This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

In the Zone

Copyright © 2014 by Catherine Gayle

Cover Design by Kim Killion, The Killion Group

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

For more information: catherinegayle.author@gmail.com

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Epilogue

Roster

About the Author

Other Catherine Gayle Titles

For Angie.

When I started work on this book, I knew a bit about my characters but not really all that much in the grand scheme of things. They came to life after a long talk with S. M. Butler. I don’t know that Burnzie would be the man he is if not for that day sitting in the bar. So thanks, Suzan, for helping me figure out what made this man tick.

Thanks also to Debra Stover who served as my recon-woman.

Trademark Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

NHL: National Hockey League

AHL: American Hockey League

Anaheim Ducks

Buffalo Sabres

Columbus Blue Jackets

Dallas Stars

Edmonton Oilers

Florida Panthers

LA Kings

Minnesota Wild

Philadelphia Flyers

San Jose Sharks

Portland Trail Blazers

Claussen

Craigslist

ESPN

FaceTime

Gatorade

Harley-Davidson

Hips & Curves

iPod

Jumbotron

Lane Bryant

La-Z-Boy

Mazda

Mercedes

Red Ryder

Snoopy

Spanx

AS A PLAYER in the National Hockey League, hooking up with a random guest—regardless of how hot this random guest might be—at your team captain’s wedding was a bad idea, plain and simple. It was definitely not something I would ever do, but I had a pretty strong suspicion that a few of the boys had done exactly that when they’d left the reception.

I had been a member of the Portland Storm since a couple of years after I was drafted, and our captain Eric “Zee” Zellinger had been around that whole time. Zee and I weren’t best friends or anything—that was Brenden Campbell’s role for him, known as Soupy to the guys, and I don’t think I’d ever had anyone in Portland I’d call my best friend, anyway—but we were good friends. I was one of his assistant captains, and I couldn’t get behind the idea of running off with some girl who might have been one of his or Soupy’s best childhood friends when I was only in town for their joint wedding.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, Zee and his bride, Dana, and Dana’s brother—coincidentally Soupy—had invited tons of chicks to the ceremony in Providence, so there were ample opportunities. This was where the three of them had grown up. But the last thing I wanted to do while I was in their hometown was to take some girl who was a friend of theirs back to my hotel room for the night. Doing something along those lines would undoubtedly require strings, and I didn’t want any strings, even if I wouldn’t have minded having a little company.

I’d flown in a couple of days ago, in time to participate in the rehearsal and bachelor party and all that jazz, and I’d been feeling a strong itch, if you get me, all fucking day. There had been so many women—amazingly gorgeous women decked out in pretty summer dresses that amplified all their curves—surrounding me the whole damn day, and I was in bad shape. And my flight back to where I grew up in Nova Scotia wasn’t until Monday. I intended to spend the rest of my summer there, at the cabin I’d built on the bay in Annapolis Valley.

Don’t ask me what I had been thinking when I planned this trip or why I hadn’t scheduled the return trip for tomorrow, but it’d be two more full days before I could get back home. Even then, I didn’t know who I might find to help me scratch this particular itch. I mean, there were plenty of girls who would, but that didn’t mean I wanted to open that can of worms. So many of them were just looking for daddies for their babies, guys who had the money to get them out of Nova Scotia, and that wasn’t my idea of a good plan. Again, it all came down to strings.

That was why, once I had made sure Nicklas Ericsson, one of my teammates who I had been worried about all day long, got back to the hotel safely, I returned to my own room for the night and found myself looking through the Providence area “Casual Encounters” listings on Craigslist. I didn’t really expect to find anything that would pique my interest. Mainly I was looking for a diversion, a way to pass the time. But then I stumbled on an ad that made me stop and think. The subject line read: BBW, no strings, I just need a boost in confidence, w4m.

No strings? That, plus the part about needing a boost in confidence, definitely got my attention enough that I opened the listing to see if it was legitimate or some sort of scam—a prostitute looking for a job or God only knew what else. Surprisingly, what I found not only seemed genuine but it made me seriously think about replying.

I think I’m probably crazy for posting something here. I hope I don’t end up regretting this decision. You hear all sorts of horror stories about this kind of thing, but a girlfriend suggested I try it and I attempted to convince myself that maybe they’re just stories. I hope so because I don’t know what else to do. Here’s the deal: my longtime boyfriend spent years telling me I was getting too fat for him, that he didn’t find me attractive anymore, that I had to get back to a size two or he wouldn’t be able to get turned on any longer. I tried everything, but I have a thyroid problem. That was what caused me to gain the weight, plus a few other things, and even with medication I couldn’t get back down to the size he wanted me to be. He cheated with a woman who looks how I used to look, and he left me, and I’ve been trying to find a way to believe in myself ever since. I don’t want to date right now. I don’t even want a friends-with-benefits kind of thing. I just want to have an experience with a man who finds me attractive as I am, so maybe I can start to believe it again, too. No real names. I want to meet at a hotel or somewhere equally neutral.

She hadn’t attached a picture, which was probably the safe thing to do. Those stories she’d heard about? They weren’t just stories. Some bad shit definitely happened as a result of these ads, so you couldn’t be too careful.

Not only did this posting feel legitimate to me, it pissed me the fuck off. I mean, I’d seen firsthand the horrendous results that could come from picking on someone because of something they had no control over. What happened to my brother, Garrett, the way he’d ended up taking his own life, was something I had to live with every day of my existence. I never wanted to see anything like that happen again, even though there were horror stories just like it on the news every day. Not only that, but I love women. I love women of all shapes, colors, and sizes. They are the most fucking beautiful, amazing, wonderful creatures on this earth as far as I’m concerned, and any asshole who would do something like that, who would make a woman feel like she wasn’t good enough for him because of a fucking problem with her health? It made me want to do a lot of things that would land me in prison.

But it also made me want to answer her ad.

So I did, emailing her through the system.

I’m only in town for a couple of nights—I fly out tomorrow. I would love to meet you and help you to see how beautiful I’m sure you are and how you don’t need a son of a bitch like that guy in your life anymore. I’m already at a hotel. You can come to me if you want.

I added my hotel information and took a picture—of my face, not my dick, like a lot of asswipes on Craigslist do—and sent it to her.

Then I waited. I brushed my teeth and jumped in the shower, just in case she actually decided to show up. When I got out and checked my email again, there was a response from her.

I’ll be there at eight with condoms. I’ll call you Jacob, and you can call me Allison.

She didn’t attach a picture, but I hadn’t asked for one. It made me wonder if she was so ashamed of how she looked that she couldn’t even bear the thought of sending a photo of herself through email. Thinking about that possibility only made me want to beat her ex to a bloody pulp even more than I already did.

I glanced at the clock. It was already 7:45, so I wouldn’t have to wait long. I pulled on a clean pair of shorts and dug out a University of Minnesota T-shirt from my college days before I’d turned pro. Then I stretched out on the bed and turned on the TV so I would have something to do to pass the time.

At two minutes to eight, a soft knock sounded at my door. I flipped the TV off and checked the mirror out of habit. Everything looked good.

When I opened the door, I was floored by the beauty of the woman standing in front of me. She had long, strawberry-blond hair and midnight-blue eyes and the most perfect little pixie nose, and she had on glasses with chunky frames that could have looked awful but on her they looked smart and sexy. And she wasn’t anything close to fat, no matter what her asshole of an ex had told her. She had curves everywhere, though—hips that flared out, a waist that dipped in, a rack I was already salivating at the thought of burying my face in. I could see all of those curves even though she was wearing a loose, floor-length skirt and an ill-fitting, short-sleeved blouse—not something that was designed to accentuate her assets. She wasn’t skinny, but she definitely wasn’t fat.

She was beautiful. She was perfect.

“Hi,” she said shyly. “Jacob?”

“No, I’m Kei—” I cut myself off when I remembered she wanted this to be anonymous. For tonight, I wasn’t Keith Burns, top defenseman for the Storm. Tonight, I was Allison’s Jacob. “Yeah, Jacob. And you’re Allison?”

She gave me a little nod and glanced over her shoulder, like she was checking to see if anyone had noticed her. “Can I come in?”

I stepped back from the door so she could pass through, and I closed it after her, intentionally leaving the lock undone. I didn’t want her to feel like I was going to try to force her to stay.

“Want to sit down?” I asked. This whole situation was awkward. Did she want to talk first or just get down to business? I was leaning more toward at least talking for a little while. It might be anonymous sex, but that didn’t mean it had to be cold and distant sex.

Allison nodded and went over to the chair in the corner, pulling the tote bag she’d brought with her onto her lap. “I’ve never done this before,” she said.

“Me neither.” One-night stands? Yes. One-night stands with perfect strangers? Never. I smiled and pulled the roller chair out from the desk, turning it so I could face her. I couldn’t stop myself from staring, practically devouring her with my eyes. I was already hard, and she hadn’t even been here for two minutes yet.

“You’re a lot bigger than I expected you to be from your picture,” she said.

She was a lot hotter than I’d expected her to be, but that didn’t seem like the right thing to say at the moment. She was a little younger than I’d guessed she would be, though. Maybe even a few years younger than my twenty-eight. I’d thought she’d have lived a little more life based on the things she’d said in that ad. Still, she was definitely old enough that she ought to know how gorgeous she was, no matter what her fucking ex had said and done.

And now I was back to wanting to bash his face in.

I shrugged, as though that could force aside all the negative energy I was feeling toward some man I’d never met. “Yeah, well, I’m a— Wait…do you want fact or fiction?” I didn’t want to make her any more nervous about this than she already was. If she didn’t relax, this wouldn’t go well, and I wanted it to go well for her. I wanted it to be the best damn sex of her life, and I wanted her to walk out of here believing in herself, knowing she was as amazingly sexy as I thought she was. All of that meant I needed to give her what she wanted, though, whatever that may be.

“How about partial truth?” Allison suggested. “Don’t lie about anything, but don’t tell me everything, either. Hold some of it back.”

I could do that. “Okay. I’m big because I work out a lot.”

She nodded. “It’s hard to tell things like that from a single picture.”

“Did you pick me because of my picture?” I’d always known I was a good-looking guy. Women had always hit on me because I was the whole package, at least the way they saw it. I looked good, I took care of myself, I made a shit-ton of money, and I was relatively famous without being paparazzi-worthy. It was fun to be me. At least on the surface. Sometimes it could be lonely, too.

I owned this huge house on the river back in Portland—some of the guys called it a mansion, and I supposed it wasn’t far from one—but it was just me and my dogs living there. It was a lot of space—almost 15,000 square feet—and girls I picked up in a bar and brought home for the night didn’t tend to stick around long enough to really share it with them. Sometimes I had parties there, but that was only a temporary means of filling up all the empty corners and quiet rooms. Everyone went home eventually, leaving me to my solitude until I couldn’t take it anymore, until I needed fun and noise and companionship again or else I would wallow in my loneliness until my guilt ate me alive, and then I would throw another party so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

That wasn’t to say I disliked my life. I enjoyed being single. I enjoyed being able to party and have a good time and not have to worry about anyone but me. I definitely took advantage of all the advantages I’d been given. But sometimes the thought of having someone waiting for me at home when I got back from a road trip sounded nice. Sometimes I missed the noise of growing up in a house of three boys, with friends coming and going, and everyone yelling, and chaos reigning. I missed hearing my mom shout over our noise to tell us to keep it down, insisting that the neighbors would complain.

My neighbors in Portland sometimes complained, too. Only when I had those parties, though. Otherwise, it was only me and the dogs and a ton of silence and empty space.

And yet, here I was, sitting in a hotel room in Providence, getting ready to have sex with a woman I’d never met before and whose real name I didn’t even know. I supposed that was yet another way of filling up the empty spaces inside me, if you wanted to look at it that way.

Allison shrugged, and then she blushed, which only made me think about things I could do to make her blush some more. “I picked you because you were the only one who responded with a picture of your face and not of…other parts of you.”

“I don’t really want pictures of my anatomy floating around the Internet,” I joked.

“Yeah. Good. I don’t either.”

“So what do you do, Allison?”

“I teach,” she said cautiously.

I could definitely picture her in front of a classroom full of kids. That probably meant she had an entire closet filled with clothes like the ones she had on, though. Maybe a little more professional looking, but nothing that would emphasize her figure or draw attention to how beautiful she was.

“You’re not from around here?” she asked. “You said you were only here for a few nights.”

“I’m from Canada,” I replied. She had asked for truth, but not the whole truth. I lived in Portland now, at least most of the time. Still, I was definitely not from Providence. “Some friends got married here today. I was in the wedding party.” All of that was truth.

Gradually, she started to relax. Her shoulders weren’t so tense, and she even set her bag down on the floor beside her instead of holding it on her lap as though it held the last vestiges of her sanity.

“So you really won’t stay long, then? And you’re clean?” she asked. “I should have made sure of that before I agreed to come over here, but I was so nervous about what I was doing that I didn’t even think—”

“I’m clean,” I interrupted. “I’m not a saint. I’ve slept with a number of women, but I always use protection and I’ve been tested recently.”

“All right. Good.” She nodded as if she was trying to make it all okay in her head. “I’m clean, too. I had three partners before…well, before him. No one since. I’ve been tested, too.”

She was so nervous that a part of me wanted to tell her we didn’t have to do anything if she didn’t want to. But I worried that she might take that as a sign that I wasn’t interested. Given what she’d talked about in her ad, and the fact that her confidence seemed almost fragile right now, I didn’t want to do anything she might misconstrue. I needed her to feel wanted, especially since I really, truly did want her.

“How long has it been?” I asked. She’d said that they’d been together for a long time, but I had no idea how long it had been since he’d cheated on her and hurt her so badly.

“Almost a year.”

“And you haven’t dated anyone since? You haven’t had anyone tell you how beautiful you are in all that time?”

“I don’t—” She cut herself off and thought for a moment before continuing, taking her time as though she was weighing each word. “It’s hard to believe I could be beautiful these days because my body has changed so much, and he told me how fat I was for so long that it’s all I can see.”

“Well, it’s a fucking lie.”

Allison stared at me for a long minute, and then she shook her head. “I wish it were easier to believe that.”

“That’s why you’re here, though. So I can help you start to believe it again.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and I watched her chest rise and fall with it. “Can I… Do you mind if I kiss you?”

“I’d mind if you didn’t.”

She nodded and bit down on her lower lip like she was trying to build up the courage to do it.

“Come here.” I stood up and closed some of the distance between us, trying to make it easier on her. She didn’t have to be the one to initiate everything. It had to have taken a ton of courage to post the ad in the first place. I held out my hand, waiting for her to take it.

After a moment, she got to her feet and took my hand, and I gently eased her closer to me. She stopped when we were inches apart, bracing her hands on my biceps. I rested mine on her waist. She was soft and warm, and the gentle slope of her hips made me almost desperate to get my hands on her ass. But that had to wait. If I rushed her, she’d probably leave.

“This is nice,” she murmured. Even this small amount of contact already had her breathing a little heavier, and I knew her pulse had to be hammering through her veins—just like mine was.

I nodded. Nice wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t want to think too much about trivial things like that. The heat between us seemed to intensify her perfume, but maybe it was only that we were so close together now. It was sweet and powdery, and it made me want to bury my nose against her neck so it could fill me.

Allison laughed, a nervous sort of laughter, and she licked her lips. Luscious lips. Full and pink, and they looked amazingly soft. “Should we just go for it?”

Instead of answering her, I went for it.

She sucked in a breath right before my mouth met hers. Her lips were even softer than they looked, and I sucked the lower one between both of mine. It took a few moments, but she relaxed into me and hummed against my lips, moving hers apart far enough that I could slip my tongue in her mouth.

I teased her for a minute, my tongue brushing lightly alongside hers and flicking every now and then, until she started to mimic my actions. She angled her head, taking the kiss deeper, and she slid her hands up my arms to settle on my shoulders.

Or I thought she would settle them there. Instead, she started to glide them everywhere, her palms and fingers seeking out the ridges of every muscle. The flats of her palms came down my chest, exploring my pecs before traveling lower, to my abs. I felt my muscles ripple beneath her touch, and she sucked in another breath in response.

I kissed her cheeks, her neck, settling my lips on her collarbone even though the soft fabric of her blouse was still in the way. “Allison?” I hadn’t moved my hands from her waist, even though it was killing me to keep them still. I wanted to cup her ass and draw her to me. I wanted to delve under her shirt and mold her breasts to my hands. I wanted—God, how I wanted—to slide that skirt down her hips and explore her slick core with my tongue.

“Yes?” Her voice hitched on the word, and she slipped her hands around to my sides so they tickled my ribs. Then she tugged me closer to her, until her nose hit the dip of my clavicle and my cock pressed into her belly.

“Do you want me to touch you?” I needed to hear her say it. I couldn’t assume and take what I wanted. It wasn’t enough for me that she had come to my hotel room with sex being the intention. Because with how little I knew about her, I needed her to give me explicit consent.

She nodded, and I hoped she wouldn’t stop there. She didn’t. “I want to feel your hands on me,” she said.

An inch at a time, I dropped my hands back and down until I had a cheek in each palm. Her ass was as soft and sweet and curvy as the rest of her. I squeezed her, drawing her closer still, and she let out an almost inaudible moan.

I’d never been this turned on before while still fully clothed. My cock was hard enough to jackhammer through a fucking concrete wall. Allison stretched up on her tiptoes, putting her arms around my neck and holding on tight. That pushed her breasts right up against my chest, twin cushioned pillows with rock-hard little nubs poking into me. I let out a groan at the sensation.

“I want to take your clothes off,” I said. Allison was nodding and reaching down to tug the hem of her shirt up almost before I got the words out. I put one hand on hers to stop her. “No. I want to do it slowly, using my hands. My teeth. Every time I uncover an inch of your skin, I want to kiss you there, to see you and taste you and soak you in. And then when I’ve got you naked, when I’ve kissed and licked and sucked every hot, trembling, silky-soft inch of your amazingly beautiful body, I want to lick your pussy until you’re writhing and moaning and coming all over me with the best fucking orgasm of your life.”

With every word out of my mouth, the pounding of her heart grew more frantic, her breathing more agitated, and her eyes—those gorgeous midnight-blue eyes—got bigger and darker and more intense.

“Oh,” she said, breathy and soft.

“And while you’re still coming, while your pussy is still clenching and quivering, and it’s all hot and slick and wet, that’s when I want to lift your legs up, rest your feet on my shoulders, and fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before until you come again.”

“Yes,” she said finally, a strangled sound coming from her throat. “Yes, Jacob.”

Jacob? Oh right. That was me. “You’re sure?” I needed for her to want every bit of that as much as I did.

“Positive.”

“You brought condoms?” I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I wanted them ready and waiting when I was—when I had her ready for me.

Allison nodded. She backed away and bent to her bag, pulling out a brand-new box that was still sealed. She set it on the nightstand closest to her.

Before she could turn around, I picked her up and tossed her into the middle of the bed. I kissed her again, covering her with my body while she moaned with pleasure.

Then I followed through with each and every one of the promises I’d just made her.

“BURNZIE! COLESY!” THE Storm’s head coach, Mattias Bergstrom, called out to me and one of the new defensemen on the team, Cole Paxton, as the rest of the boys started heading off the ice after a hard practice. “Jens and Ny—you too,” he added, indicating two of our other defensemen, Andrew Jensen and Peter Nylund. “I need a minute before you boys hit the showers.”

