Chapter 17
“Explain this whole weasel thing to me again.”
I took a deep, calming breath, trying to restrain my desire to start shouting at him over the phone. At least he’s trying, I reminded myself. Even if he had just called one of my favorite characters in literature a weasel thing.
“Pan is not a weasel,” I said, pleased by how calm I sounded.
Liam made a disgruntled sound on the other end of the line. “I asked Josie if he was a pet—”
“He’s not a pet!” I gasped, even more horrified.
His chuckle was low and warm in my ear. “That’s what Josie said. And she sounded about as outraged as you just did.”
I grinned in spite of myself. “I can’t blame her. The Dark Materials books are amazing. And the relationship between the humans and their daemons is central to the entire series.”
“I thought a demon was something scary. Aren’t these books for kids?”
I blew out a breath. “Look, it’s great you’re trying to get into Josie’s favorite series,” I told him. “But I think you might be a lost cause.”
His voice dropped into something raspy and delicious. “Don’t you go giving up on me yet, Gracie.”
I shivered, pulling my knees up into my chest and snuggling a little deeper in the comfy cushions of my couch. Hearing his voice like that, so close to my ear, the sound deep and enticing, had me thinking of everything that had happened the only time Liam had joined me on this couch.
I hadn’t seen him since that night. That amazing, indescribable night. I might even be inclined to believe I had imagined the whole thing—if he hadn’t called me every night since.
We hadn’t been able to make our schedules work for the dinner he’d requested.
The team was well into pre-season now and either on the road or playing home games every night except one—Thursday, when I would have to attend the school board meeting to formally approve our new curriculum.
We hadn’t even been able to meet up with friends to see Casablanca as we’d planned because of travel delays with the team—probably a good thing, seeing as it sounded like torture to sit in a dark movie theater with him and our friends and pretend everything was platonic.
Liam hadn’t been happy about our difficulty in meshing schedules, but a part of me wondered if it might not be for the best. It would be so easy for me to get lost in this guy—just like I had a decade ago.
I wasn’t at all confident in my ability to keep this entire thing from going much too fast too soon, so maybe a little forced space was just what I needed.
But sitting on that couch, exactly where I’d been when he’d so thoroughly rocked my world, with his low voice in my ear, it was impossible not to wish we’d been able to make the time to see each other.
“Where’d you go, Gracie?”
Just losing myself in fantasies of your body. Your mouth. Your incredibly capable fingers.
Feeling my cheeks flush, and sure he’d be able to tell exactly what I’d been thinking about, I started to babble on about the books we’d been discussing.
“So basically, the daemons are an external, physical representation of a person’s soul.
Or an extension of the soul, I guess might be more accurate.
They take animal shape and they can talk and interact with people and other daemons and—”
“Gracie,” he interrupted, and I could hear the laughter in his voice. “As sexy as I find you when you’re in nerd mode, I don’t give a fuck about the stupid books.”
“They’re not stupid,” I insisted.
“Sorry, you’re right. Not at all stupid. A world where your soul walks around outside your body as an animal sounds totally reasonable.”
“They’re fantasy novels, Liam.”
“I understand that. All I’m saying is that there are quite a few more interesting fantasies that I would rather discuss with you.”
Well, that shut me right up. If I’d thought my cheeks were flushed before, it was nothing to the heat that came to them now.
“Like what?” I managed, wincing at how breathy my voice sounded. Could I make it any more obvious to this guy how much he affected me?
“Like what, exactly, I wish I was doing to you right now.”
“Liam.” There was a plea in my voice but I wasn’t sure if I was begging him to stop or to keep going.
“Hate that I haven’t seen you since that night,” he went on. “Hate that I’m sitting in this fucking hotel room all by myself right now instead of being there with you.”
“I wish you were here, too,” I told him honestly. “I…I’ve missed you this week.”
It was true. I’d tried to stay busy with work and friends, tried not to let myself obsess over him, but he had still been there, front and center, no matter how much I tried to push him into a hidden corner in my mind.
He sighed, and I could feel his frustration crackling down the line. “You sure you can’t get out of your plans on Thursday?”
