, it would be the most boring guy at the party.”
“Rude.”
Eric guides me down the darkening beach toward one of the big wooden swings that’s been constructed here.
We sit down, but Eric isn’t relaxed. His hands are clenched into fists.
“DeLuca wasn’t wrong. And then here comes Tessa, with her big gotcha moment.
And I wanted to smack her, mostly because she’s right. ”
“About what, exactly?”
“Me. When she said that shit about my social media, I looked at my feed. And it’s nothing but hockey. That’s my whole life—hockey, more hockey, and trying to make up for the fact that my brother died young.”
Ouch.
“So, a few hours later, I’m on a beach with you.
And we take this funny photo of our ugly marshmallows.
And Darcy—” He turns his head, locking his gaze with mine.
“Nothing in that picture is a lie. Not one thing. I can’t speak for you, but I was having a top ten night.
I wasn’t stressing about the playoffs or the schedule or Weber’s girl trouble.
For once, I’ve even given up worrying about how my mother is doing, because we already know the answer to that. I was just living.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
“Yeah, for once in my stupid life, all I want to do is burn some marshmallows and turn my brain off. Oh, and I also want to do this.”
He turns toward me, and I’m not ready. There’s no time to brace myself for the sight of Eric’s intent gaze roving across my lips. Or for the feeling of his broad hand forking through my hair as he pulls me in.
Then his mouth crashes down on mine, hot and demanding.
Like he’s trying to prove a point. And for a split second, a last gasp of self-preservation causes me to stiffen in his arms. But Eric is kissing the hell out of me, and I’ve dreamed about this for so long.
In idle daydreams during boring meetings, in half sleep on red-eye flights, in dangerous moments of weakness when I’d catch him laughing in the locker room.
Who could fight that? A second later, I melt against him like butter on hot toast. And almost immediately, the reality of his kiss blows away all my daydreams. The real taste of him—marshmallows and urgency—is so much better than the fantasy.
The feel of his stubble against my chin, the sound of his breath catching when I tilt my head to improve our connection.
This. Yes. More. I grab his shirt with both hands, scooting closer and kissing him back just as fiercely.
I pour all my confusion and anger into the kiss, nipping at his lower lip in a way that makes him growl.
His arm tightens around my waist, lifting me into his lap as he deepens the kiss.
I respond by dragging my nails across the back of his neck, drawing another sharp intake of breath from him.
The cool night air whispers around us, but all I can feel is the heat of his mouth against mine, the solid press of his body.
It’s everything I’ve always wanted, and I don’t really understand the turn of events that brought me here.
When we finally break apart, I can’t look at him. His hands cup my face, but I keep my eyes closed, trying to memorize every sensation before it disappears. The gentle stroke of his thumb across my cheekbone. The warmth of his breath against my lips. The way his heartbeat thunders under my palm.
“Darcy,” he whispers, and the sound of my name in his voice breaks something loose inside me.
I finally open my eyes and find him watching me intently. There’s something raw and unguarded in his expression that I’ve never seen before—not during playoff finals, not during team crises, not even when he’s confided in me about his family. For once, the unflappable captain looks entirely undone.
“Tell me that wasn’t part of our act,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
“You don’t actually think that,” he insists, his gray eyes refusing to let me look away.
But that’s the cruel part—I don’t know what to think. I’ve spent so long convincing myself that Eric Tremaine sees me as nothing more than the GM’s helpful assistant, a friend of a friend, a convenient fake date. “Then what’s your plan, exactly?”
A feral smile flickers across his face. “Do you really want to hear it?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
“Fine.” He shrugs. “My plan would be to get that dress off you in the next five minutes. We’ll probably only make it as far as that giant ottoman in your hotel room before I’m inside you.”
My body shimmies at this gloriously specific image, and I let out a telling little gasp.
His eyes darken. “Should I go on?”
It’s all I can do to nod.
“All right. So after the ottoman takes the edge off, I’ll carry you to the bed for round two.
Then we’ll probably get some sleep so we’re well rested for the rest of the weekend.
I can think of several horizontal surfaces in your suite that need breaking in, plus a few of the vertical ones. What do you say?”
I take a breath and try to think. As if that’s even possible right now. This is a terrible idea, but who am I kidding? We both know I’m going to say yes.
He sets me gently down onto the bench seat and rises. Then he holds out a hand. “If you like this plan, let’s go back to your room. If not, I’ll bunk somewhere else this weekend. No hard feelings.”
I stare down at his open palm, my fingers quivering at the ready. But disbelief causes me to hesitate one more second. “This is… just for the weekend, right? And then we part as friends. I don’t want things to be awkward at work.”
“Oh, please. When am I ever awkward at work? I know my role, Darcy, and I play it well. Same as you. But we’re not at work now. So stop pretending we’re not on the same page. You’re wasting valuable minutes of our weekend.”
A half second later, I lay my hand into his. Strong fingers close around mine. He gives my hand a bossy tug, and we take off in the direction of the hotel.