We were a few months into the season now, and the guys were finally starting to settle in to the new system Bergy had instituted for us when he took over the team. We’d been playing a similar style under Scotty Thomas the last couple of seasons, but the tweaks Bergy had insisted on had taken a few of us a while to adjust to. Old habits die hard, or whatever the saying was. Anyway, even though we were starting to really click with Bergy’s changes now, he still hadn’t settled on the defensive pairings he wanted. The forwards had been going through almost as many changes as we were. I was starting to wonder if Bergy was ever going to settle on a combination he liked. Every few games he tried out new partnerships, seeing who clicked with whom and what arrangement seemed to be the most effective for the team as a whole.

He was always looking at charts and graphs and other data on the computer, too—something Scotty would have never dreamed of doing. Scotty had trusted his eyes and gut feelings and things like a guy’s plus-minus rating. Bergy, though? He was far more interested in some of the newer stats that bloggers kept putting up posts about—Fenwick and Corsi and all sorts of other things that went right over my head. I didn’t have a clue what any of that shit meant, and I wasn’t entirely sure I cared.

Anyway, he’d been using these new stats to help him and his assistant coaches make decisions about which defensemen he ought to pair together and which forwards worked better on a particular line. I had a strong suspicion that some random stat was behind him calling me and the boys over right now—either that or maybe he wanted each of us to write down some new goals or something. He’d instituted that practice back at the beginning of training camp. If you write your goals down, it’ll keep you accountable, he’d said. He’d insisted on each of us making out goal cards for the entire season on the first day of training camp, and every week since then we’d had a team meeting where we would make up new goal cards for the upcoming week. Maybe he thought we needed to update ours right now.

Colesy gave me a look, one that clearly indicated he thought he was in trouble. The guy was a good defenseman—really good, actually. But the coaches kept talking to him about needing to improve his core strength, saying it would help him in his transitions. That was what all his goals had been about lately—adding extra reps in the gym on core-strengthening exercises, demonstrating improvement in game situations, that sort of thing.

He’d had a great practice today, though. He hadn’t had any problems making the switch from offensive to defensive positioning, and the drills we’d run were seriously challenging on that front. I doubted they were going to bring up his core strength again right now. Besides, why would Bergy include me and these other guys in that discussion if it was really just about Cole Paxton?

I shrugged, as though that would help him shrug it off, too. “Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to rip you a new one.” Not today, at least, and not this guy. Bergy tended to reserve that special form of communication for Zee. Sometimes for me and Soupy, too, since we were Zee’s assistant captains this year. He only really slammed into the leadership group—those of us who had special weekly meetings with him and the other coaches where we got to write down other leadership-oriented goals. The rest of the guys tended to get the you-disappointed-me sort of speech more than anything else. That was another way he was different than Scotty. Our former head coach preferred to yell at everyone indiscriminately, and if he wasn’t yelling at you, then you were really in hot water.

We skated to the boards near center ice, where Bergy and his assistant coaches, David Weber and Adam Hancock, were waiting. Until last year, Webs had been one of the boys, but he’d retired in the off-season. Handy was a longtime coach in the league. He’d been the head coach of a few teams over the years—both at the AHL and the NHL level—and he’d been an assistant coach more than just a few times, too. I figured Jim Sutter, the Storm’s general manager, had brought him in to give Bergy and Webs an experienced voice to help them make the adjustments smoothly and successfully. Bergy had only been an assistant coach for a couple of years before getting promoted. It wasn’t all that long ago that I’d played against him.

“So here’s the deal,” Bergy said once the four of us came to a stop. “I’m going to change things up again with you four, starting with Thursday night’s game. I want to see Jens and Ny together, and Burnzie, I want you with Colesy.”

“That’ll give both pairs a bit of snarl and risk-taking, along with a bit of safety,” Handy said. He was the assistant coach that was supposed to be overseeing the defense, but Bergy seemed to have a hard time letting go of that particular responsibility. Bergy had been a defenseman himself, and he’d been in charge of us for the two years he’d been an assistant coach.

I had no doubt that I was supposed to be the snarl of my pair. Jens and I had been partnered together almost all last season and part of this season. We both played a pretty similar style, though—physical, hard-hitting, in-your-face hockey. My snarl might be a little nastier than Jens’s, but it really depended on the day of the week and what side of bed we had each rolled out of, and I liked to shoot the puck more than he did. Jens was more about making a good first pass and letting the forwards deal with the offensive side of things, at least most of the time.

Before Jens had come to the Storm and throughout quite a bit of this year, I’d played alongside Ny. He was your prototypical Swedish defenseman, right down to doing everything like a machine. He skated well, had a decent shot and a lot of skill, and he played a sound positional game. Coaches liked to put him out on a power play unit because his pass was as good as his shot from the point and he had excellent on-ice vision. He could be a power play quarterback.

I hadn’t been paired up with Colesy at all, though, other than a random shift or two. His style was closer to Ny’s, only he was less offensively skilled and more defensively minded than the other three of us. Most people in the hockey world would call him a stay-at-home defenseman, but that wasn’t really accurate. He tended to sit back and let the game come to him, so he rarely got caught out of position.

Now he was going to be my partner—at least for the next game or two. It was anyone’s guess how long we’d stay together. I’d spent time playing alongside every other defenseman on the team in the first two and a half months of the season. Changing things up that often didn’t make it easy to form good communication or chemistry—both of which were imperative.

Which Bergy knew. He’d played defense in the NHL for over two decades. That was what confused me about why he was switching up the pairings and forward lines so often. We’d barely be starting to figure our partners out when he’d throw another wrench in things and we’d have to start all over again.

Bergy cleared his throat. “Everyone good with that?”

It wasn’t like we had much say in the matter.

“Yeah,” I replied for the lot of us. “Whatever you want.”

“Good deal,” Webs said. “So starting with practice tomorrow, that’s how we want you paired up for five-on-five work. Jens and Ny will be the 1-A pairing; Burnzie and Colesy will be 1-B. Burnzie, you’ll be on the first power play unit with four forwards, just like you’ve been doing lately. Jens and Ny will handle the second unit.”

Handy scanned a page on his clipboard and squinted. “And for penalty kill situations, I want to try Burnzie and Colesy as the first pairing. Jens, you’ll work with Luka for that,” he added. Luka was Slava Lukashenko, another veteran defenseman who was apparently being moved down to the third pairing now since Colesy was going to work with me.

“Everyone clear?” Bergy asked.

“Yeah,” we said. “Got it.”

“Get out of here then.” Bergy picked his own clipboard up off the boards and started flipping pages, so we skated off in the other direction. “Colesy! I need one more minute,” he shouted before we got off the ice.

Colesy groaned and turned back the other direction.

Damn. I’d been hoping they’d leave the guy alone. I shot a glance over my shoulder, but it didn’t look like Bergy was pissed off or anything. They wouldn’t yell at him, as I’d said earlier, but I still worried about him.

He was a guy I’d taken under my wing, so to speak, when he’d signed here as a free agent over the summer. Out of all the guys involved in the team leadership, I had always been the one planning parties and making sure the new guys knew they were invited along to shit, making everyone feel welcome…until this year. I’d passed that responsibility on to Soupy. Mainly it was because Bergy seemed to think that Soupy needed to branch out and get to know all the guys on the team as a whole, while he thought the opposite was more true for me: I needed to get to know one or two on a really good individual level.

Colesy had been my primary focus on that score. He was different than most of the guys, so I’d been making an effort to include him, even if I left everyone else to Soupy. He was kind of standoffish in a way. Had been since he’d first shown up in Portland. He was a good player, took care of his shit, never caused any problems, but he tended to keep to himself. I had started making extra effort with him once I noticed he wasn’t always coming along to hang out off-ice with the boys. I sometimes took him out to lunch, one-on-one, to get to know him better. Was he just shy or introverted, or did he feel like he didn’t fit in for whatever reason? I knew all too well the harm that could cause—feeling like you didn’t belong—thanks to my brothers. At least once we’d gotten a little older.

Being on a team, though, there’s no room for a guy to feel left out or as if he doesn’t fit. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Colesy.

That was how I started to figure out that he was gay. It was little things, but I recognized them. I mean, he wasn’t wearing bright pink and getting manicures and talking like a girl or anything like that. He wasn’t obvious about it; by all appearances, he was trying to keep it a secret. What gave him away was more how he would smile at the bartender at Kells when we’d have lunch there sometimes, or how he would force his gaze away from a couple of the guys we would see around town when we were out, as though he didn’t want to get caught staring at a guy he thought was hot.

I never said anything to him about it because he never said anything to me about it. It was his secret—his to reveal or keep hidden. But at the same time, I wanted him to feel comfortable enough around me that he would know he could tell me if he wanted to.

There wasn’t a single out guy in the whole NHL. Not one. There no way Colesy was the only one keeping it hidden, though. There had to be at least 800 guys playing in the league. I didn’t get the feeling that he was ready to be the ambassador, to wear that mantle and hope others got the courage to follow him, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to do a fucking thing to make him feel ashamed of who he was.

I’d already done enough of that for one lifetime, and it had cost me more than I’d had to give.

Colesy was only a couple of minutes behind the rest of us getting to the locker room. I took my time undressing and heading for the showers, allowing him a chance to catch up with me.

“Coming to Amani’s?” Soupy asked when I was almost done getting dressed.

Amani’s Family-Style Italian Restaurant was a favorite hang-out for the guys. The menu was full of things that made for great pre-game fuel, and we tended to go there a lot more often than just game days. It wasn’t my favorite, though. And I wanted to take Colesy out and talk to him, see what the coaches had wanted with him, that sort of thing. I shook my head. “Can’t do it today. My favorite waitress is expecting me at Kells.”

“Favorite hookup, you mean?” He had one brow lifted in question.

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

“Mmm-hmm. Whatever,” he repeated, rolling his eyes.

The guys all acted like I was taking a different girl home with me every night lately. Probably because I hadn’t been hanging with them as much as they were used to, so they were trying to figure out what was up with me. The truth was, ever since that night after Zee’s and Soupy’s weddings, when I’d been with Allison, I hadn’t really wanted to be with any other woman. I’d been pretty fucked up since then—thinking about finding the one. And some insane part of me kept wondering if Allison had been the one.

Not that I’d ever see her again. Even though we’d stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, talking between intermittent bouts of sex, sharing what bits of ourselves we could without delving too far into the truth of who we were, she’d left the next morning. Somehow she’d slipped out of my hotel room without me waking up. No note. No phone number. Not even her real name. It was as if she’d never existed, if not for the scent left behind all over me, the slight indentation of the pillow she’d used, and the pieces of her soul she’d inadvertently revealed more through body language than through anything specific she’d said.

She had definitely existed. She’d been as real as they come.

I could only hope that the night we’d shared had given her the boost in confidence she’d needed. I supposed I would never know.

Colesy came back into the locker room half dressed, still pulling a clean T-shirt on over his head while he was walking. I caught his eye and angled my head so he’d come over to talk to me.

Soupy started backing away. “I’m going up to kiss my wife before we head out.” He’d married Jim Sutter’s assistant, Rachel, so he was always running upstairs to sneak in a quick make out session whenever we were at the practice facility. And yet he was giving me a hard time about my sex life. He might as well have reverted to being sixteen years old with the way he’d been acting over the past several months.

“Later,” I called over my shoulder. Then I turned to Colesy. “Wanna grab a bite with me away from the rest of the guys?”

He gave me the side eye. “You don’t have to hang out with me all the time, you know. You can keep going with your life as usual.”

“I know. I want to grab some lunch with you, though.”

Plopping down on the seat in front of his stall, he glanced at his watch and then set to work putting on his shoes. “Yeah, I’ve got time for that, I suppose.”

“You suppose? Hot date after lunch?” I said it jokingly, trying to keep things light, but I was actually curious. Not that I expected him to answer me honestly.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what, exactly?”

He scanned the locker room, as though he was checking to see who all was still around and how close-by they were. It was nearly deserted. Other than the two of us, only Viktor Ellstrom and Liam Kallen were still here, and they were holed up in the opposite corner, having a conversation in Swedish. They were oblivious to anything around them.

“Bergy encouraged me to take some dance classes to work on my core,” he said finally. “I’ve been going to ballet lessons and ballroom dance, and I don’t want the boys to know and give me a hard time about it.”

As soon as he mentioned dance, something clicked in me. I got choked up and had to fight the old, familiar gut-wrenching ache back down. I swallowed hard to keep the bile at bay. “Yeah? Dance lessons, huh?”

“They’re helping. Clearly.” He got up and shoved his laundry into his duffel to take home with him. “But you know how the boys can be about these things.”

I definitely knew how guys could be about other guys who danced. And I knew what being bullied about something like that could do to a person. I’d done it, right along with everyone else, caving in to the peer pressure that kids put on one another. I’d done it to my own fucking brother. I’d picked on him, teased him relentlessly, called him gay and queer and faggot and pussy and sissy and a thousand other things I’d never meant and could never take back.

And he’d killed himself.

“Right,” I said slowly, trying to rein all my thoughts back in before I lost my shit in the middle of the locker room. I nodded. “I do know. Why don’t I come with you?” There wasn’t a better way I could think of to deal with all the fucking things running through my head than to confront it head-on.

“Yeah?” Colesy said.

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

I was going to take some fucking dance lessons. Maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe then I’d be able to put Garrett to rest.

“YOUR FRAME HAS improved,” I said appreciatively to Charlie Winston, one of my students in a class full of retirees. “Markedly,” I added under my breath, in the hope that it might hide the shock in my voice.

Only a week ago, he was barely keeping either hand in its proper position, his arms hadn’t even been an afterthought, and his footwork? He could have hardly been worse at stepping if he’d been trying to do poorly. That had meant that Madge, his wife and dance partner, had been forced to essentially lead herself around the dance floor. I’d rarely seen such improvement in someone his age, particularly in such a short amount of time.

“Been practicing, Miss Hayden!” he called out as he twirled Madge under his arm before taking her back into a proper closed hold.

“Brianna,” I corrected him. It was fine for my school-aged students to call me Miss Hayden, but it felt weird to have a man who was old enough to be my grandfather do that. “Or Brie, if you want.”

“Oh, he wants, all right,” Madge said, rolling her eyes, and all the other ladies in the class tittered right along with her. “Why do you think he’s been practicing so hard all of a sudden? Lord knows he’s not trying to impress me.”

Charlie flashed me a smile so wide he nearly spit out his dentures. He pulled his lips down over them, drawing them back into place, never missing a step.

I could only shake my head. A few years ago, men close to my twenty-six years were the ones hitting on me. These days, it was rare to come from anyone other than a man like Charlie—men who were far too old for me, married, and completely harmless in the long run.

Was it awful that I secretly wished someone less than harmless would hit on me every now and then? I mean, I didn’t want anything horrible to happen, but it would’ve been really nice to have a bad-boy-type flirt with me every now and then.

Someone kind of like that guy, Jacob. He’d done a heck of a lot better than simply flirting with me. We’d had an amazing night, and then I’d left just as I’d planned to do before I had shown up at his hotel.

I didn’t know why he came to mind right now, when I was nearly laughing over the idea of Charlie flirting with me. I shook Jacob clear of my mind, yet again, and closed the distance to Dan and Sharon, one of the other couples in my class.

“Chin up,” I said, gently putting a finger under Sharon’s chin and easing it into the proper position. She’d been staring at her feet again, which she tended to do right before losing her footing. She didn’t trust her feet to do their job even though they weren’t the problem. It was all in her mind. Actually, it was probably Dan, more than anything else, that she had a hard time trusting. She didn’t seem to think he could lead her properly despite the fact that she was the one who tended to stumble.

Once they were situated, I worked my way through the other pairs, correcting the occasional hand placement or counting time for a couple that was rhythmically challenged.

My seniors were one of my favorite groups to teach. They weren’t technically the best dancers—far from it—but they were here because they really wanted to learn. They enjoyed themselves. They weren’t here because someone else was pushing them into it, and they weren’t here because of some intrinsic drive to be the best. They were here to have fun. To enjoy one another. To keep themselves fit as their bodies started to give out on them.

Like mine had.

At least they had the excuse of age. I was twenty-six—way too young for my body to be the problem, and yet it was.

I glanced up at the clock over the entry to the Rose City Ballroom Dance Academy, the school that had brought me across the country to join their staff a couple of months ago. We’d run a little over today, probably because I was enjoying myself with them a bit too much. “Time’s up, folks,” I called out. “Don’t forget to stretch, and I’ll see you next week.”

“You might see Charlie sooner than that if you’re not careful,” Madge said.

I could only shake my head, but there was no hiding my smile. “Don’t forget to keep practicing your box step and under-arm turn. I expect to see improvement when I see you all again.” I grabbed my bottle of water and headed up to the front office to prepare for my next class.

The receptionist, Tanya Dennison, looked up when I came through the door. “Four of your ladies for the next class called to say they were sick and not coming.”

“You mean I might actually have enough men this time?” It was a beginner ballroom dance class for the average adult, and most days I had about twice as many women as men. That wouldn’t be such a big deal in some other forms of dance, but everything in ballroom required a partner. I’d been forced to teach some of the women to lead in recent weeks, which only made it harder for them to follow whenever they did have a male lead since it was all so new to them.

“You might have too many men today,” Tanya said with a grin. “Cole Paxton brought a friend—Keith Burns. Big guy. Fit.” Tanya paused dramatically, waggling her eyebrows at me. “Hot.”

“That’ll be a nice change of pace.” I might even be able to take one of the men as my own partner today and use him to demonstrate for the others.

“Honey, you have no idea how nice. Keith Burns is like sex on a stick. I wanna lick him up.”

I did my best not to get too excited about having another good-looking man in my class. He wouldn’t be looking at me, after all. He’d undoubtedly do the same thing most of the other men in the class always did and trip all over himself trying to get paired up with Alexis or Jenni, two college-aged girls who came dressed to impress each week. “He’s already here?”

“Getting changed with Cole.” She let out a dreamy sigh and leaned back in her seat. Her eyes took on a wistful expression. “You do realize I’m going to be a jealous witch all day now, right? Because you’ll be in there dancing with those amazingly hot guys, and I’m going to be stuck out here answering the phones.”

As if on cue, the phone rang and Tanya had to get back to work. I rolled my eyes at her on my way out the door.

Charlie, Madge, and the other retirees were making their way out of the dance studio when I returned. Charlie stopped to place a kiss on my cheek while his wife planted her hands on her hips and laughed. “He never gives up once he’s got his mind set on something, Brie,” she said. “And I think he’s got his mind set on charming you.”

“But it’s you I go home with,” he said, linking his arm with hers.

“For forty-six years and counting.” Madge was beaming at him as they sauntered out the door, grinning at me over her shoulder as they left.

I headed over to the sound system to change the music for the class of younger students about to come in. A couple of deep, rumbling male voices echoed in the studio a minute later, and I looked up. Cole had come in with his friend. They were facing the far wall, setting their gym bags down where they’d be out of the way. The new guy—Keith—had the same muscular build as Cole, and his tight jeans and form-fitting T-shirt only emphasized it. Big, firm butt, massive thighs, trim waist.

