Deleted scene #3
For a few minutes, I let the chaos move around me.
I let the drink warm my blood. I let myself enjoy the fact that for once, nobody is asking me for anything serious.
No one here knows enough about me to look too close.
No one knows about Darian. No one knows what it feels like to walk into a school hallway and understand, from one breath to the next, that everyone has seen you in a video you never knew was made.
The thought makes my stomach turn but I shove it down.
That is old history. Dead history. Buried under perfect grades, sharper attitude, better posture, and the kind of control nobody gets to touch.
I am a bitch and I wear the badge with way too much pride, but I earned it. Trust me, I more than earned it.
Easton shifts in beside me, he doesn’t crowd me. That is the irritating part. He stops at the corner of the island, close enough to talk without raising his voice, far enough away that I cannot accuse him of hovering.
“Briggs took rejection well,” he says.
I keep my eyes on the room. “He’ll recover by finding someone who appreciates soup-based romance.”
“He’s resilient.”
“He’s a human tennis ball.”
Easton huffs a quiet laugh. “So true.”
I glance at him and instantly regret it.
Up close, he is worse. The kind of attractive that feels less like a face and more like a problem with witnesses.
His hair is pale, short but messy blond under the kitchen lights, his lashes darker than they have any right to be, and there is a tiny scar near his bottom lip that makes my brain briefly lose all logical function.
I look at his mouth and he notices. His gaze drops to mine for half a second, then comes back up slowly, and the air between us changes. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough that my fingers tighten around my glass.
“You do that a lot,” he says.
I blink. “Do what?”
“Decide before you enter any room that nothing can affect you.”
I laugh because that is the safest response to being seen. “That was so deeply hockey boy pretending to be profound. Do they teach that during team bonding, or did you minor in emotional overreach?”
“No minor.” He leans one hip against the island, still too calm. “Just observant.”
“Watching women at parties is not a personality, Easton.”
His name leaves my mouth too easily.
His eyes sharpen, and I realize the mistake half a second too late. For reasons I honestly don’t know, saying his name was not casual, like it made him harder to dismiss.
“Watching everyone is part of my position,” he says.
“Defenseman, right?”
His brows lift slightly. “You know that?”
“I know things.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know defensemen read pressure before it gets dangerous.”
I take a slow sip, giving myself time to recover from the very annoying fact that the sentence works on me. “You think I’m dangerous?”
“I think you’d like me to think that you are.”
My smile hardens. “Careful.”
“Of what?”
“What?” I ask because it was unexpected.
“The warning you just gave me.”
“Maybe you should listen to it.”
“Maybe you should stop giving it to people you want to stay.”
For one second, the kitchen disappears because what is happening?
The music, the heat—all of it blurs because Easton is looking at me like he said exactly what he meant and is willing to stand there while I decide whether to punish him for it.
My chest tightens and I hate that he found the latch so quickly.
“You don’t know anything about what I want,” I say, my voice softer now, which makes it more vulnerable.
“No,” he agrees. “But I know when someone likes being chased and hates being caught.”
Heat rushes up my throat as I set my glass down carefully. “You always this confident?”
“Not always.”
“Just with women in red dresses?”
“Just with women who look at me like they know where to hide the body.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. His eyes change when he hears it, not smug exactly, but pleased in a way he does not bother to hide. That is somehow more intimate than if he had touched me.
I look away first. But his gaze follows.
The kitchen suddenly feels too hot, too loud, too full of people who have no idea something inconvenient is happening in my chest right now.
I pick up my glass and finish the drink because if I do not put something in my mouth, I might say something honest, and honest is how women end up looking stupid.
“I need air,” I say as I slide away from the island before he can answer, weaving through bodies and sticky heat toward the back of the house.
No one stops me. Bliss is mid-argument with Briggs and too distracted to notice.
Charm sees me go, but I give her a tiny lift of my hand that says bathroom, air, don’t follow, and because Charm is the least invasive person I love, she stays put.
The back porch is colder than I expect late August in northern Michigan has an alter ego after dark, especially this close to the water.
The air slides over my bare arms and legs, raising goose bumps beneath the sequins.