It scared me a little to realize how quickly I’d cancel on my colleagues if it was at all an option. “No, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have even asked that. It’s my busy schedule that’s making it so hard to make time.”
“It’s your job, Liam. I understand.”
“Well, the good news,” he continued, sounding a little brighter, “is that Friday night’s game is the end of the pre-season.”
“That’s good news? Won’t the regular season get even busier?”
“Not really. I mean, the travel gets more extensive, but we don’t practice as much once the season starts, and that frees up some time.”
“Well, hopefully we can get our schedules to work out,” I said, not feeling all that hopeful about it.
“Hey,” he said, suddenly excited, “speaking of the season starting, I’ll probably be seeing you on Sunday, right?”
“Sunday?” I asked, searching my brain. What did I have going on Sunday?
“The cookout at your brother’s house. You’re going, right?”
Oh, crap. How had I forgotten about that? Andy was throwing the get together at his ridiculous estate outside of town for the entire Austin Sting organization to welcome them to their new city and to celebrate the start of the regular season.
I might have tried to get out of it—even before the night of amazing sex, I wasn’t exactly excited about being in the same place at the same time with my brother and Liam—but Andy had told me the plans in front of Peyton and Rosa, inviting them as well.
They were both so excited about the possibility of hanging out with hot hockey players, I couldn’t bring myself to refuse.
“I’m going,” I told him.
“And I don’t think you could possibly sound less enthusiastic about it,” he said, laughing.
“I just…we agreed we were going to keep this quiet.”
“And you don’t think you’ll be able to keep yourself from jumping me in front of the entire team?”
I laughed at that image. “I mean, you are pretty hot.”
“Keep talking like that and I’ll be forced to find a broom closet to drag you into.”
“No way,” I said quickly. “Absolutely not. I was just joking about the whole jumping you thing. We are not sneaking off to fool around.”
“Why not?” I could hear the pout in his voice.
“Because it’s my brother’s house,” I said. “That would just be weird. And if anyone caught us and he found out about it…”
“You really think he’d be that pissed?”
Um, yes. I did. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Andy traded Liam over it, honestly. He might have teased about bringing Liam here for me, but I knew my brother well enough to know he was messing with me. He would not be happy if he knew what had happened between his sister and his star center.
I decided to try another tact. “Isn’t this a family event? Won’t Josie be there?”
He made an unconcerned noise. “I’m sure Jay would be happy to hang out with her for a while so I could go get some.”
“Liam!” He couldn’t be serious. “Josie is my student.”
“It’s not like we’re going to do it in front of her—”
“We aren’t going to be doing it at all! We are not sneaking off, we are not hooking up. We aren’t even going to talk to each other in front of my brother and your teammates.”
“Don’t you think that would be a bit excessive?” He sounded nothing but amused at my obvious panic. “I mean, won’t your brother wonder why you’re ignoring me? And won’t it be weird for you to talk to Josie without even acknowledging me? Or are you going to ignore her, too?”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine. We’ll talk at the cookout. In a completely professional, platonic way.”
“Mmhmm,” he said, and I just knew he was grinning.
“I mean it, Liam!”
“I guess we’ll just have to see.”
I didn’t like that tone at all. I’d heard it from him before, usually when he was discussing an upcoming game. Liam was a competitive guy and I could hear the challenge in his voice—and a hell of a lot of certainty that things were going to go his way.
When I pulled into Andy’s circular drive, the car went silent, my two best friends staring up at the imposing facade of the biggest mansion any of us had ever seen.
“Does it ever get commonplace to you?” Rosa asked, more than a little awe in her voice.
I snorted. The girls knew how Andy and I had grown up, but I didn’t think there was any way they could fully understand what it had been like.
It was hard to describe how insane it felt, to pull up to a place like this and know it was my brother’s.
To know that I would never again be in danger of being hungry.
To know that the lights were going to stay on, that there would be heat in cold weather.
My twin might have been the one to become a billionaire, but that money meant security for both of us.
For the first time in my life, there was someone that I could turn to if shit went south.
Someone who would never, ever let me return to the kind of life we had lived before.
If you’ve never spent nights awake, wondering where your next meal was going to come from or where you were going to find shelter the next day, you couldn’t really understand what a gift something as simple as not worrying truly was.