He was probably a hockey player, too, then, or at least a skater of some sort. Cole had told me they were all built that way, that anyone who spent that much time on the ice would have the same big thighs and bum. Speed skaters, figure skaters, all of them. That had started me thinking about Jacob, too, because he’d been built the same way. He’d said he worked out a lot, but I had a feeling it went beyond that.

In one of the early classes Cole had come to, I’d asked him how he’d come to develop such muscle in those specific areas because it caused him problems in keeping his posture correct for ballroom dance. I was constantly having to remind him to tuck his bottom under, telling him it shouldn’t be sticking out, and then he would joke that there wasn’t anywhere else for it to go unless someone was going to cut it off. His posture was definitely improving, though. He had been working hard at it.

I started crossing over to meet my new student, but I nearly stumbled halfway there when he turned around and I saw Jacob staring back at me.

The Jacob.

The one-night stand guy.

The man who had made me feel desirable again—sexy and feminine and beautiful—even if it had only been for one night. The man I wasn’t supposed to ever see again. The man I’d been trying to forget for months because thinking about him only made me long for things I could never have.

I’d convinced myself he was part of a fairy tale, and fairy tales don’t come true. At least they never did for me. My life had consisted of a series of setbacks and disappointments, at least lately, and even though my heart was pounding and my breath felt fluttery, the fact that he was here right now could only mean I was being set up for an even bigger disappointment than ever before.

Guys like him didn’t happen to me.

“I hope it’s all right that I brought someone with me,” Cole said, closing the distance between us. Jacob—no, Keith—came with him, the gold flecks in his amber-brown eyes blazing like fire and practically burning a hole through my flesh. “You always tell us that they’re open classes, though, that anyone can come as long as they pay, so I figured it would be okay. Brie, this is Keith Burns, one of my teammates. Burnzie, this is Brie Hayden. She’s my ballroom instructor.”

I struggled to keep my tongue in my mouth where it belonged because I kept thinking back to that night, to the way his hands had felt on my skin, the rich, salty taste of his skin, the way he’d looked at me—all of me—as though I was worth looking at. In fact, he was looking at me in exactly that same way right now, searing me. If I wasn’t careful, I might melt into the floor from the heat in his eyes.

He held out his hand. “Brie, huh? That’s odd. You look more like an Allison to me.”

That left no doubt, no possible chance, that he was merely a look-alike for my Jacob. He’d never said he was a professional hockey player. He’d only told me he worked out a lot. Granted, that was because I’d asked him for half-truths. I’d told him I was a teacher—which I was—but I wasn’t the kind of teacher I knew he’d been imagining.

Vibrating like a tattoo gun, I reached for his hand. His fingers closed around my wrist. His hand was as big and strong and hot as I remembered everything about him being.

“That is odd. I’ve been Brie my whole life.”

“Maybe you should try Allison on sometime and see how it feels. I think it would suit you.” His grip on my hand was loose, yet I couldn’t move it to save my life. He grinned, a Cheshire cat sort of expression. “I’ve always wondered what it might be like to go by Jacob. Just for kicks. We could try it out together.”

The studio door opened and half the class streamed in, and I jerked my hand away from him as fast as if he had scalded me.

“Excuse me. I have to teach a class,” I mumbled, rushing to put some distance between us so I could shove all my marbles back into my head where they belonged. Somehow, some way, I was going to have to hold it together well enough to teach a class with him in it. I couldn’t fathom how I would manage it, though.

I greeted the other students coming in, smiling and making small talk and all the things I usually did at the beginning of a session. But the whole time I felt Keith Burns’s gaze branding my body with his mark.

“WHAT WAS THAT about?” Colesy asked after Allison-slash-Brie walked away. He gave me a sideways glance. “Trying on new names? What the fuck?”

“It was nothing,” I said offhandedly. I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to know that I’d already met her, and I sincerely doubted she would want anyone to know the circumstances of how we’d met. I couldn’t forget the way she’d hurried into my room after checking over her shoulder, giving me the sense that she was a very private person in general. I wasn’t sure I was ready to spill those beans, myself, and I usually didn’t care who knew what about me, unless it was something that had the potential to threaten my career. Hookups and one-night stands didn’t generally fall into that category. Athletes seemed to be given a lot of free rein in the public eye, at least in terms of that sort of behavior.

Colesy raised a brow, taking on a dubious expression. “It didn’t look like nothing. More like a whole lot of something.”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” I said a lot more defensively than I should have. Getting defensive about it would only pique his curiosity more than it already was, and then he’d be asking me questions. I wanted our relationship to be more of the opposite of that—me picking his brain, figuring out what made him tick—so that left me feeling extremely uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to talking about my own shit. I liked to keep it to myself.

Hell, I could hardly talk about it with my own family. There were a lot of hurt feelings, and I got the silent treatment from them more often than not. I’d earned every bit of that scorn, too.

Luckily for me, the room started to fill in before Colesy could pry any more, and Brie was calling for our attention. She already had all of mine, anyway. She had on those same chunky glasses she’d been wearing that night, but her hair was pulled back in a ponytail away from her face, revealing her long neck. She was in a long skirt made from some sort of soft, T-shirtlike material—similar to what she’d worn that night to the hotel—plus a baggy sweatshirt that had to be two sizes too big. Even though she was doing everything possible—at least in terms of how she dressed—to hide her figure, I doubted I’d be able to take my eyes off her the whole time we were here.

I knew what curves she was hiding underneath all that fabric. I’d held them in my hands, licked them, sucked them…reveled in them. I knew the toned muscle beneath the curves, too. If she was a dancer that explained so much about her body, things that had left me insanely curious for months. And it made me even more furious with her ex for all he’d done to her. Her health issues had probably forced her to stop dancing, pushed her into teaching instead. And he’d told her she was fat and left her for someone skinnier, at the same time she was losing her livelihood? I might be jumping to conclusions, but still…those conclusions were begging to be reached.

I hadn’t been able to get her off my mind in the months since that night. I hadn’t even been in her presence for five minutes today, and I was already trying to sort out how I could get her alone for two minutes at the end of this class so I could get her number.

If she was living here, in Portland, I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to help her find her confidence again, doing more than I could ever have accomplished in a single night.

I wanted to kiss her again. And more. I wanted a fucking hell of a lot more.

“Let’s everyone pair off, please, so we can get started,” she said over the general din in the room. “Gentleman, select a partner and spread out. Be sure you have plenty of space on all sides.”

Colesy took one step out toward the middle of the studio, and three of the women rushed toward him. Based on the way they were looking at him, all googly-eyed, I was fairly certain it was because he was pretty to look at and not necessarily because of his expert dancing skills that they were trying to run each other over to partner with him. Of course, he might yet surprise me and have a few moves. Anything was possible. Too bad for those women he was far more likely to be interested in one of the other guys in the room for anything beyond a dance partner. He took one of the ladies by the hand, and the other two practically ran over each other again in an effort to be the first to get in front of me, only further confirming my earlier assumption.

I held out a hand to one of them, a blonde, and she smirked at the brunette she’d been racing. Then we took our positions.

“I’m Jenni,” she said breathlessly.

I barely spared her a glance. I couldn’t seem to rip my gaze away from Brie since she was here, in the flesh, and I’d never expected to lay eyes on her again. “Keith,” I finally replied.

Standing in the center of the room, Brie clapped her hands for our attention. “We’re going to be working on the waltz again today,” she said once we’d quieted down. “Why don’t we start off with just a basic box step so we can refresh our memories, all right? And since we have a few people who are new to the class, let’s have a couple demonstrate what the box step is. Cole and Alexis?”

Colesy and his partner took up a hold and waited for Brie to count them off to the music being piped in.

“Keep going until I ask you to stop, please. All right, and one, two, three, one, ready, go,” she said. “Gentlemen, watch Cole’s feet, and ladies, watch Alexis’s. Note the way their weight shifts from foot to foot. When you move forward, use a heel lead. Moving backward, your toe should hit the floor first. You see how it’s a rocking motion, going from foot to foot?” After a couple of times through the box, Brie stepped up behind Colesy, adjusted his hold a bit, and whispered something in his ear.

As soon as she did that, he straightened his posture and seemed to bring his hips up under his shoulders better. Yeah, if he had to think about things like that, these classes would definitely help his core strength. Maybe Bergy was onto something with telling him to take dance. Who would have thought it?

“All right. Any questions?” Brie asked while she moved behind Alexis and made similar adjustments to her posture and hold.

A few murmurs spread throughout the room, but no one spoke up and asked anything.

“Okay, you two can stop then. Everyone get into closed hold with your partners. We’re all going to try it together before we move on to something more complicated.”

Even though I’d watched Garrett dance for years, I’d never done it myself. Still, I knew enough to have a pretty basic idea of how to get into hold. I put my left hand up for Jenni to take and settled my right hand on her shoulder blade. Then I let my gaze travel around the room again.

There were the perfect number of men and women in today’s class—something that Colesy had told me not to expect. He’d said there were always more women than men, that sometimes the women had to pair up together, with one of them leading the other. Not today, though. There wasn’t a single person in the room without a partner except Brie, and she was the one I kept staring at. I couldn’t help but wish I were dancing with her. I wanted to get my hands on her again, even if it was in a waltz hold and not at all the way I’d held her before.

“You need to lift your arm up,” Jenni hissed at me, bringing my attention back to her. I looked at her curiously, and she rolled her eyes. “So mine can rest on top of yours.” She flapped the arm in question.

I lifted my elbow into what I thought was the appropriate position, at least according to what I remembered from watching Garrett, and turned my attention back to Brie.

“Everyone ready? Gentlemen, you’ll be stepping forward with your left foot—remember your heel lead—and ladies will be stepping back with your right foot, toe hitting the ground first. On my count. One, two, three, one, ready, go.”

I took a step and immediately trampled Jennie’s toes.

“Ouch!” she shouted at me.

“Why didn’t you move?”

“I was waiting for you to lead me, to give me an indication of how I should move.”

Brie had fucking counted us off and outlined who was supposed to move in what way. What more indication did she need?

“All right,” Brie called out, staring with a bothered expression at me and Jenni. “Everyone hold up for a minute.”

The other couples came to a stop, and everyone joined her in staring at us.

“Do we have a problem over here?” Brie asked.

“Only if you consider this big oaf bulldozing my toes a problem,” Jenni muttered.

Brie met my eyes, and I wished she would never look away. “So tell me, Keith. Have you ever taken dance before?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Never.” I wanted to hear her say my name again. My name, not Jacob. I’d heard her call me that plenty of times the one night we’d spent together.

“Then, Jenni, you’re going to have to help him out. He doesn’t know how to lead.” Brie crossed over to the pair of us, and she put the flat of her palm on my lower abdomen—close enough to certain other parts of my anatomy that I had to fight back a groan. She patted her hand over that spot. “This is your core. This is where you move from, not your feet. You start here, and the rest of your body follows. Feet, arms, torso—they all have to wait. It all begins here. Once you start moving from your core, your hands will give Jenni a slight nudge, and she’ll follow. Just don’t start it with your feet or you’ll step on her, and don’t start with your hands and arms or you’ll knock her off-balance and she’ll fall over. Got it?”

The only thing I got out of all of that was the sensation of having her hands on me again, but I nodded. I could do this. If Colesy could fucking do this, then I could do it, too. “Got it,” I replied.

Her eyes flashed up to meet mine again for the briefest of moments, and then she backed away. I immediately felt the loss of her hand on my abs.

“Okay, let’s try it again,” she said to the whole class, lifting her voice so it would travel through the studio. “One, two, three, one, ready, go.”

This time, I tried to move from my core first, as she’d told me. It didn’t feel too awkward, actually. In hockey, we need a strong core for everything we do—skating, hitting, shot blocking, shooting. I supposed, if I took the time to think about it, we tended to move with our core first a lot. I’d never thought about it in those terms before. When I stepped forward, I felt Jenni moving backward in sync with my motion.

I stepped to my right, and she followed. Then feet together, then back, then left, then feet together again, and repeat.

We kept doing this box step, and with each reiteration of the motions, it got a little easier and less uncomfortable. I wouldn’t say that it was starting to feel comfortable, though. I was still the newest of newbies in this class, and it showed in the way my feet were clomping across the floor. I definitely didn’t have the easy dancing gait, the one Brie called a heel lead, and the idea of rocking from one foot to the other went straight over my head.

Brie was moving through the couples, correcting an arm placement here and straightening a head there. When she finally came back to us, my entire body tensed as she moved behind me. I’d seen her do this with most of the other couples, but that didn’t come close to preparing me for the heat of her hovering behind me, or for the strong but gentle touch of her hands as she adjusted my frame and straightened my spine. She stayed behind me dancing along with us, kind of like that scene in Dirty Dancing when the female dance instructor danced behind Jennifer Grey, all three of the characters moving perfectly in time with one another. I supposed that made me Jennifer Grey in this situation.

Only we weren’t perfectly together because my head wouldn’t stay focused on the task at hand. I couldn’t help it. All I could think about was where Brie was touching me, and where I wanted her to be touching me.

Sure enough, I stomped on Jenni’s toes again. It was even the same foot. And I was a big guy, so I knew that had to hurt her.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she shouted at me, dropping her hands and backing away. “I’ve had enough.”

She spun around and headed for the wall where we’d all left our gym bags and other shit.

“You don’t have to leave,” Brie called after her. “We can switch partners.”

“I’m going to go put ice on my toes,” Jenni replied. She grabbed her bag and headed through the door, letting it slam shut behind her.

“Sorry,” I said to Brie once it was clear Jenni was well and truly gone.

She looked around the studio at the other pairs, but there wasn’t anyone else she could put with me. She took a breath and straightened her back, reaching up to take my hands. “Let’s keep going, guys,” she said to the class. “Everyone get back into a closed hold.”

Tentatively, I took one of her hands in mine, placing the other on her shoulder blade. She settled her arm over mine, her hand gripping my deltoid since she was too short to comfortably reach my shoulder.

“Here we go. And one, two, three, one, ready, go.”

It took every ounce of restraint I possessed not to drop my hand down to her waist and pull her closer to me. Now that I had her in my arms again, I never wanted to let her go.

“WHAT ARE YOU doing in Portland?” Keith asked.

Why in God’s name did he have to look good enough to eat while he asked me that? “One, two, three, close the box,” I called out in a singsong voice to the room at large in lieu of answering him. There wasn’t any way I could have prepared myself for running into him today, and I still had to teach this class while I was trying to figure out how to feel, what to say, what to do.

The last thing in the world I wanted was to end up dancing with him, because that meant we had to touch. Everywhere he touched me, my body filled with electricity, and it ruined my ability to think. My body was betraying me, and all I could think about was all the ways he’d touched me once before.

Keith let his hand drop to the midpoint of my back, right around my bra-line, when it should have been on my shoulder blade. I grabbed him by the elbow and jerked it back into position, glaring at him as I did.

He smiled in return, one of those knee-weakening, heart-stopping sorts of smiles he’d given me so many times the night we met, and I wanted to forget about the fact that I had a class to teach. He made me want to curl into him, to run off so we could continue where we’d left off.

But that was a different time and a different place. It was a different me. That was Allison and Jacob, two people who had existed only in that hotel room. In the real world, Brie Hayden had nothing to do with a man like Keith Burns.

Or at least I shouldn’t have anything to do with a man like him. I’d only end up getting my heart smashed in the end, and I’d already had enough of that for one lifetime. I didn’t need to invite more heartache. It would be way more sensible to meet some average guy, someone who looked like someone like me would belong with.

“You’re not going to answer me?” he asked. “We have a good forty minutes or more left in this class. That’s a long time for you to be in my arms without saying a word.” He leaned his head closer to my ear, thoroughly ignoring his frame. “I can think of a lot of things we could do in forty minutes, you know. In fact, if memory serves, I made you come three times in about that same amount of time the last we saw each other. And you talked then. A lot.”

He wasn’t exaggerating about that. The whole time we’d spent together, he’d kept asking me what I liked, what I wanted, how something he did felt—and I’d answered him and then some. I couldn’t remember a time I’d been more vocal in bed.

I made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. Then I feared I’d never be able to look away again.

“What are you doing in Portland?” he asked me again.

“Teaching dance,” I hedged.

“Why here?”

“Because it’s not Providence. Because they wanted me.”

“I wanted you, too. You left without a word.”

“That was the plan going in. One night. Just sex.”

“Amazing sex.”

“But just sex.”

“Have you been with anyone since?”

I felt myself tensing in his arms. “That’s none of your business.”

“No, you’re right. It’s not.” He dropped his hand down again, lower this time. He settled it over one of my many bulges, and I had to fight not to flinch away from him. “So you live here now?”

“Yes.”

“What a coincidence. So do I.”

“Not in Canada…”

“I was playing by your rules, Brie. Half-truths. I head home to Nova Scotia in the off-season, but I play here. I live here.”

His hand fell farther, until it was on my waist and he was drawing me into him. I had to put an end to that. I dropped my frame and took a step back.

“All right, that’s enough of the basic box. Let’s add an under-arm turn. Who remembers how to dance that figure?”

Cole and Alexis volunteered to be my example couple again, and I led them through it while explaining both parts several times so everyone else could have their memory refreshed or catch up if it was all new to them.

“Is everyone ready to give it a try?” I asked once I was relatively certain they should have had time to commit the steps to memory.

“I’m ready to have you back in my arms,” Keith murmured as he moved in closer to me, which only left me flustered.

“Gentlemen,” I said, eyeing Keith warily, “take your partners in closed hold and I’ll count us in.” I waited for him to get situated with a proper frame. Once he did, I put one hand in his, the other on his deltoid. He tried to drop his hand lower than it belonged, so I resituated it and scowled my displeasure. “One, two, three, one, ready, go.”

He pulled me in closer than was appropriate and neglected to release my hand so I could do the turn underneath his arm. This was going downhill—fast. I couldn’t allow it to continue.

I separated myself from him and left him standing where he was, crossing over to where Cole and Alexis were dancing. “I’m sorry, Alexis, but can I ask you to please partner with Keith? He’s getting the hang of it now, and I think you’d do well with him with your height.” Not to mention that it would keep him from touching me inappropriately during the class, and I could demonstrate the various moves with Cole. He was one of my better students in this session, and he picked up on things quickly. And he didn’t try to touch me in ways that he shouldn’t touch me.

Alexis scurried across to join Keith, who gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. I chose to ignore him as well as I could, allowing Cole to take me into a hold.

“Do I need to apologize for bringing him?” Cole asked me as we moved through the steps. “I don’t have a clue what’s gotten into him. If I’d had any idea…”

“No.” I shook my head as if I needed to emphasize my answer, which only made it seem as though I was trying too hard to convince myself of it. I smiled for Cole’s sake. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle Keith Burns.”

Only I wasn’t positive that I could.

BY THE TIME the class was over, I wasn’t sure what to make of Keith. He had a natural skill as a dancer, and I wasn’t entirely convinced that his skill came about from his athletic background. I mean, Cole was an athlete, too, but he hadn’t started out with the sort of ability that Keith had shown today. Yet Keith had sworn he’d never danced before.

That wasn’t the truly baffling part, though.