The yard behind Hockey House is crowded with shadows, lawn chairs, empty cans, and the low glow of a firepit someone has abandoned in favor of whatever chaos is happening inside.
Crickets buzz from the damp grass, and above the roofline, the sky is black and wide, pricked with stars too stubborn to be swallowed by campus lights.
I breathe in once and fight to not think about my reaction to a fucking defenseman.
Out here, the music is muffled and the voices are distant. Nothing is watching me except the dark, and the dark has always been kinder than people.
The door opens behind me but I don’t turn around. “Following women outside is generally how documentaries start,” I say.
The door shuts softly. “I brought your drink.”
I look over my shoulder to Easton standing there with my glass in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, his expression unreadable under the weak porch light. He holds both out like an offering and a challenge.
“I didn’t ask for either.”
“No.”
“Yet here you are.”
“You left the bourbon but stopped drinking water an hour ago.”
My eyes narrow. “You count women’s hydration levels at parties?”
“Only the ones in dresses that look like they’d win a fight.”
I stare at him and he just holds the water out farther.
I should not take it. Taking it rewards observation, and observation is how men start thinking they have a chance. But my mouth is dry, my head is warm from champagne and bourbon and Easton’s stupid eyes, and refusing would look like he got under my skin.
So, I take the water because I refuse to lose the battle and his fingers brush mine for half a second.
Nothing dramatic happens—no thunder or cinematic burst of music. Just skin against skin, brief and warm, and my body reacts like a traitor.
Like, its hand skin Aura. Calm the fuck down.
I twist the cap off with more aggression than necessary. “You this attentive with everyone?”
“No.”
At least he doesn’t lie but that’s inconvenient too.
I take a drink and lean against the railing, looking out at the yard instead of him. “So, what’s the play here?”
“The play?”
“Yes, Easton, the play… The brooding.” I flick a glance over him. “The drink… The water... The very selfless journey onto the porch to make sure I didn’t tragically dehydrate under the moonlight. It’s giving strategy, babe.”
“I don’t have a strategy.”
“Men always have strategy.”
“Men you choose probably do.”
My head turns slowly because who the fuck does he think he is?
I mean, other than the defenseman who is reading me like an open book—but seriously, who does he think he is?
Easton leans against the railing beside me, not touching, not crowding, not even looking particularly impressed with himself for landing that hit. He just watches the yard like he has all the time in the world and none of it belongs to me unless I decide to take it.
“You think you know what kind of men I choose?”
“I think you choose men who don’t ask questions.”
The bottle crinkles slightly in my hand and it is then I realize I’m gripping it too hard. I force my fingers to loosen. “And you ask questions?”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like you’ll run if I ask the right one.”
My laugh comes out thin. “You give yourself a lot of credit.”
“Not really.” He looks at me then. “I’m usually right about exits.”
Something cold and hot moves through me at his words. I hate this. I hate that he’s not doing anything wrong. I hate that his voice is calm, no smirk, not making it easy to dismiss him as another athlete with a pretty face and a predictable ego.
I hate that pretty face too.
Up close under porch light, Easton’s features are harsher than they looked in the kitchen, all shadowed jaw and mouth and cheekbones that should not belong to a man who clearly has enough advantages already.
His T-shirt pulls across his chest when he shifts, and his forearms flex around the beer bottle he has not taken a single sip from since he followed me outside.
I want to touch him and the thought is so immediate and irritating that I take another drink of water just to give my hands a job.
“You’re quieter than I expected,” I say.
“You’re louder than you need to be.”
My brows shoot up and I wait for…I don’t know? An explanation maybe but he gives me nothing. The audacity is almost refreshing.
“That sounded dangerously close to an opinion.”
“It was an observation.”
“About me?”
“About your armor.”
Well there’s the thing under the flirting and I want to pat myself on the back for knowing he had a move hidden somewhere.
I turn toward him fully. “Please. You look like you were assembled in a lab by emotionally unavailable men who think eye contact is commitment.”
His mouth twitches. “That was specific and directional.”
“No, that was an observation.”
“About my armor then?”