This man wouldn’t stop staring at me throughout the entire session. He spent the whole time dancing with Alexis, who was a hot little package. There were half a dozen other women in the room, all of them better looking than me. But he’d only had eyes for me.

And he’d been an incorrigible flirt the whole time, too, so much so that he was embarrassing Cole.

Every time Cole and I had danced near Keith and Alexis, Keith had winked at me or said something that I could never repeat in polite company. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t find a way to make any sense of it in my head.

I mean, we’d spent one night together. One. And yes, I was insanely attracted to him and I’d had a hard time pushing him from my mind after we’d met. But it had only been one night of weakness for me. It’d been a moment in time when I’d felt my most vulnerable and least confident, a time when I could hardly find the strength to push myself out the door each day. I’d asked him to lie to me, to make me feel beautiful. I’d asked him to help boost my confidence at least enough that I could move on with my life, and he had. Amazingly so.

I could never let it become more than that one night, though.

Yet, here he was, coming up to me after class when I was trying to escape into the office so I could talk to Tanya and pretend to be busy so he would leave. I’d bent over to grab my bag and bottle of water, and I had been hoping to get through the door before he had finished talking to Cole.

That didn’t happen. I felt him before I saw or heard him.

“I still need your number.” He settled his hand on my waist as though it belonged there.

“I’m not in the habit of giving out my personal number to students.”

“I’m not just a student, though, am I?”

“Aren’t you?” I spun around so I could face him. “What exactly do you think this is?”

He shrugged, and I couldn’t stop my gaze from falling to his shoulders. Couldn’t stop my mind from thinking of the feel of them beneath my fingers.

I was a wreck, and it was all his fault.

“I don’t know what it is, but I know what it could be.” He reached up and took my glasses off my face. “We’re good together, Brie.”

“One night doesn’t mean anything,” I snapped, grabbing my glasses out of his hand so impatiently that I smudged sweaty fingerprints all over the stupid lenses. I dug around in my purse for a wipe to clean them with. “We don’t know anything about each other,” I muttered.

“We have insane chemistry. That much we know.” He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms and his ankles in a stance that said he didn’t have anywhere else to be. “We know enough that I want to know more. Let me take you on a date. One date, and then if you want me to back off, I’ll back off.”

I twisted the lid off my water bottle and guzzled it to buy time.

“Brie,” he said, and he waited until I looked up and met his gaze. “One date. You can’t tell me you aren’t at least curious.”

I was a heck of a lot more than curious, and that was part of the problem. But the longer he stood there staring at me, the more I felt my resolve slipping away.

“One date? And then you’ll leave me alone if I tell you to?”

“Scout’s honor,” Keith said.

“When?” And why was I even thinking about this?

“Tomorrow night? I can pick you up at seven.”

“Tomorrow’s no good. I have a class.” I didn’t see any reason to tell him more than that. And it was the truth, even though it wasn’t a class I was teaching. I had signed up to take a contemporary class taught by Devin Shreeve, a choreographer whose work I idolized. I doubted I would get any jobs from taking the class. No one wanted to hire a dancer who looked like me. But I still wanted to go, test myself, stretch my boundaries. I wanted the experience. “What about Thursday?”

“We have a game Thursday night. You could come,” he added. “I can get you in.”

I shook my head. That seemed like a girlfriend-status sort of thing, and all I was agreeing to was a single date.

“Okay, no game. What does Friday look like for you?”

I racked my brain, trying to come up with an excuse that didn’t sound like I was searching for an excuse, but nothing came to mind. I even had the whole day off. Crap. “Friday’s fine.”

“Could I pick you up early on Friday? Like midafternoon or so?”

It was as if he had read my mind and knew that I didn’t have anything to stop me. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Excellent. Now, I need your number.” He’d already pulled his cell out of his pocket, punched a few buttons, and waited with an arched eyebrow, finger poised to press more keys.

I rattled off my digits, and when he was finished saving my number in his phone, he straightened away from the door enough that I could get through. I’d barely gone three steps before he was following me through the hall toward the front office. Cole was in there registering for more classes when I arrived.

Keith came in behind me. “Brie?”

I turned around to ask him what on earth he wanted now, and as soon as I did, he planted a kiss on my lips that threatened to turn all my bones to mush. I had to grab on to his shoulders to keep my balance, and he took that as his cue to wrap both arms around my waist and draw me right up against him. We were both hot and sweaty from the class, but he smelled like spice and bergamot and heat, and I wanted to let myself melt into him. He was more than I knew how to handle.

When he released me, I practically fell into the open chair next to Tanya.

“I’ll call you,” he said casually with a sinfully sexy grin. Then he nodded in Cole’s direction. “Ready to get out of here, Colesy?”

“I…” Cole looked at me with apologetic eyes and mouthed, I’m sorry, one more time, then said, “Yeah. Let’s go. I’ll see you next time, Brie.”

All I could do was wave, and even that almost took more out of me than I had to give after that kiss.

“Told you,” Tanya said when they were gone. “Sex on a stick.”

She had no idea.

WEAR SOMETHING WARM and comfortable.

That’s what Keith had said when he’d called yesterday afternoon before his game. I’d asked him for more clarification as to where he intended to take me on this date and how I should dress, but he hadn’t told me much of anything. Nor had he given me any indication of what sort of warm and comfortable, not that it really mattered. It was still a date, and that meant I needed to wear something nice, plus warm and comfortable. The problem was that I didn’t own anything in my current size that I’d consider nice.

For the last ten minutes, I’d been staring into the tiny, overstuffed vortex of my closet, my mind completely blank about what I could possibly put on that wouldn’t look as frumpy and ill-fitting as everything else I owned. My closet was full to bursting, mind you. I had kept the clothes I’d bought in every size along the way, ever since I’d started gaining weight when my thyroid went haywire about four years ago. I’d been twenty-two and it had seemed as though the world was waiting for me, and then suddenly, it wasn’t. I’d only gotten rid of things when they were too stained or threadbare or otherwise unwearable. I pretty much had a full wardrobe in every size from two up to twenty-two, not that I expected I’d ever be able to wear most of those things again.

These days, I fit into an eighteen. The medications that my doctor had put me on had helped to stabilize my metabolism, at least somewhat, so I’d managed to drop a few pounds. It had taken me two years on those meds, along with watching my diet like a hawk and working out more than I ever had before—even more than when I’d been a full-time professional ballroom dancer—to lose enough weight to drop back down to that size.

So there was no chance I was ever going to get into a two again. Heck, there really wasn’t any possibility I would ever squeeze my body into a size ten, so I didn’t know why I couldn’t let the smaller sizes go. Especially since I really didn’t have room for them. My closet was so jam-packed that it was impossible to know what was even in there. I should have donated most of it to Goodwill so they could have gone to someone who could actually make use of them.

But instead of doing anything sensible like that, I’d packed them all up when I’d left Providence a few months ago, and I’d moved them all the way across the country to Portland, and now they were practically laughing at me, bulging from the stacks, while I tried to figure out what I should wear on this date.

My eyes wandered over to the cute side of the closet—the side filled with sizes two to twelve, even though a decade ago I would never have imagined calling size twelve cute—and I let my fingers trail longingly over a few of the pieces that had made me feel good about myself. Amazing jeans that fit my butt like a glove. Tops in bright colors or full of sparkle and flash. Snug, slightly revealing dresses. I hadn’t even needed to wear Spanx back in the day to keep everything where it belonged. My body had been sleek and toned, and it had done whatever I’d wanted it to do. Now I felt like a big lump. I was like the marshmallow-puff dude from the Ghostbusters movie.

Staring at that part of the closet wasn’t going to do me any good. It would just remind me how I wasn’t that person anymore, and I never would be again, and then I might end up texting Keith and telling him that something had come up and I couldn’t go out with him after all. I’d done that to a couple of guys in Providence after the night I’d spent with Keith, before I’d been offered this position with Rose City. Chickening out had only made me feel worse about myself than I already had, and that was saying something.

I couldn’t keep doing that. I had to find a way to be comfortable in my own skin again, to feel good about myself because of who I was on the inside, regardless of how I looked on the outside. This was no way to live. I was getting to the point where not only was I lacking in confidence but I was starting to not like the person I was because disliking my outward appearance was becoming something of an obsession.

After a ton of hemming and hawing, I finally settled on a gray maxi skirt that I sometimes wore when teaching my smooth ballroom classes. It had silvery threads woven through it to add a bit of pizzazz. I settled on a black, shapeless tunic on top because at least if it was shapeless, it wasn’t hugging me too tight anywhere. That was about as nice as I could manage with the current state of my closet.

I threw those things on over my Spanx, found a pair of silver pumps that would do the job, and added a silver scarf since it was pretty cold out and Keith had made a point of telling me to wear something warm. A couple of other accessories later, I was ready to go.

When I returned to the living room of my apartment, Bradley Cooper lifted his head and yawned so wide that his entire face disappeared. He was all mouth. Not the real Bradley Cooper, of course. This Brad—BC—was one of my cats, a big, fluffy Ragdoll that was almost fully white. His face, ears, paws, and tail were a soft brown, but everywhere else he was white. Which meant I couldn’t let him come anywhere near me at the moment or my black-and-gray outfit would be covered with white cat fur. And that meant that, of course, there was nowhere else he would rather be at the moment that curled up on me and my clothes.

BC jumped down from the back of the sofa where he’d been lounging and sauntered over to me, burrowing under my skirt and sitting between my feet. He always did that when I wore long skirts, as though he thought they created an invisibility cloak for him or something.

At least he was only going to hang out under my skirt. I’d just have to be sure I didn’t sit down or I’d have fur all over my butt and back, and he’d jump up on my lap in an instant.

My other cat, Richard Armitage, was an orange Maine Coon with tabby markings, and he was presently trying to disappear in the hidey-hole I’d made for him in my closet when we’d moved in here. Richie was as sweet as could be but scared of his own shadow. As soon as I’d started going through my closet for something to wear, he’d figured out that something was up, and he hadn’t liked it, so off to his hidey-hole he’d gone.

He would have ended up there anyway once Keith arrived and knocked on the door because, of course, anyone knocking on the door was a terrifying thing for my Richie. I figured it was for the best that he was already in his safe spot. Maybe he wouldn’t get too worked up this time.

I wasn’t going to hold my breath over that one, though. He was eight years old and I’d had him since he was a kitten. Some things just weren’t going to change.

Before I succumbed to the desire to sit, a knock sounded at my door. A moment of panic seized me—fleeting, but entirely real—and I nearly decided to pretend I hadn’t heard it. BC had other ideas, though. He let out an excited meow, raced out from under my skirt, and headed straight for the door, which he slammed his head into before pawing at it as though he was trying to dig to China.

I fought the urge to curse at my cat as I crossed over to open the door. Keith was leaning against the doorjamb in dark jeans, a black sweater, and a leather jacket that fit him so well I nearly licked my lips. The next time I saw Tanya, I was going to give her a piece of my mind for putting the idea of sex on a stick in my head in regard to this man because I kept thinking about licking him the way I would a popsicle.

“Hi,” he said lazily, but his eyes were anything but lazy as they roved over my whole body. “I thought I said you should wear something comfortable.”

BC crossed the threshold to weave in and out of Keith’s legs, purring loudly.

I fidgeted with my scarf, tugging the long ends down so I could cross it over my belly, as though that could hide anything. “I’ve spent half my life in skirts and shoes like this. Should I go change?” Not that I wanted to delve back into that closet, especially considering it had taken me so long to decide on this to begin with. It was a daunting prospect on a good day.

“No, it’s fine if you’re comfortable.” He bent down, scratched my cat behind his ears, and then grinned up at me. “But you should bring a pair of socks. And your coat. We’ll be outside at least some of the time.”

“Socks?” I repeated, dumbfounded. I may not dress all that fashionably these days, since it was next to impossible to find trendy clothes in my size, but I would never be caught dead wearing socks with my strappy pumps.

“Yeah, socks.” Keith let out a laugh. By this point, my cat was seriously head-butting him, trying to get closer for more attention. Keith picked him up and carried him inside so he could close the door, forcing me to take a few steps back or else he would run me over. As soon as he was in Keith’s arms, BC did his Ragdoll thing and flopped over, playing dead, or as close to it as you could believe with the intense purring coming from him.

“Just trust me,” Keith said. “Get a pair of socks. This little guy and I’ll be fine while we wait.” He made himself at home, heading into the living room and taking a seat on the couch before I could warn him about the cat hair.

Granted, he was already getting covered because BC was writhing all over him like the little attention-whore freak he was. It was too late for me to do anything about it. I went back into my bedroom, grabbed a pair of socks from the bureau and shoved them into my purse, popped into the closet and gave Richie a reassuring rub on his scaredy-cat head, and headed back out to join Keith.

“I think this little guy likes me,” he said without looking up. “Or girl. Whichever.”

BC had one paw planted on each of Keith’s shoulders, his body splayed against Keith’s chest and his head thrown back in blissful surrender to get chin scratches.

“He,” I said. “That’s BC. And I’m sorry. He’s shameless.”

“Nah. He just knows what he wants, and he goes for it. I can appreciate that.” Keith’s gaze settled on me as he spoke, causing my body temperature to rise about fifty degrees, enough that putting on my coat so we could leave was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. He scratched BC’s chin a few more times and then moved my cat off his lap. “You ready to go?”

Sure enough, once he was on his feet, I could see how much cat hair was all over him. I grabbed a lint roller off the counter and handed it to him. “I can be as soon as you’ve used this. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve got dogs. I get it.” Keith used a fresh sheet and rolled it all over his body. I had to force myself to look away or else I would’ve ended up staring.

Instead, I got my coat from the hall closet and shrugged it on.

“I’m guessing I’ve got some on my backside, too, don’t I?” he asked, turning around to show me his butt. Which was, of course, amazing, just like I remembered it. And it was covered in cat hair. “Can you help me out with that?”

Despite the fact that I was practically salivating at the thought of getting close enough to roll that thing over his backside, close enough I could possibly touch him, I shook my head. “I think you can manage that on your own.”

He winked at me and rolled it over his butt and the backs of his thighs a few times before once again turning. “Did I miss anything?”

“Other than my hands on you?” I asked drolly, only to regret it when he started to agree with me. “No,” I added, cutting him off. “I think you’re good.”

He set the roller down where I’d grabbed it from and reached for my hand. “I do miss that. Your hands on me. Your mouth on me. I miss all of that and more.”

My face burned as I took his hand. “You’ve got to stop talking like that.”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

“It was one night, Keith.” A very ill-conceived night, at that.

“But now it has the potential to become a hell of a lot more.”

I couldn’t stop myself from trying to shake that off. He didn’t know me. How could he be so sure he wanted there to be more?

We headed out into the entryway, and I locked my front door. Then he took me down to his car and helped me in, with me goggling at it the whole time. He drove a two-door Mercedes, silver with a black leather interior. He’d apparently run the seat warmer on the passenger seat on his way to get me because it was warm and toasty when I sat down. His car was so nice that I was almost afraid to touch it. I’d never been in a car like that before.

Heck, I didn’t even own a car anymore. Once I’d moved, I’d realized pretty quickly that it cost too much to pay for parking everywhere around here and it was better to use public transportation to get where I needed to go. So I’d sold my old Mazda. Keith didn’t just own a car; it was probably the nicest vehicle I’d ever had the privilege of seeing up close, let alone sitting in.

I tried to gather my thoughts while he drove. Yes, I was insanely attracted to him. That didn’t mean that I should do anything stupid like lose my head when I was with him.

I stared out the window on my side, trying not to think about how close we were. Even though the air was brisk today, the sun was shining and there were only a few wispy clouds in the sky way off in the distance. That would help with whatever outdoor activity he had planned.

I lived near Millennium Plaza City Park on the western bank of the Willamette. He drove us across the bridge to the other side of the city. Even though I was searching my mind to figure out where he might be taking me and what he intended for us to do, I couldn’t come up with anything. I hadn’t lived here long enough to know the sorts of places people might go on a date. I didn’t have a clue until he pulled up in front of Oaks Park, at least. But even then, I was confused.

“Aren’t they closed for the winter?” It was an amusement park, full of insanity like Ferris wheels and bumper cars and all sorts of things I hadn’t gotten on or in or even thought about in years.

“The amusement park is,” he said, shutting off the engine. “But the skating rink is open.”

My heart skittered, but he flashed me a sexy-as-hell smile and came around the front of the car to help me out. I put my hand in his and let him lead me inside despite my moment of hesitation. Thank goodness it was roller-skating and not ice-skating. I hadn’t been on ice skates since well before I’d gained all the weight, and frankly, I didn’t know how well my ankles would hold up on those tiny blades. My legs were still relatively strong from dance, but not like they used to be. Besides, skate blades and dancing heels fell into two entirely different categories.

We rented skates and put them on, and he took our coats and my purse to a locker. Before I was ready for it, he took my hand again and was leading me out to the rink.

“Roller-skating,” I mumbled, completely thunderstruck. “You hounded me after that class so you could take me roller-skating?”

Keith turned around to skate backward, reaching for my other hand to help pull me along. There was something about the colorful lights bouncing around the room, and the shimmery flashes coming off the disco ball in the center that made him look almost sinful out there. “This is just part of it. There’s a lot more to come before the night’s over, Brie.”

I laughed, despite myself. Roller-skating.

IT WAS A rare occurrence that I used my clout as a local sports celebrity to get something that an everyday person might not have access to, but I’d had no qualms about doing it when I was preparing for this date. Obtaining reservations for any of the restaurants along the river when the Christmas Ships Parade was taking place was generally next to impossible. A lot of the restaurants were booked solid more than a year in advance for this annual event. I’d begged and pleaded and used every bit of my minor fame, and even that hadn’t been enough at first. It was only once I’d promised that we would finish our meal and leave before the parade started that I’d found a restaurant to agree to squeeze us in for dinner.

That had been an easy promise for me to make. I didn’t want her to see the ships from behind a pane of glass. I wanted to be right on the bank, where she could really experience it like a local. I’d done that my first year here, and it had been such a uniquely Portland experience that I’d made sure to do it every year since.

I’d come to appreciate the Christmas ships in my time playing with the Storm, especially in the last few years since I’d bought my big house on the river. The parade didn’t come quite far enough for me to watch it from my own balcony, but I always made an effort to find somewhere to watch it when I was in town on a night we didn’t have a game. The parade had become one of my holiday traditions as much as it was a Portland tradition.

A couple of years ago I’d invited my surviving brother, Shane, to come out and see it with me. I’d thought that maybe it could help me to build a bridge with him, that maybe we could start to mend fences and other shit like that. He hadn’t come, though. Not that year, or last year, and so far this year he was still telling me he didn’t think he could do it. He said it was work that was keeping him from visiting, but I didn’t buy that for a minute. He didn’t want to spend his holiday with me. Shane didn’t want anything to do with me. That wouldn’t stop me from trying. He was the only brother I had left.

Anyway, it was after no small amount of finagling and cajoling on my part that Brie and I ended up at a swanky French place, surrounded by flowers and candles and soft, classical guitar music playing in the background. The candlelight made her hair gleam like nothing I’d ever seen before. I made a mental note of it so I’d remember it in future. Candlelight and Brie were a match made in heaven.

“If your family lives in Illinois, how did you end up in Providence?” I asked her over my wineglass. We’d already finished eating, but there was still enough time before the parade began that I wasn’t in any big hurry to leave.

She shook her head. “They’re not all in Illinois anymore. My brother lives in Ohio now. But when you’re a dancer, you follow where dancing leads you. I ended up paired with the best partner I’d ever had, and he wanted to go train with one of the ballroom greats who had a studio in Providence. Val wasn’t just the best partner I’d ever had; he was miles better than any of the others. I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to dance with him, so I agreed to move. I’m sure it’s the same with you ending up here in Portland. Or at least similar.”

“Not exactly.”

“You followed the work, didn’t you? You went where the game took you. If you wanted to play at this level, to compete against people who are in the same professional sphere as you are, you had to go where they told you to go.”

“At first, sure. But now I can play where I want to play.”

“And you want to play here because it’s familiar?”

“Something like that.” More because I liked the direction this team was headed. I liked the position I had within the team, being part of the leadership core. I liked that playing here meant that, for much of the year, I could be so far away from the yawning hole I’d created within my family, that I could live with that emptiness all by myself without being surrounded by reminders of it everywhere I turned. I didn’t want to talk about myself, though. Not right now. “You have a sister, too, you said?” I asked. “She still lives near your parents?”

“Oh, yeah, she never had any intention of leaving. Married her high school sweetheart. She teaches second grade, and he’s a mortgage lender at the oldest bank in town. They’ve got a house a few blocks over from Mom and Dad, complete with the minivan, two and a half kids, and the picket fence.”

“Two and a half?”

“The dog is as good as their child,” Brie clarified, laughing.

“Understandable. My dogs are my kids. At least for now.” And we were back to talking about me. Not only that, but her eyes lit up when I added that last part. Fucking hell. I had to try harder to keep the conversation on her. “And your brother? Is he living the American dream, too?”

“His version of it, at least. He’s moved up through the ranks to become the CEO of his company, and he has a live-in girlfriend. No pets or kids, but he has a fancy sports car and lives in a penthouse.”

“And you’re somewhere in between the two of them, I guess.”

“Age-wise, yes. In any other way?” She shook her head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She rolled her eyes at me, and even that was as pretty as a picture. She held up her hand and started ticking off a list, putting up a finger with each thing she named. “Single. Transient. Fleeting career after foolishly chasing my dreams.” With her other hand, she waved it along the side of her body, indicating God only knew what.

No, I knew what. It hit me like a ton of bricks. She meant her appearance.

“Dating a hot professional athlete,” I interrupted before she could make herself feel any worse, especially because I was positive she was preparing herself to demean the body I found so beautiful.

Her eyes flickered up to meet mine, darker than ever because of the dim candlelight. “I wouldn’t say we’re dating.”

“This,” he said, indicating the pair of us, “is definitely a date. At least where I’m from. Maybe things are different in Providence. Still, one more, and…”

She took another sip from her wineglass, scowling. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“I know what I want, and I go for it,” I said, mimicking what I’d said about her cat earlier.

The waiter came back with our check, and Brie used that as an excuse to duck her head away from me, to try to back away from the candlelight and hide in the shadows. It was no use, though. There was no chance I could see anything but her.

I took out my credit card and paid the bill. When the waiter walked away to run the transaction, I reached across the table and trapped her fingers in my hand. “It feels good to touch you again. Even though this isn’t anything like how I want to be touching you.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice a breathless purr.

“Why what?” I let my gaze settle on one of the rare places on her body not fully covered—the alternatingly tensing and relaxing spot where her jaw met her neck. Each time she tensed, it tugged her earlobe down a bit. Just enough to draw my notice, as her small hoop earring swayed gently.

“Why do you want to touch me? Why did you want to take me out tonight? Why are you trying so hard to convince me we should be together?”

“Because in the nearly six months since that night, I’ve hardly been able to look at another woman without thinking about you, let alone touch one. Because all I have to do is see how you dress and the way you try to hide yourself away from the world to know that the one night we spent together wasn’t enough. For you. For me. You still think the bullshit he told you is the truth. You think you’re fat. You don’t believe that I could find you sexy when all I have to do is take one look into your eyes or hear your voice or get a single finger on your skin, and I’m hard as a fucking brick wall.”

There were tears welling in her eyes—big fat ones, building up right in the corners—but she didn’t pull her hand away from me. I traced the lines on the inside of her palm, easing my fingers up to tickle her wrist.

“You were going to tell me you’re fat, weren’t you?” I said after a moment.

“I am fat.”

“No, you’re not. You’re curvy and beautiful. You’re one of the most stunning women I’ve ever known, but you’ve got a head full of lies. I want to help you see the truth. That’s why I want to touch you and be with you.”

The waiter came back with my credit card and the receipt, and I had to drop her hand to sign the check. When I set the pen down and closed the leather folio, she’d already crossed her arms over her chest—attempting to hide herself again—and she looked off into the distance. A wet streak on her cheek shimmered in the candlelight.

“Did you meet him when you moved to Providence?” I asked.

She shot those midnight eyes over to stare at me but stayed quiet.

“The asshole who told you that you were fat,” I clarified. “The one who convinced you that you weren’t good enough.”

Brie sniffled and reached for her napkin to dab at her eyes. “He was my partner. Val.”

Her partner. Her dance partner. The man she’d followed halfway across the country, away from her family and her home. She’d given up everything for him. I’d barely comprehended it before she was pushing back from the table and pulling on her coat.

“Can we go? I want to go home now.” Without waiting for me, she made her way through the other tables toward the restaurant’s main entry.

I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and hurried after her. As soon as I caught up to her, I put my arm around her—gently, but it was definitely there. She stiffened under my touch.

“There was something else I wanted to take you to do tonight,” I said once we got out into the parking lot, the breeze fluttering the hem of her skirt.

“I think it would be better if you took me home. You said you’d leave me alone after a date.”

“I will.” I opened the car door and waited while she got in. I didn’t close it, though, leaning over it so she had to look up at me. “If you want me to back off after tonight, I will. But please, let me take you to do one more thing.”

She frowned, but after a moment the cold must have started to get to her, and she shivered. “Will you close the door?”

“If you agree to let me show you what we came out here to see.”

“Fine. But then I want you to take me home.”

“After this, I’ll do anything you want me to.”

Now I had to make sure that what Brie wanted, when everything was said and done, was me.

KEITH DIDN’T DRIVE far before parking in one of the lots at Oaks Park, not far at all from where we’d been earlier. I really wasn’t in the mood to go roller-skating again, even though it had been fun before, and I had no doubt he knew that, so I couldn’t imagine why we were returning.

He shut off the engine and sent a scorching look in my direction. “Ready?”

Ready for what?

There were dozens of other people crossing the lot and heading toward the riverbank, so there must be something big going on. I shrugged and climbed out of his car. I hadn’t even shut the door yet and he was standing there, right in front of me, holding out a hand for mine.

I hesitated, but then I slammed the car door and forced myself to close the distance between us. I mentally kicked myself the whole time for acting the way I was. He didn’t deserve my acting like a shrew around him. It wasn’t Keith I was upset with; it was myself. Because he was right. Maybe he wasn’t right about me not being fat—I had a mirror, after all—but he might be right about me letting myself believe everything Val had said to me for so many years. I still heard Val’s voice in my head when I saw pictures of myself and when I looked in the bathroom mirror in the mornings. His voice was at its loudest when I saw myself in the studio mirrors.

How you think we can win if you looking like this? he’d said to me again and again in his thick Russian accent. Fat! Your body doesn’t look right when we move together. I need my old partner back. That hadn’t even been the worst of it, either. Those were the kinds of things he’d said when we were in public, when others might hear. When we were alone, it was so much worse. I can’t look at you like that. You make me sick. How you expect me to get turned on? It’s like fucking a whale.

The things he’d said to me hadn’t been lies, no matter what Keith wanted me to believe now. My body no longer moved the way it used to move. I couldn’t wear the slinky outfits I’d always worn in competition—the type that had emphasized my sleek body, my toned muscle, just the right curves in very specific places. If I put something like that on now, the people who saw me would want to cover their eyes and tell me to change into something more appropriate for a person my size.

It wasn’t just what I saw, and it wasn’t only about the things Val had said to me. I saw the way people looked at me now. I knew the way they treated me.

It’s a very different experience, being a heavy girl. I’d spent most of my life on the other end of the spectrum, so there weren’t many people who could make the comparison as readily as me. I never realized how easy some things were for me until all of a sudden they were next to impossible. It wasn’t all bad, though. These days, it was easy for me to be invisible, despite the fact that I took up twice as much space as I used to. I preferred to be invisible. That was a heck of a lot easier than dealing with the pitying stares or the disgusted expressions I got otherwise.

I couldn’t deny that the way Keith looked at me was different from everyone else, though. He looked at me the way Val used to look at me, before I’d gained all the weight. Before my entire life plan had been ripped like a rug from under my feet. And it didn’t seem as though Keith was putting on an act in order to do it, which was really screwing with my head. No man had looked at me the way he did in almost four years now, but every time he turned in my direction, I could feel it.

Like now.

He’d parked near the pavilion, and Keith winked at me as he opened the trunk. He took out a blanket and we walked away from the car. The whole area was fairly well lit, and he guided me through the crowd, heading toward the riverbank—a realization that had me dragging my feet.

“I don’t know what everyone’s here for, but there’s not a chance you’re going to get me in the water.” The temperature had to have dropped down into the thirties while we were at dinner.

“Okay,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I like the idea of taking you skinny-dipping at night sometime, though. Maybe in the summer, when it’s warmer. There’s a private place up near my house in Nova Scotia—”

“Not in this life,” I cut in. Private or not, I wasn’t going skinny-dipping with anyone, anywhere, anytime. And what was he doing, trying to talk about us doing things together in the summer? We hadn’t even gotten through this date yet.

“Never say never. I’m really persuasive. You might end up eating your words.”

An odd sound came from my mouth, something along the lines of, hmph, and he reached for my hand. I took it, not thinking about how he might interpret my readiness to resume contact. He tugged me close to him, and the heat of his body warmed my side so much that I had to fight the urge to get even closer.

When we got to the bank, everyone was spreading out on the lawn, finding places to sit and look out at the water. Okay, so that had me curious. I couldn’t imagine what we were watching for since it was already fully dark out.

Keith found an empty space without too many people in front of us to block our view of the river, and he spread out the blanket. Once he had it settled, he took a seat and tried to ease me down to join him. There was one—big—problem, though. There wasn’t a graceful way for someone my size to get down to the ground while wearing a skirt. I ignored the help he was attempting to give me and situated myself as best I could, keeping a little space between us.

“You’ll be warmer if you move over here with me.”

“I know that.”

“Are you scared of me?”

“No.”

“What are you scared of then?”

Only everything he made me feel and the fact that at every turn, he continued to challenge everything I’d come to believe about myself. “What are we here for, Keith?”

“You’ll see soon enough.” He squinted up the river.

I turned my eyes in the same direction, but I couldn’t make anything out. “All right, be that way.” I sighed, tucking my skirt around my legs and drawing my coat tighter over my chest before zipping it all the way up to my neck. I might as well try to get him to talk because Lord only knew how long we’d be sitting here waiting for whatever mystery was yet to be unveiled. “So how is it that you understand as much about dance as you do? For someone who’s never danced before, you took to it well.”

He didn’t answer me right away, so I craned my head around to look at him. He shrugged. “Garrett, my younger brother, was a dancer. I picked up on a bit of it, I guess, from watching him.”

“You really never danced, though?” That was what he’d claimed during my class, but it was still difficult for me to believe. Cole Paxton had picked up on the movement about as quickly as any student I’d had in four years of teaching ballroom dance, and the speed Keith had learned it made Cole seem like a slow and plodding learner.

“Nah,” Keith said. “Our younger brother, Shane, and I were too busy playing hockey to mess with that. We just watched a little. From the sidelines.” His eyebrows drew together again, as they had during dinner anytime we had started talking about his family, or really anything to do with him at all. “Did your brother and sister ever take dance? Or were they too busy teaching and CEO’ing to join you?”

And, exactly the way he had every time we’d been about to start talking about him or his family, he deftly changed the subject back to me. His avoidance to talk about himself ought to make me even less inclined than I already was to get into any sort of relationship with him, but for some reason, it did the opposite. I wanted to know why he was so desperate to keep that part of himself private. I wanted to know what was so painful that it caused that pinched crease on his forehead. I might try to hide my body, but he was hiding so much more than that.

“My sister danced some,” I said after a moment, hoping he wouldn’t realize how much more curious I grew every time he refused to talk about himself. That knowledge might make him clam up even more. “Although Michelle was more into jazz and tap than ballroom, like I was. Ian didn’t ever want anything to do with physical stuff. He always had his nose buried in a book.”

“What kinds of books?”

“Sci-fi, mainly. Anything to do with space and he was all over it.”

“So why is he running a company instead of working for NASA or something like that?”

I laughed. “Because he spent too much time reading his sci-fi books and not enough time studying actual science.” He’d always had more of a creative mind than a logical mind, much like mine. He was an artist in his own right, but his artistry played out in boardrooms and conference calls.

A breeze picked up along the bank, and my hair went flying. I shivered visibly, unable to fight off the biting cold.

Keith stared at me, his amber eyes almost puncturing my skin with their intensity. The crowd around us became more animated before he spoke, though, and he looked up the river again. “It’s starting. They’re here. Why don’t you lean against me to warm up while we watch?”

I still wasn’t sure what we were going to watch, so I shot my head around to get a look. A train of ships was making its way down river, but these weren’t just any old ships. They’d been decorated in lights—the same sort of lights people used to decorate their houses for the holidays—and were moving along slowly so that everyone could get a really good look as they traveled down the river.

“It’s like a parade,” I murmured, trying to ward off another shiver.

“It’s the Christmas Ships Parade. They do it every year, going along different parts of the river on different nights. It’s been going on for decades.”

I became fixated on one ship, the fourth one to move into my line of sight. Done up in cheerful, colorful lights, it had Charlie Brown, and Snoopy on his red doghouse, and the pathetic but perfect Christmas tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas. All of a sudden, I felt like I was ten years old again.

“We watched it every year,” I said, pointing at the ship. “It was one of our traditions. Whatever night it came on TV, that was the night that we would put up our own Christmas tree. Mom had us make garlands out of popcorn and cranberries and other things like that, and Ian ate so much of the popcorn that she had to pop at least three times as much as we needed.”

“And you?” Keith inched closer to me on the blanket, his arm coming around to settle on my waist. It would be really easy to lean into him like he wanted me to, to soak up all the warmth he had to offer. “Did you steal popcorn while you made Christmas garlands?”

I shook my head, still staring out at the Charlie Brown ship that would pass us by all too soon. “Maybe a little. We all did. But I didn’t eat much of it. I was always worried about the things I ate.” Even then, when I was a little girl, long before I had thyroid issues, I’d paid so much attention to every bite I’d put into my mouth that it was almost criminal. Food and I had always had a testy relationship.

“Hmm,” he said, and when I faced him, he was scowling.

“Hmm what?”

“Is that why you only ordered a salad tonight? I couldn’t be sure if you were trying not to be an expensive date or if you were trying not to eat too much.” He didn’t sound terribly impressed with either possible reason.

“It’s not a bad thing to watch what I eat.”

“And it’s not a good thing to obsess about your weight.”

I spun around again to watch the parade. The bright lights floating along the river were a lot nicer to think about than the idea that he thought I was obsessing about my weight. Ordering a salad for dinner didn’t make a person obsessed.

“Brie?”

I felt him inch closer, at once thankful for the added warmth and angry that he was invading my space. The Charlie Brown ship was almost out of sight, and I chose to focus on that instead of my discomfort.

“Did you and your brothers watch it each year?” I asked. “A Charlie Brown Christmas?” The question had hardly passed my lips before I realized it was unlikely he’d give me a straight answer.

“We were more into A Christmas Story,” he said a moment later, surprising me that he’d answered at all. “I can’t tell you how many times I asked my parents for an official Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range model air rifle.”

“Did your mom tell you that you’d shoot your eye out?”

“She was more worried that I’d shoot my brothers’ eyes out.”

A ship with Santa and his reindeer, with Rudolph and his glowing red nose at the bow, drifted into view right as another gust of wind blew over us, and I shivered violently. It was too cold, and all my efforts to keep from getting too close to Keith were just keeping me colder than was necessary.

“You’d be a lot warmer if you’d scoot over here, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to eat you alive.” He leaned closer. “At least not until I have you naked again. Then I’ll eat—”

“There are kids nearby,” I hissed at him, but I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. No one had done anything like that with me in a long time—talking dirty, making sexy promises.

“I won’t do it with kids around,” he said silkily, his mouth right by my ear, blowing air on my cheek so warm that it seemed to filter all the way through my body and heat me straight down to my toes. “I’ll get you alone first, somewhere filled with candlelight so your hair gleams like copper, and I’ll peel away all your clothes, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left for you to hide yourself with. No way for you to cover up how exquisite you are. How perfect. And then I’ll take my time showing you how beautiful I find you.”

My body shuddered again, but it wasn’t a shiver this time. At least not from the cold. More from anticipation. My head might not be fully on board with taking this any further than a single date, but my body didn’t seem willing to comply with that rationale. Not if my shallow breathing and rapid pulse were any indication.

“Slide over here with me,” he urged me, and the next thing I knew, that was exactly what I was doing.

I’d barely gotten close enough that he could put his arm fully around me when he shifted his position, sliding his legs on either side of mine and putting both his arms around my body so I was tucked in against his chest.

“Now that’s nice,” he murmured in my ear. “Not as nice as it’ll be when I can take these clothes off you, but it’ll do for now.”

For the next half hour or so, we stayed like that—Keith wrapped around me like a warm cocoon, me leaning back against his chest—watching the parade of Christmas ships float by us. All the while, he kept running his hands over my arms and whispering naughty promises in my ears. We were pretty much at the end of the line for the parade, so it wasn’t long before the ships circled around and headed back in the other direction. The two of us stayed put until the last one in the line, one that had green lights streaming down from a tall mast in the center and a golden star on top, had drifted out of view.

Everyone around us got up and headed for their cars, kids up high on their fathers’ shoulders and teenagers dragging their feet to stay behind for a few minutes longer. Even with all of them leaving, and with how cold it was, neither Keith nor I seemed in any big hurry to go.

Without so many people surrounding us, he stopped whispering innuendos in my ears. In fact, he fell kind of silent, holding me so close I could hear each of his breaths. A few times I’d thought I heard his heart beating, but I couldn’t be sure if I was actually hearing it or if I just felt it so intensely that my brain decided I was hearing it, too.

When only a few other stragglers remained on the riverbank, he rubbed his hands over my upper arms, warming them with friction even through the added layer of my coat. “I should probably take you home now, huh?”

“Yeah. Probably.” Home would be warmer than here, but it wouldn’t feel anywhere close to as cozy. BC and Richie would be all up in my business, of course, but two cats snuggling me in bed couldn’t come close to comparing with the sensation of having a man’s body—Keith’s body—wrapped all around mine.

“Yeah.” He leaned his head down, and his nose bumped the crown of my head. His breath filtered through my hair, once again sending heat all over my scalp before it dissipated entirely too soon. “I should. Take you home.”

Neither of us got up to go, though. The moonlight shimmering on the river, the gentle lapping sounds as it flowed, the stark contrast in temperature between the places we were touching and every other inch of my body—all of it combined in such a way that I didn’t want to spoil the moment. I didn’t want it to end.

It was only when we were completely alone out there and one of the few clouds in the sky drifted in front of the moon that I yawned, jostling us out of our moment of perfect tranquility.

He finally started to move, standing and stretching before reaching down to help me up. “So I guess this is it, huh? Time for Cinderella to go home before some fairy godmother turns me into a mouse or something.” He put his arm around my waist and drew me in to his side. “Or I have another idea.”

The sexy tone was back in his voice, making me tremble in anticipation. My breath caught in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t speak even to ask what his idea might be. I was pretty sure I knew what it was. And I was ninety-nine percent positive that I would agree to it, if he would only say the words.

“I could take you back to my place. You could stay with me tonight.”

ALL THREE OF my dogs went crazy the second I opened the door to my house so I could let Brie inside, barking and running straight for her. There wasn’t a small dog among them, so I stepped in front of her, body-blocking them. Just because she had cats, that was no reason for me to assume that she wanted to be run over by a pack of dogs, even if I knew they were harmless and just wanted to make friends.

“Back!” I commanded.

Dexter and Shadow took a few steps backward, their tongues lolling from the excitement of having a visitor, but Pepper whimpered and put her front paws up on my chest. She was the youngest and smallest of the three, and she seemed to think she was still a puppy and could get away with behaviors she knew were unacceptable—like this one. The sad thing was, she did get away with it more often than not. Anytime I’d try to reprimand her for it, she’d give me her big, sad puppy eyes, and I’d laugh and give in. I probably should stop doing that, but fuck if I knew how to do that.

Granted, calling Pepper the smallest wasn’t saying a whole lot about her size. She was some sort of border collie mix, and on the large side at that. Dexter was a gray German shepherd, and Shadow was a huge black Labrador retriever, but both of my boys had much better manners than Pepper. As if to prove my point, she dropped her front paws down to the floor and tried to nose her way past me so she could greet Brie—most likely with slobbery kisses. I’d much rather be the one to give Brie those myself.

“Pepper! Back.” I angled my body to keep her from going where she wanted, bumping into Brie in the process. “Sorry,” I said. “Just try to ignore her. She’ll calm down in a minute.”

“You really think I’m going to be able to ignore an animal?”

At least she sounded more amused than afraid.

I still couldn’t quite believe she’d agreed to come back to my place with me. I mean, this was definitely what I’d wanted. But throughout our date, she’d continually gone hot and cold with me. I wasn’t sure where she stood about the relationship I wanted to build with her. All I knew was that I wanted her more now than I had when I’d first met her, particularly because now that I was getting to know who she really was, I only found her more intriguing.

She wasn’t just some woman I wanted to hook up with for a night and help her to get over some shit her ex had planted in her head. Brie was a real, live, in-the-flesh woman who seemed to have completely lost herself. I wanted to help her find herself again. Maybe in the process, she could help me find myself. Or find the man I was trying to become, at least.

I grabbed Pepper’s collar and herded her through the entry hall. “Come on, boys,” I said to the other two, and I urged them all into the kitchen so I could make them go out the side door. There was a fence, so they’d be fine, and getting Pepper to run off a bit of her excess energy right now could only help.

“Sorry,” I said again once all three had gone out and I could hear them barking happily in their open space. “She gets excited when she meets new people.”

I wouldn’t be able to let them stay out too long or the neighbors would start complaining again. It usually only happened when I had one of my parties and it got a little out of control, but one of them seemed to love calling in noise complaints when the dogs got worked up at night. I suppose that was something I had to deal with since I’d chosen to buy a house in such an expensive, uppity area. But I couldn’t pass this house up when it came on the market. It was built right into the bank of the river. I had a balcony on the lower level that was great for watching the sunrise or sunset, listening to the sound of the water lapping as it drifted by.

Brie laughed. “So she wasn’t so excited just because it was me? Way to deflate my ego. I’m disappointed.” She had followed me in a little ways, but she was hanging back some, her eyes roving all over the place. She wrapped her arms over her chest. It seemed to be a habit of hers, as though she could possibly hide her curves. I doubted she realized that when she did it, it only pushed her breasts up higher, making them even more enticing than they already were. I bet if she knew her action was having such an effect, she’d make a concerted effort to stop.

That meant I was going to keep my mouth shut about it—at least for now—because I enjoyed the view. Someday, when she felt more confident, she would stop trying to hide herself that way. But then maybe she wouldn’t be hiding her body with drab, ill-fitting clothes, so I could still have a nice view. A man could hope, at least. I couldn’t help but think how amazing she would look in bold colors, something that hugged all of her curves the way I wanted to.

“This is some place,” she said.

“It’s big, I know. It can be a little overwhelming.”

“A little? I think my whole apartment building could fit in here.”

She might be right about that. I tried to shrug it off.

“Not just my apartment,” she said, as though I hadn’t fully understood her the first time. “The whole building.”

“You haven’t even seen the basement.” Not that I considered it a basement. There was twice as much square footage below ground level than above it because of the way they’d built it into the riverbank.

She gave me a look that I couldn’t interpret, and I decided I’d had enough of talking about the enormity of my house.

“Let me put your coat in the closet,” I said, crossing over to take it from her. She shrugged out of it, and I carried it away. When I returned, she’d wandered into the living room and was looking at the pictures I had on the walls. Shit. Pictures of my family. I really didn’t want to talk about them right now. I’d brought her back to my place because we were both crazy attracted to each other and I wanted to do something about that. “Want some wine to help you warm up? Or coffee?” I asked, hoping to distract her from the pictures. I grabbed a beer from the fridge for myself.

“You weren’t kidding,” she said, and I spun around to see what she was looking at. Right in front of her were all the pictures of Garrett.

Fucking hell.

“Kidding about what?” I popped open my beer bottle and gulped down a quarter of it in a heartbeat.

“Your brother dancing. You didn’t say he was a ballroom dancer.” She moved in closer to one, and then she picked it up off the mantle, holding it closer to her eyes. “What did you say his name is? He looks familiar to me.”

“Garrett,” I forced out, my mouth dry. “Garrett Burns. You couldn’t have known hi—”

“Garrett Burns? And his partner was Monica Simpson?” She spun around to stare at me, her eyes dark with some unnamed emotion that couldn’t possibly come close to everything roiling within me. “You’d said his name earlier, but it didn’t register with me then. Not until I saw this. I competed against them in tons of competitions over the years…until he died. I still run into Monica sometimes. Or I did when I was still dancing.”

I didn’t know what to do. What to say. All I wanted was to disappear and never have to think about all the shit I’d done wrong in this life, but Brie was still holding that picture of my dead brother and staring at me, and I had most of a beer in my hands.

I downed the rest of it in a single swallow and went back to the fridge for another.

GARRETT BURNS’S DEATH had washed over the competitive ballroom dancing community like a tsunami pummeling the shore. The intense magnitude of our reactions wasn’t simply because someone so young and talented and promising had died too young, but because he’d taken his own life. They’d said that his brother had found him hanging from a rafter in the garage one day, that Garrett hadn’t shown up to practice with Monica, and he hadn’t answered his phone, so she’d put in a call to have one of his brothers check on him.

It happened about a year or so before I’d become partners with Val. I’d been competing against Garrett and Monica for half my life, it seemed, with the various guys I’d been paired with before Val had come along. The two of them had been my age, so once we’d reached a certain level in our dancing abilities, we’d always been in the same competitive class. I hadn’t known Garrett, exactly. We’d probably had a few brief conversations in passing at various competitions, and I’d offered halfhearted congratulations when he and Monica had bested my partner and me from time to time. I recalled sitting across from him at a meal once, but we had never been close.

His death had crushed me, though. I’d felt as if I was suddenly carrying an extra twenty pounds of dismay with me everywhere I went. Once you get up into the upper echelons of competitive ballroom dance, it’s a pretty small world. Everyone knows everyone else. We were all up in one another’s business all the time. Those of us he had left behind all felt as if we’d lost a good friend, and no one had understood why it had happened.

Garrett Burns had been one of the best ballroom dancers out of Canada to hit the international competitive circuit in eons. He’d been on track to become the best in the world. He and Monica were being offered professional work—paying work—on films and stage and in countless other avenues. He’d had it all. Or at least it had seemed that way on the surface.

And then he’d ended everything.

They’d said there wasn’t a letter, that he hadn’t left any explanation for doing what he’d done. He’d hanged himself and left all the people who loved him to try to wrestle with their grief and shock and questions on their own. Which, of course, they would have had to do whether he’d left a letter or not, I supposed. But there’d been nothing at all.

And now I was standing in his brother’s living room, holding a photo of him. Keith might have been the one who’d found him in the garage that day. Surely the grief I still carried couldn’t begin to compare to his.

Keith popped the top off another beer bottle and started chugging it almost as quickly as he’d finished off the first one. Apparently I’d discovered the reason he tended to shut down and change the subject whenever I tried to get him to talk about his family.

I carefully set the photo frame back on his mantle and made sure I’d left it just as I’d found it. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize…”

He took another long draw from the bottle. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

I got the impression that he really didn’t want to talk about it ever. Clearly he needed to, but pushing him to go there likely wasn’t the best course of action I could take at the moment. I decided to let it go.

I headed over to join him in the kitchen. “Is that glass of wine still an option?” He was drinking, after all, so I might as well join him. That might make it easier to move us away from that moment of pain and into something easier.

He eyed me for a long moment, amber fire in his gaze, and then took a glass down from a rack hanging under a cabinet. “Red again?”

“Sure. Why not?”

He uncorked a new bottle of Chianti and poured some for me, then handed me the glass. “So you’ve been dancing a long time?”

Back to safer subjects. “Yeah, I started when I was about ten, I think. Mom and Dad still have some video of my first ever recital. It was awful even though I thought I was doing well. I didn’t trust my partner to lead back then, and so I was pushing him all around the dance floor and anticipating every move too much. How long have you been playing hockey?”

“My mother tells me I started skating before I could walk. I don’t remember ever not playing hockey.” He took his beer and headed into the living room, so I followed. I took a seat on a big, plush couch near him but not quite touching. He edged closer. “She’s got pictures of me when I couldn’t have been more than two years old, decked out in full hockey gear. My father flooded the backyard every winter to make a rink for us, and I’d go out there and skate until it got too cold to stay out any longer.”

“Sounds familiar. I used to dance until my feet were covered in blisters, maybe even bleeding, but I couldn’t make myself stop.”

“When you really love something like that,” he said, “it’s hard not to let it turn into an obsession. I wouldn’t change it. That’s how I got into the NHL.”

I took a sip of my wine and studied him. He was starting to relax a little, no longer as tense as he’d been after we’d talked about Garrett. He wasn’t drinking his beer as fast anymore, either—a sip here and there.

“So why did you come to my class with Cole?” I asked, hoping his teammate was a safe subject. At least it wasn’t anything to do with his family.

“Colesy?” Keith grinned. He leaned back against the cushions and tucked one of his legs up under him, his foot dangling over the edge of the cushion. “He’s new to the team this year. Doesn’t really hang out with a lot of the guys much. I don’t want him to feel left out, so I try to do things with him one-on-one.”

“That’s it? Nothing to do with dance? Just because you want to hang out with Cole?”

“Yeah. I don’t want anyone to feel left out. It’s not good for team bonding and morale, and I’m one of the assistant captains. I have to be sure we’re all working together as a team, not simply a bunch of disparate parts that the GM threw together.”

“That was really nice of you, coming to class with him. I can’t imagine how the rest of your teammates might react if they knew. Cole seems to think it’s better to keep it private, based on what he’s told me.” Plus, I couldn’t imagine it had been easy for Keith to come to the studio, considering it had to have brought up all sorts of memories that we both knew he’d rather not face.

“I’m a nice guy,” he said, winking at me. Yeah, he was definitely starting to loosen up again, going back to his flirtatious ways. “I do nice things.”

“Never said you weren’t.”

“Tell me about the asshole who told you that you weren’t good enough for him. How’d you end up with him?”

I sighed, wishing I knew a way to ease him into talking to me the way he wanted me to talk to him. But I didn’t have anything to hide. “Val started out as my partner. We had insane chemistry on the dance floor right from the start, and it kind of naturally evolved into something more.”

“Val,” Keith murmured, sipping from his beer. “Russian? Like Valentin or Valeri?”

“Valentin Nazarov. And yes, he’s Russian.”

“I used to have a Russian teammate in college, Sergei Moskvin, who treated all of his girlfriends like shit, like he was better than them. Granted, that was a coincidence, but I had a hard time not busting him in the balls one time when he crossed the line, yelling at one of them.” One of Keith’s hands drifted closer to me, and he let his fingertips tickle the top of my knee and lower thigh. “I called the cops on his ass. I was worried he was going to hit her. That girl deserved so much better. No one deserves to be treated that way.”

“That’s part of the Russian culture. Not violence, of course, but the machismo. They expect their men to be very domineering. It tends to work well in ballroom dance because the man is expected to take control on the floor.”

“Doesn’t make it right. Especially not in a relationship.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I had to hold back a contented sigh when Keith’s touch grew bolder. My body craved his touch. We may have only spent one night together, but now that his hand was on me, all I could think of was being with him again. “It wasn’t like that with Val at first,” I forced out, unwilling to give in to my desires so soon. “He was a true romantic, bringing me flowers, and writing me poetry in Russian, and wanting to be with me all the time. We moved in together before long, and then we were spending almost all our time together, and then he wanted to move to Providence to work with a new instructor.”

“And then you started having health issues.”

“And then I started having health issues,” I repeated.

“What did he do when you started gaining weight?” He kept slipping his hand farther up my thigh, an inch at a time.

I shrugged, trying not to let all my old hurts come to the surface. “At first, he acted like it was no big deal. He knew how I ate, and he knew how hard I worked out, so logically he should know that it wasn’t anything that was my fault. But the more weight I gained, the less understanding he was about it. The doctors weren’t able to find a fix right away, and even when they did I didn’t lose much weight, so he started blaming me for it.”

“Did he hurt you?”

I shot my gaze up to meet his because of the fierce tone of his voice. That fire was back, only it wasn’t passion or lust burning in his eyes this time. There was no hiding his anger—only unlike Val, I knew Keith wasn’t angry with me. He was angry with Val, or the situation, or Lord only knew what…but not me.

“Physically, no,” I said, weighing everything I said carefully. “Val only used words to hurt me.” The things he’d said to me had been more than adequate to accomplish the job. There’d been no need for him to inflict any other damage on me. In the year and a half since he’d left me, I’d come to realize that the old saying was a lie. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. No one and nothing had ever hurt me as deeply or as permanently as Val, and he’d never laid a finger on me in anger. Hell, in the end, he’d hardly touched me at all.

But Keith touched me now, lifting his other hand to gently brush the pad of his thumb along my cheek and jaw. “You swear he never hit you?”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“No.” He cocked a grin. “Just your name. And your job—”

“I am a teacher,” I interrupted.

Keith’s smile turned sinfully sexy. “You are a teacher.” He let his hand drop back down to his lap and finished off his beer, setting the empty bottle on the coffee table next to him. “I’m going to be totally upfront with you, Brie. I want this to be more than simply tonight. I want to show you what it can be like to have a nice guy in your life. A man who isn’t going to beat you up with words and make you think you’re not good enough.”

I wanted that, too, but I wasn’t so sure he was in any shape to be involved in a relationship—not a meaningful one, at least—and I didn’t know what it would take for him to get there. And was I ready for a relationship that meant more than one night? I didn’t know, but Keith Burns might be even more messed up in the head than me, and that was saying something after all that Val had put me through.

That didn’t stop me from finishing my wine, setting the glass next to his bottle, and sliding closer to him on the couch. It didn’t stop me from tugging his head down toward mine until our lips met. It definitely didn’t stop me from tracing my tongue along the seam of his lips until he opened and I could take the kiss where I wanted it to go. The tastes of wine and beer mingled in our mouths as he groaned and angled me back until he was leaning over me, covering me, steadying me.

No, it didn’t stop me from doing any of the things that I shouldn’t have done.

And at the moment, I couldn’t make myself mind, because right here, and right now, this man wanted me just as I was. Maybe if I allowed this to happen, I could start to understand why anyone would want me.

I’D NEVER HAD sex while standing up in a shower before. Not until now. Keith had the biggest bathroom I’d ever seen, with a giant walk-in shower and one of those rainmaker showerheads that kept the water pouring down over you the whole time you stood in it. Even with all the water and the slick footing, I wasn’t worried about slipping and falling. He’d worked me over in such a way that I wasn’t capable of worrying about anything now. All I knew was sensation—the rasp of his tongue, the heat of his touch, the fullness of him inside me. And the vibrating. Oh, wow, the vibrating.

I was on my toes on one foot, the other leg raised up over one of his arms supporting me, both my arms wrapped tight around his neck. And I was about to come. Again. He’d already taken me to orgasm with his charmed hands once on his couch, before we’d made our way to the bathroom.

That was when he’d really thrown me for a loop. He didn’t just put on a condom before we’d stepped under the spray; he’d taken out a pocket vibrator, removed it from its packaging, and brought it into the shower with us.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I’d said warily. “I’m already so sensitive.” Too sensitive. Painfully sensitive. But then he’d asked me to trust him, and I’d agreed, and now here we were.

That little toy packed some serious wallop. He held it between us, and every time he thrust, it buzzed even more firmly against my clitoris. Even though I’d already experienced one orgasm tonight, I knew I was on the verge of an even bigger one, maybe the biggest I’d ever had in my life. The toes on my free foot twisted into a claw from the intensity, and I couldn’t seem to take a breath. My whole body tensed. Clenched. Ached.

“Fuck, Brie,” he said, his mouth beside my ear. “You’re even tighter than I remembered.” He thrust into me again and held still, letting the vibrator go to town on me. He moved his hand to my hip, holding me in place, grinding his hips into mine.

Tight. Filled. Over-sensitized. About to explode.

I couldn’t say anything at all since I was still trying to force air in and out of my lungs. Finally, I was able to draw in a gasping breath, and I let it out again with a whimper as everything that had been so tight and tense and desperate within me fractured.

Then he was moving again, slow and steady, as though he was trying to build me up for more. “You’re so beautiful when you come. Your eyes turn almost pitch black and so fierce. Has anyone ever told you that?”

I shook my head and held on. It was all I could do to remain upright.

LATER, WE MADE it to his bed. We didn’t end up lying down and going to sleep, however. The dogs tried to follow us in, but he shooed them out and shut the door, carrying another glass of wine for me and a bottle of beer for himself. We lay there for over an hour, naked, sipping, talking, and touching casually. Every time he looked at me too long, too intensely, I lost all my nerve and tried to cover myself by shifting my position on the bed or angling my arms in a different way, and then I tried to deflect his attention with something else.

I asked him about scars I found on his body—an appendectomy from a few years before, and a couple of knee surgeries, all related to hockey injuries. His fingers found the scar on my hip from a similar war wound, as he had described his—an injury brought on from my dancing—and he’d kissed me there on the white puckered skin. I turned myself away.

With his fingers and tongue, he traced the lines of the stretch marks that littered my belly, and he kissed them until I shoved him by the shoulders, my face burning from embarrassment as much as from desire. I rolled over, giving him more of my back.

“Do you have classes to teach tomorrow?” He touched my arm, a finger trailing whisper-soft over my skin. He didn’t try to turn me around again, but he wasn’t backing off, either.

“Most of the afternoon and some evening classes, too,” I replied.

“Damn.”

“Why damn?”

He let his hand settle on my hip, gentle but firm. I could tell the fact that I wasn’t facing him bothered him more than he was making out. He wouldn’t force me, though. That much was clear.

“I wanted you to come to my game,” he said after a moment.

“Oh.” We’d only been on one date, though. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t his girlfriend. Yes, I was sleeping with him—although how much sleep was involved was debatable—but he didn’t seem ready for more even though he wanted more. I didn’t know if I was, either, if I couldn’t handle him looking at me. Touching me was one thing, but looking was something else entirely.

“Maybe next time then,” he said, and I nodded even though I wasn’t so sure we were going to make that leap anytime soon. He put a little pressure on my hip, rolling me until I was on my back, and he propped his head up on his hand. His eyes wandered over my body so much that I was antsy to pull the sheet up and cover myself, to turn out the lights, to grab my clothes off the floor and put them on again. Something. Just when I was about to act on my nerves, he took my hand in his, that simple touch as intimate as any between us until now. “Don’t hide from me,” he pleaded. “Let me look at you.”

He traced his thumb along mine, tickling me with the soft caress. This gentle touch was a plea, as much as his words had been. I pressed my eyes closed and let my head sink into the pillow, unable to watch him looking at me any longer. His gaze was enough to stoke a blaze within me, of need and want and lust and so much more, but I kept waiting for it to change. For the disgust to set in. For him to look away or turn out the lights, to be unable to look at me any longer.

“Look at me, Brie,” he begged.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

My face was on fire with shame. I shook my head, certain that if I tried to speak I would only end up crying.

“Tell me. Why can’t you look at me? Why can’t you watch when I look at your body?”

“Because I can’t handle the rejection that’s sure to follow.”

He moved closer, the length of his body pressed against my side, and he released my hand. But then he started touching my breasts, cupping and squeezing and molding them to his palms. I was so tender from all that we’d already done tonight, so sensitive, that every touch was the most exquisite torture. I arched into him, on the verge of begging. Then his lips touched my skin, wet heat enveloping me as his tongue rasped my nipple.

“You’ve got it wrong,” he said. “You’re rejecting me. You’re rejecting yourself.” He kissed me again, deep and slow and so sweet it almost made me cry. “Look at me, Brie. Let me see you.”

“You can see me. All of me.”

“Not all of you. You’re hiding a part of yourself away. I want to find it. I want to find you.”

I shook my head but opened my eyes, wavering between the urge to cry and the intense desire he stirred up within me.

“There you are.” Keith kissed the tip of my nose. He took my glasses off and set them on the nightstand, and then he kissed me again. “You look sexy as all hell in these, but I want to see your eyes better.”

“Why do you need to see my eyes?”

“So I can watch how they change when I make you come.”

I didn’t have the wherewithal left to voice a complaint, not that I really wanted to complain. Keith slid down my body and moved between my thighs, and he lifted my knees over his shoulders, dipping his head down to my center.

His tongue was magic. His hands were divine. His eyes never left mine, holding me locked within his gaze like a laser beam was keeping us tethered, which only intensified the power of my orgasm when it hit me.

Twice more, we had sex—earth-shattering, mind-blowing, never-in-a-million-years-did-I-think-sex-like-that-existed sex—before we were both too sated and exhausted to go on.

He dug out some clothes for me to sleep in, things that were far too snug on my body than I would normally wear, but it was either that or sleep naked or in what I’d worn on our date, and eventually, we fell asleep.

Mine wasn’t an easy sleep. I was sore like I’d never been sore before. But there was more to my sleeplessness than that.

Keith was restless even though he was out cold. He moved around a lot. He kept murmuring things, sometimes loudly, sometimes so soft I barely noticed.

Once, I was able to make out what he’d said. Only a few anguished words, a couple of sentences filled with pain.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

I COULD ABSOLUTELY get used to waking up in the mornings with Brie next to me wearing a pair of my boxer shorts and one of my old, worn college T-shirts. They’d been the best I could find in terms of giving her something from my closet to wear. If we made a habit of this, her spending the night at my place, then she’d eventually need to bring some of her stuff over to leave here. She could sleep in my boxers and T-shirts anytime she wanted, though. I would never complain about that.

When I rolled out of bed, I accidentally tugged the sheet along with me. I wouldn’t leave her like that—without something covering her, she’d get cold, at least without me in the bed to keep her warm—but I definitely took a minute to look my fill while she couldn’t hide herself from me. The way my T-shirt tugged over her breasts made me want to forget about going to morning skate so I could stay with her and enjoy them some more, but missing a mandatory team function would land me a one-way ticket to Bergy’s shit list since we had a game tonight. It wasn’t such a hot idea, despite its high degree of merit.

After drinking her in for a while—messy hair and my rumpled clothes and all—I put the sheet back in place and picked the comforter up from the floor where we’d kicked it off in the night, tucking it all around her. Then I didn’t have any more time to mess around. I had to feed the dogs, fix my own breakfast, take them for a walk, shower, dress, and get to the Moda Center before Bergy decided to rip me a new one.

The second I opened my bedroom door, Pepper’s excitement got the better of her and she let out a long, loud series of barks. I quickly closed the door behind me, hoping it hadn’t been enough to wake Brie since she didn’t have to be up to teach her classes until this afternoon. I gave Pepper a nudge down the stairs. My other two dogs followed us with hardly a sound coming from either of them. They knew the drill. Pepper probably needed to go out and relieve herself more than anything, but she never missed a chance to tell me how she felt about something.

I had no doubt that some of her excitement was because she knew Brie was still in there and Pepper wanted to make friends. That would have to wait for another time, though.

Once I had them all outside, I got busy getting ready for my day. Staying up most of the night—talking to Brie almost as much as we’d engaged in other activities—really wasn’t the best way to spend a night before a game, but at least I would be able to get my afternoon nap in. I finished dealing with my dogs and getting myself ready, but Brie was still fast asleep. I jotted her a quick note, telling her I’d be back around lunchtime to take her home, left it on the kitchen counter where she should be able to find it, and then I headed out the door.

THE MORNING SKATE sucked donkey balls today, at least for me. We’d had yesterday completely free—it was one of our league-mandated days off—so my legs were already stiff from not getting a good skate in. Add in the beers and lack of sleep and I was dragging ass.

Colesy tried his best to cover up for my piss-poor skating, but there wasn’t really any way for him to hide my issues, and we’d only been paired together for one game and a few practices. Not enough for us to have real chemistry out there yet.

Just my luck, Bergy noticed, too. “Burnzie!” he shouted out as the rest of the guys were heading off the ice to shower and clean up. “I need a minute.”

“Shit,” Colesy muttered next to me. “Sorry, man.”

“Not as sorry as I am.” I spun around and skated back across the rink to where Bergy was waiting for me once the rest of the boys were heading down the tunnel.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded with no preamble. “Are you sick or hurt, or did you fuck up and do something you shouldn’t have done?”

I wished I could blame it on being sick, but there wasn’t any chance in hell I was going to try to lie my way out of the situation. I’d made my bed; now I had to lie in it. “I had a late night, and I drank a few too many beers,” I said.

“A few? How many did you have?” His tone had gone from angry to concerned in a second, flat.

I knew exactly why that had happened, too. Nicklas Ericsson, our top goaltender, had spent half the summer in a rehab program back in Sweden. Nicky had started out the current season okay, but a little over a month in, he’d started acting strangely again.

Right now, he wasn’t with the team at all. The coaches couldn’t disclose why or when he’d return, but I knew it was because he was back in rehab. There wasn’t a better place for him to be, honestly, but it meant that we were down our number one guy in the net and having to rely on our backup and a kid who ought to be playing in the AHL. Not only that, but it meant part of our family was missing. He’d become a hell of a lot more than just a friend to many of us over the years. It sucked to know he was dealing with an addiction. I wanted him to come back and be all right, even if he couldn’t play.

Hunter and Bobby, the two guys filling in for him, were both holding their own and playing better than anyone had expected them to. But they weren’t Nicky. Nicklas Ericsson had just started to gain recognition as one of the elite goaltenders in the league when all this had gone down. Now there was no telling if he’d ever be able to really prove himself.

Anyway, there was little wonder as to why Bergy would be concerned. I thought back to last night, trying to sort out exactly how much I’d had to drink. “A couple of glasses of wine at dinner, and I think two beers once I got home. No, three,” I amended. I’d had another after our shower sex.

“Is that much normal for you? You don’t drink like that on a regular basis, do you?”

“Absolutely not. I almost never have a drink on the night before a game, and even when I drink socially it’s usually only one or two.”

Bergy eyed me for a long time, his gaze boring into me the same way it always did when he’d played in the NHL. He could be one intimidating motherfucker when he wanted to be, and I got the distinct impression that he was trying to see if I would crack under his intensity. I wouldn’t try to hide anything like that, though. I really didn’t drink all that often. Last night had been an anomaly.

“Why didn’t you get enough sleep?” he asked after a long minute, when he hadn’t gotten me to break.

Because I kept trying to drown the pain of all my guilt and grief brought unexpectedly back to the surface by throwing myself into wild sex with a woman who is knocking my world off its axis didn’t seem like the best answer. “There’s this girl,” I finally said, giving him some of the truth even if I couldn’t face all of it. “Being up so late is not going to become a habit, even if I hope she will.” And I definitely wanted to make Brie more than just a habit, despite her connection to Garrett. She hadn’t pushed last night. She hadn’t tried to force me to talk about him. She’d seemed to understand my need to suffer all that alone, to keep it separate from whatever was going to happen between the two of us. She’d allowed me to channel all the emotion I didn’t want to deal with into making love to her.

“All right,” Bergy said. “But be aware that I’m paying attention. I’m keeping an eye on you. I have no intention of messing around with this shit, so if I get the sense that there’s more going on with you than what you’ve told me, we’re going to have to do a hell of a lot more than talk about it. Got it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it. This isn’t going to be an issue, Bergy.”

“That’s what Nicky said, too.” He skated off the ice. “Get your ass hydrated before tonight!” he shouted over his shoulder.

I wasn’t worried about becoming an alcoholic, but I could definitely get addicted to Brie.

THE RINGING OF my phone woke me, and I sat straight up in the bed so fast that my head felt as if it might split in two. Too much wine, too much sex, and not enough sleep was definitely not a good combination. I couldn’t say how there could possibly be such a thing as too much sex, but based on the way I felt right now—kind of sore everywhere, but especially that delicious after-sex ache between my legs—there was.

I rolled off the bed and scoured the floor for my clothes and purse, but Keith had apparently moved them to a chair near the window. I stumbled over to it and dug out my phone. Tanya was calling me from the studio. I hit the button to answer and hoped I’d gotten to it before it went to my voice mail.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“You’re still that tired at this hour?” she replied. “You sound like death. And not even the warmed-over kind.”

I cleared my throat, scowling even though she couldn’t see my face. “What’s up?”

“Not you. I hope spending the night with Sex on a Stick was as good as I imagine it was.” She had a laughing, teasing quality to her tone.

“None of your business.” There was definitely more grumble in my tone than I’d intended. Probably from lack of sleep. And maybe a little bit because she’d called Keith Sex on a Stick again, and he’d just shown me yet again exactly how astute that observation was.

“I know. I know.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m calling to see if you can come in a few hours early today. Janelle’s kid is sick and she needs to take him to the doctor or urgent care or something. If you can’t cover her classes, we’re going to have to cancel them.”

I searched Keith’s bedroom for a clock—I would normally look at my phone but that wouldn’t work at the moment—finally finding one on the nightstand next to the bed. Should have looked there first but I was still half asleep and not thinking clearly. The time 11:48 glowed bright red. How on earth had I slept until almost noon? I mean, yeah, we had kept each other up half the night, but good grief. I never slept this late. Not that it mattered at this point. I was scheduled to teach my first class at three, so I really needed to get there now if Janelle was going to have time to get her son to the doctor.

“Give me half an hour,” I said, already stripping off the clothes Keith had given me and pulling on the ones I’d worn last night. “Forty-five minutes, tops.”

“Got it. Thanks, Brie.” She hung up, and I folded the clothes he’d given me, set them on the foot of the bed, and dashed out the door to find Keith so he could take me home.

Only, when I opened the door to his bedroom, I was greeted by three enthusiastic dogs instead of Keith. The little one, if you could call her that, stood up on her back paws and put the front ones on my shoulders, licking me on the chin. She let out a happy bark and my nostrils were filled with the intense scent of doggy breath. That did more to wake me up than anything else had so far.

I blinked a few times and shook my head as though that could clear away the smell. Then I pushed her back. “Down,” I said, but I didn’t sound very convincing, even to my own ears. I’d never spent much time around dogs before. Cats were far more my style. No need to take them on walks. They could use a litter box. And kitty breath wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as doggy breath. There were other bonuses in my mind, too, but those were an excellent start.

She didn’t back off much and the other two were right behind her, looking just as excited to see me. I figured I’d better start walking and see if they’d let me through. Lucky for me, their excitement only seemed to increase at the prospect of racing me down the stairs. I let them go ahead of me so I wouldn’t have one of them barreling into me from behind.

“Keith?” I called out when I got downstairs.

Nothing. Not a sound other than the smaller dog barking.

I made my way through a few rooms, hoping to find him without seeming as though I was snooping. It didn’t seem as though the snooping thing would matter, though, because there wasn’t any sign of him.

I didn’t have time to mess around looking for him in his ginormous mansion of a house. I dug my phone back out of my purse and called him, but it went straight to his voice mail without even ringing. I vaguely recalled he’d said he had to go to practice today, but if he was there, I had no earthly idea when he’d be back. I looked up the number for a cab company. Only there was one major problem with getting a cab to come and get me: I didn’t have the first clue what Keith’s address was.

Crap. I put my phone away since it wasn’t going to do me any good, at least until I could figure out his address. I headed back into the kitchen, hoping maybe I’d find a piece of mail lying on the counters or something, but there was only a single piece of paper there—a note for me, scrawled in untidy handwriting.

Brie,

I’m at morning skate with the team. Help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, and I’ll be back around lunchtime to take you home.

It was around lunchtime now, though, and his phone was still off. I had no way of knowing how much longer it would be, and I had to get to the studio. I made my way to the front door, three dogs at my heels acting as though they wanted to go for a walk. Once I was there, I dug my coat out of the hall closet, put it on, and headed outside. There wasn’t a way for me to lock his door behind me, though. He only had a dead bolt, and I didn’t have a key. Still, I pulled the door shut so the dogs wouldn’t run out.

As soon as I turned around, an amazing sight met my eyes: the Willamette Shore Trolley had pulled to a stop pretty much right at the end of Keith’s driveway. And its initial boarding place was within a couple minutes’ walk to my apartment building. It was like God had answered a prayer that I’d never uttered.

The passengers were climbing down to take a look around in the few minutes it would be stopped here. This had to be the end of the line before the trolley turned around to go back because I knew there was only one stop. I’d looked into taking it for a ride, but I hadn’t yet gone

I rushed to the trolley door, digging in my purse for some cash.

The conductor looked at me like I was crazy when I got to him. “We only board at the station, miss. You have to buy your ticket there.”

“I know, but I have cash.” I finally fished a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and waved it toward him. “I only want to take the trolley one-way, but I’ll pay the full fee.”

He was already shaking his head no.

“Please,” I begged. “I have to get back to my place, and I don’t have time to wait for a cab. There’s a medical emergency.” I was probably exaggerating that last part, but sometimes a little embellishment was necessary.

He let out a sigh and scowled slightly. “You’re getting off at the station? That’s the only place we’re stopping. I can’t let you out anywhere else.”

“The station is perfect,” I said, climbing up into an empty seat, still holding the five out for him.

He grudgingly took the bill from me and shoved it into his pocket. “All right. But not a word about this to anyone. It’s against policy and I’m not willing to lose my job over this.”

“My lips are sealed.”

The other passengers got back on board after taking a few minutes to look around the wooded area and the fancy houses in Keith’s neighborhood. This neighborhood had some of the biggest houses I’d ever seen, which was probably why the trolley was stopping here until they finished repairs on the line and went farther. It gave people something to ooh and aah over. Now that I was seeing it in the light of day, it seemed even more impressive and imposing.

When we returned to the Lake Oswego station, the conductor gave me a sidelong look. “Remember. Not a word.”

I nodded my agreement, climbed down, and raced home so I could shower, change, and get out the door. There was a bus leaving in fifteen minutes and I intended to be on it.

MY FRONT DOOR was unlocked and Brie was missing when I got home. Not a good sign. It was as though she’d run away. Again.

I tried calling her, but after her cell rang a few times, I got her voice mail. “Hey, it’s Keith,” I said after the tone. “Just want to be sure you’re all right since you’re not at my place. Call me when you get this so I don’t worry about you, okay?”

I hung up and went into the kitchen to fix myself some lunch. I needed a big meal since I wouldn’t eat again until after the game, other than a snack a couple of hours before the puck dropped. Pasta, tomato sauce, chicken, and a huge salad was my go-to pre-game meal. It’s what I typically ordered when I went to Amani’s with the guys, so that’s what I made. By the time I’d cooked, eaten, and cleaned up, she still hadn’t returned my call.

That really wasn’t a good sign. Even if she’d been getting herself ready for work when I’d called, she should have had time by now to have listened to my message and responded.

Had I fucked up with her last night without knowing it? I’d thought the night had been amazing. Good conversation. Fun event. Insanely good sex. It had been the best fucking date I’d been on in a long time, and it was all because I’d been with Brie. But maybe she didn’t feel the same?

I didn’t want to be pushy if she wasn’t into me, but I did want to know she was all right, that I hadn’t done something to inadvertently hurt her. Or at least that was what I told myself as I dialed the number for the dance studio.

“Rose City Ballroom Dance Academy. Tanya speaking. How can I assist you today?”

“Tanya, it’s Keith Burns,” I said.

“Hi, Keith.” She sounded a little too happy to be talking to me. “What can I help you with? Need to schedule another class?”

“Not exactly, no.” Although, taking more of Brie’s classes didn’t sound like a bad idea if it meant getting to spend more time with her. At least, if I hadn’t messed up my chances with her already. “I was wondering what time Brie’s supposed to be in today is all.”

“She’s already here,” Tanya said. “One of our other instructors had a sick kid, so I asked her to come in early and cover some classes.”

Just like that, I felt a lot better. “Okay. Good deal. Thanks, Tanya.”

“Anytime, hon. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

The best answer I could give her would be no. I should’ve thanked her for her time and assistance and hung up the phone. That’s not what I did, though. “Actually, yeah. I was wondering if she seemed…all right…when she got there.”

“She seemed amazing when she got here. You could come see for yourself. She’s got a short break between classes in about half an hour.”

“Yeah? Thanks. I might just do that.”

“Mmm-hmm. See you soon.” She clicked off the line, and I headed for the door, despite the fact that I should be headed upstairs for my pre-game nap—particularly since I hadn’t gotten enough sleep and Bergy would kill me if I had a bad game tonight.

I made one stop on my way to the studio—the florist. I’d never been the kind of guy to bring a girl flowers before, but it seemed like the right thing to do today. I picked out an exotic looking arrangement with flowers the woman called leopard lilies, verified that they weren’t toxic for cats, and traveled the rest of the distance to the studio.

TANYA LOOKED UP from her computer and smiled when I came through the door. “Gorgeous. And the flowers are, too.” She winked.

“You’re going to get me in trouble.”

“Not a chance. Brie already knows my pet name for you.”

While I was definitely curious about what she called me, I wasn’t curious enough to ask. Something told me I was probably better off not knowing. “Should I wait in here?” I asked.

“Yeah, grab a seat. She should stop in any minute.”

I sat in one of the chairs near the window, and Tanya returned to the computer. Then I tried not to become impatient while I waited, but I really, really, really needed to see Brie again, with my own eyes. Just to be sure I hadn’t screwed anything up without meaning to.

My eyes stayed glued to the doorway until she finally walked through it. She was in another outfit much like the one she’d worn on our date last night—a shapeless skirt that brushed the floor even with her heels on and a boxy top, both in drab, dark colors. She’d pulled her hair back into a messy bun. Some of it had come loose, so she pushed it back behind her ear as she crossed over to Tanya, guzzling from a bottle of water.

“You’ve got company,” Tanya said, nudging her head in my direction while her eyes stayed on Brie.

I stood up as she turned to face me and held out the flowers. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I…” She tucked her hair behind her ear again even though it hadn’t come loose this time. “Hi,” she said, a whoosh of air coming out with the word, making her sound breathy and sexy.

“And that’s my cue to go check on… I don’t know. On something,” Tanya said as she scooted past Brie and out the door, winking at me over her shoulder before she disappeared down the hall.

“Hi,” I said once Tanya was gone. “Sorry you got stranded at my place without a ride.”

“It’s all right. I convinced the trolley conductor to let me get on and ride back to the station.”

The trolley? Christ. She hadn’t even called a cab.

I made a mental note to leave money for a taxi the next time anything like that happened. The bus stop nearest to my house was kind of a hike. But…well, leaving money was probably not the best idea, either. She might think I was paying her for spending the night with me. Maybe I’d better scratch that one.

“I’d thought about waking you before I had to leave to see if you wanted me to take you home then,” I finally said, “but I figured you needed sleep, after… And you’d said you didn’t have to be at work until the afternoon.”

She had started blushing like crazy as soon as I hedged around the reason she’d needed sleep. Her blush was fucking sexy as hell. I couldn’t understand how I could find this woman so insanely gorgeous and yet she was constantly trying to cover herself up, to hide everything about herself.

She took a few steps, closing the distance between us some. I met her in the middle, and she dipped her head to smell the flowers. “They’re beautiful,” she said. “Thank you. And thank you for last night, too.”

I took advantage of her proximity and kissed her. When I traced the seam of her lips with my tongue, she rocked forward on her toes with a sigh, letting her lips gently part. I kept it brief, since we were in her place of business, but I couldn’t keep myself from doing at least that much.

When I broke it off, she took the bouquet from me and moved to a cabinet along the wall. After digging around in it for a minute, she pulled out a clear vase and set to work arranging the flowers in it.

“I hope we can have a lot more nights like last night.”

She gave a noncommittal, “Hmm,” and put another stem in place.

I moved in behind her, putting my arms around her waist and easing her back against me. She flinched when I splayed my palms against her belly.

“Why are you always trying to touch me?” she asked.

“Because I like touching you. I like looking at you, too. You’re beautiful, Brie.” I kissed the back of her head while she continued positioning the flowers. “Why do you try to hide yourself?”

“I’m not hiding. I’m right here.”

“You don’t look at me when I look at you. You wear clothes in plain colors that don’t fit—”

“These fit,” she interrupted. “They aren’t too tight.”

“No, they aren’t too tight. They’re hanging off you.” If I wanted to, I could easily gather several inches of fabric in my hands and tug to prove my point. I got the impression that she didn’t even know what size she should wear, or maybe she didn’t care as long as it was something that hid her body, and that made me more furious at Val, a man I’d never met, than I already was. He’d better hope I never met him, too.

She took her time placing the last few stems in the vase. “They don’t make clothes in bigger sizes that can make a body like mine look good.”

“You look good in anything. Or nothing. And every place in between.”

Brie spun around and stared up at me, her blue eyes as dark and intense as I’d ever seen them. “Maybe to you, but no one else needs to see all my rolls. I don’t even like—”

She cut herself off, but I could easily finish that sentence for her. She didn’t even like letting me see them. That much was painfully obvious. I wished I knew how to help her see herself the way I saw her. How to show her how beautiful she was, how her body wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

“I’ve seen plenty of women in all shapes and sizes in clothes that flatter their bodies,” I said. “Maybe you haven’t found the right brand or something. We could go shopping.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” She didn’t sound as though she believed such a thing were possible. “I don’t know about going shopping with you, though. What do you know about finding clothes for women?”

She had a point, there. I didn’t know the first thing about it—only that there had to be something. “I just wish you would believe in yourself more,” I said after a long moment of silence.

“I need to go put water in these, and then I have another class to teach.”

So that was the end of that. At least for now. I backed up a step so she could turn around more easily. She grabbed the vase and headed for the open doorway. “Thanks again for these. They’re really beautiful,” she said, looking over her shoulder from beneath the doorframe.

Not half as beautiful as she was, despite her efforts to become invisible. “You’re welcome. I should go, too. I’ve got that game tonight.” And I really needed to get at least a short nap before it. “Can I call you after, or will that be too late?”

“You can call.” Brie gave me a shy smile, and then she hurried away.

I was still standing there, staring at where she’d been, when Tanya came back in the room. “I haven’t seen a smile like that on her since she came to Portland,” she said to me. “So that means not only do I like to look at you, but I’ve decided I like you, too.”

“Thanks. I think.” I dragged a hand through my hair, debating whether I should talk to Tanya about what was on my mind. But to my knowledge, there was no one in Portland who knew Brie better than Tanya, so if I didn’t ask her, I had no clue who I could ask. Plus, Tanya was kind of curvy, too. Not as curvy as Brie, but curvier than a lot of women. Maybe she’d have some ideas about where we could go shopping. I might as well go for it. What would it hurt? “So I was wondering…”

“Yeah?” she asked when I didn’t go on. She’d taken up her seat behind the computer again and was typing away.

“Do you know where Brie should go to buy clothes?” Fuck, that came out wrong.

“You want to buy her clothes?” Tanya said, but she gave me a scowl over her shoulder, as though she was admonishing me for being a tactless ass. She wouldn’t get any argument from me about that. “I have some ideas.”

“She said she can’t find clothes that flatter her or something like that. Surely there are places that make things that’ll suit her, though. Aren’t there?” I barely knew how to find clothes that fit me, so finding something for her went way over my head. I had to have a tailor custom-fit my pants and jeans because all the skating I did had made my thighs and ass huge. Off-the-rack pants weren’t an option for most hockey players.

“There are a few places I could recommend,” Tanya said cautiously. “I don’t know if Brie is ready to accept that she’s a knockout and start dressing like the hottie she is, though, you know?”

Yeah, I knew.

“You have any other ideas how we can help her out with that? I mean, maybe if she had something that fit her properly, it’d start to click.”

She narrowed her eyes on me, as though assessing the intent behind my words.

“I want to help her see herself the way I see her. I want her to be confident.”

“Well,” Tanya said, tapping a finger on her lower lip, “you could take her to Lane Bryant and Avenue. They make good-quality clothes in bigger sizes—things that should flatter her. And you could order some things from a few places, but you’d need her measurements—which I have, since we’re getting an outfit made for a job she just booked—but I don’t think I should give them to you. She’ll have to do that herself, but you could broach the idea. She might be embarrassed if she knew I had anything to do with it, though. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I don’t want her to think I find her frumpy or anything like that.”

“I don’t want that, either,” I assured her. “It’ll be our secret.”

She had a mischievous gleam in her eye when she said, “Then I’m on board.” She rattled off a few more places I could try to talk Brie into exploring.

“And you’ll be sure she has her measurements so we can figure out what size she needs?” I asked as I made some notes in my phone.

“Yeah. I can find a way.”

“Thanks, Tanya.” I edged my way toward the door because I really did have to get home for a pre-game nap. “This means a lot to me.”

“I’m liking you more by the moment,” Tanya called out as I left. “You may be sneaky, but you’re sneaky with good intentions.”

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM with having a new defensive partner, no matter how adept he may or may not be, was communication. After you’d been working alongside a guy for a while, you learned to read what he was going to do well before he did it, just because of his positioning or the direction he moved or the way he was holding his stick. That sort of recognition—or maybe knowledge was more appropriate—only came with time, though. Repetition was key. Until you’d spent enough time together on the ice, you had to rely on your ability to talk to each other out there.

So far tonight, in our game against the Florida Panthers, Colesy and I weren’t doing so well with the whole communicating thing. He’d try to bank the puck around behind the net to come out for me, expecting me to be waiting there for it, but I’d already be halfway up the ice with the forwards with the expectation that he was going to send it up to one of them. I’d see a Panthers forward trying to pull off some dipsy doodle dangling move and head after him to ram his ass into the boards, expecting that Colesy would take up position in front of our goaltender, Hunter Fielding, but Colesy would be chasing the same asshole I was, trying to poke the puck away with his stick, and Hunter would be all alone. Those were only a couple of examples of the dozens of miscues our pairing had experienced through the first two periods tonight, and we were two lucky sons of bitches that the worst that had come of it—so far—were a few really good scoring chances in tight on our goaltender. Hunter had saved our bacon so far, but we couldn’t keep leaving him out to dry like that.

I wiped the sweat off my face and neck with a towel again, not that it would do any good, and took a big swig of Gatorade. When I looked across the locker room at him, Hunter had his eyes closed, but he couldn’t hide the rapid movement behind them, or the small, sudden tapping of his fingers as he sat in his stall. He was sweating even more than I was, no thanks to me and Colesy, but he wasn’t letting that stop him from whatever weird visualization ritual he was always doing. Before the puck dropped and between periods, if he was the guy in the net that game, there was no doubt that this was exactly how you’d find him—oblivious to the rest of us while he chased pucks in his dreams.

Bergy came in the room. He’d left his suit jacket somewhere else, and he tugged on the thin strip of his tie almost absentmindedly as he paced up near the whiteboard we were all facing. “Way to hang in there, Hunter,” he said after a long minute. Then his gaze fell on me. “Your D has been leaving you out to dry, but you’ve kept us in the game.”

His stare made me feel like maggots were eating holes in my eyeballs and leaving me with nothing but the empty sockets, and all I wanted to do was look away, but that was what he was waiting for. He’d pounce if I did, and I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. I knew good and fucking well how much Colesy and I needed to improve, and fast, and there was nothing Bergy could do or say to make it sink in any more than it already had. We just needed more time to learn each other.

He could sure as shit unnerve me with that damn stare, though.

It wasn’t just me, either. Zee and a lot of the other forwards who’d been in the league for a while—long enough to have played against him—had been on the receiving end of that stare plenty of times on the ice. Bergy had been one mean motherfucker out there, and a lot of it came down to the way he would stare at you before the puck would drop.

Well, it seemed he was finding ways to make use of that same skill set in a new way.

I kept my eyes on his, not blinking.

“So here’s what I want the D to do in the third period: I want you boys to fucking talk to each other, and to Hunter, and to your forwards. I want you talking the whole time you’re out on the ice. And I’d fucking better hear you doing it from the bench, loud and clear enough that I know what you’re planning on doing. Got it?”

Kids that are first learning to play hockey always balk at the idea of talking to each other on the ice. They think it defeats the purpose because then the other team will know what you’re planning to do. What kids don’t realize, though, is that the other team is talking to each other, too, and so it all balances out.

That was just one of those old habits that most players tended to forget about every now and then, though—a lesson we needed to relearn.

All the guys in the room made grunting noises of acknowledgment, including me. If he wanted me to talk, I could damn well talk. Before long, the boys might start calling me Chatty Cathy instead of Burnzie, if that was what he wanted.

Bergy kept staring at me until I gave him a nod.

“Right,” he said. “That’s settled, then. So we’ve got them right where we want them, as long as we can stay ahead by at least a goal. I’m not happy with a one-goal lead, though, so Zee…” He moved over to the whiteboard as he spoke and picked up a dry-erase marker to illustrate his points as he outlined what he wanted the forwards to do.

All season long, Bergy had shown himself as a coach that was willing to make mid-game adjustments based on hunches, stats, or whatever the hell he noticed happening out on the ice, and tonight would be no different.

I made note of the tweaks he wanted the D to make on our breakouts based on how the Panthers’ forwards were circling like vultures, waiting to pounce on a mistake. I made sure I understood what he wanted from our forwards, too, because that would affect everything I did on the ice. I even listened in when he told Hunter not to leave his crease to gather in the puck unless everyone else on the ice was on the opposite end of the rink. All of those things were going to play into how I went about doing my job the rest of the night.

But none of it was as important as his demand for us to talk to each other out there, at least more than we had been so far.

When we headed back out to the tunnel for the third period, Bergy was waiting by the locker room door. He slapped me on the back. “You especially, Burnzie. I want to hear every fucking word out there.”

I knew why, too. I was an assistant captain. I had to set the tone for the rest of the boys.

Colesy and I headed out to center ice along with our third line, since Florida had sent out their skill guys. The pair of us, plus Soupy, Henrik “Hank” Markusson, and a twenty-year-old Russian rookie named Vladimir Berezin, had been matched up against these clowns the whole night to shut them down. So far, we’d kept them off the score-sheet. I had no intention of letting that change, even if Colesy and I were still getting to know each other’s tendencies.

I honestly thought Bergy was asking a lot of Vladdie, putting a kid who only knew about five words of English out on his top checking line, but so far so good. Granted, he wasn’t just some kid. The guy was as big as Cam “Jonny” Johnson—who was a big motherfucker in his own right—and still growing, for fuck’s sake, and had all sorts of skill. He’d be a top-line player in a couple of years, but he was already skating like a bull in a china shop out there. If you didn’t get out of his way, he’d bowl you over or prance around you, and the next thing you knew he was right up in your goaltender’s grill. He hadn’t figured out how to elevate his shot yet, though. But once he had that down? Everyone had better watch the fuck out, because the kid was coming.

When everyone was in position, the official dropped the puck. Hank drew it back straight to me, hitting me square on the tape, and the game was back on.

I started up ice with it, but the Panthers’ forwards were buzzing. They needed to get back into the game, and they were willing to take risks to do so. We didn’t need to take risks. All we had to do was stay calm and collected, keep doing what we’d been doing—only with more talking.

Jonathan Huberdeau, one of their hotshot young wings, was all over me. Every time I’d try to find a lane, his stick would be there. I tried to force a pass over to Colesy, but Huberdeau was ready for it and Colesy wasn’t, and the next thing I knew I had to turn on my jets to get the damn puck back.

I managed to poke-check it away from him before he got a shot off, but that forced our entire team to move back into our zone to defend. Now we had to break out again.

“Burnzie!” Bergy shouted. He was standing up on the bench, both hands cupped around his mouth. “I can’t fucking hear you.”

Because I hadn’t fucking said anything. Damn it.

“All right,” I shouted to the boys, loud enough that I knew they’d be able to hear me halfway up the lower bowl in the arena. “Let’s do this.” The Panthers were forechecking like crazy, trying to get the puck away from me, and it was all I could do to play keep-away.

No matter how hard my guys tried to create a seam for me to slip the puck through, though, there wasn’t one to be found.

“Wheels!” Colesy shouted at me, and I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. There wasn’t going to be a pretty passing play to get the puck to the other end of the zone. He wanted me to skate the thing out of danger, keeping it safely on my stick.

I didn’t see any other option at the moment. Hell, I was half out of breath from trying to skirt around Huberdeau and company.

Soupy and Hank headed up ice. Vladdie didn’t know what wheels meant yet, but he caught on pretty quick when he saw his linemates heading the other direction and me coming toward him with the puck. He made his way out toward center ice, too, accidentally-on-purpose bumping into one of the Panthers’ forwards on his way. The kid needed to be careful about shit like that or he would get called for interference. He got away with it this time, though.

Even though Huberdeau was stuck to me like glue, I managed to keep the puck on my stick until I got across center ice. Vladdie looked anxious to get it, so I shouted his name so he’d know it was coming and sent it his way. He bulldozed into the zone as soon as it hit his tape, and I took up my position by the blue line.

When I came off the ice at the end of my shift, I glanced at Bergy. All I got was a wink in return. At least a wink was better than a glare.

RICHIE AND BC were both snuggled up against me in their usual spots—BC stealing half my pillow with one paw resting on my cheek in a sweetly possessive kitty embrace, Richie under the blankets and curled in a tight ball next to my hip, his tail draped up over my body and tickling me with gentle movements. They were both purring contentedly when my phone rang.

I didn’t even have to look to know that it would be Keith. No one in my family would call me at this time of night, considering they were all halfway across the country and likely had been in bed for hours at this point. Most of my friends were on the East Coast somewhere, so they were equally as unlikely. There was Tanya, of course, but if Tanya needed anything she’d wait until tomorrow. She was the only person on the West Coast who I’d really become friends with as of yet. I’d been too busy trying to settle in to my new position, getting the lay of the land in this new city, and sorting out what this next phase of my life would be to go out and meet people.

I blinked in the dark as my eyes came open to find Richie’s green cat eyes glowering at me in the moonlight because someone had dared to disturb his snuggle time. As if I had any control over when someone else would call me. Silly cat.

“Sorry, buddy,” I murmured as I rolled over to grab the phone off my nightstand. “Hello?” I said into the receiver.

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

He even sounded like sex on a stick, damn him, his voice all deep and husky, and a little gravelly, as though maybe he had been the one to just wake up. All it took to get my lady parts thrumming was a simple sentence uttered in that voice.

“Not me,” I managed to say, forcing my thoughts back to the here and now, where Keith Burns definitely was not. “Just my cats.”

“Cats? As in plural? I only met the one.”

“Yeah, you met BC. You might never see Richie. He’s scared of his own shadow, or at least he would be if someone gave him the idea.” Hence the curling up beneath the blankets, so if anyone else were to come upon us, he would be well masked as nothing other than a large cat-sized lump under the quilt.

“You sleep with them?”

He sounded merely curious, not bothered by the idea. He hadn’t let his dogs sleep with us last night, but I got the distinct impression that they were used to being with him all the time. Especially the little dog. She acted like she wanted to be with him constantly, no matter what. I had to wonder how she reacted when he had to travel. She might be one of those dogs that acted out on separation anxiety by tearing things up.

“You try telling a cat that they can’t be where they want to be,” I said, laughing and pushing all my worries about his dogs and their behavior out of my mind. It didn’t matter how she reacted. Not really. When I laughed, BC stretched his head over and licked my cheek, close to my ear. I laughed harder and pushed him away, not that it did any good. He got up, moved even closer than he was before, put both his front paws on my face as though to hold me still, and licked me more insistently.

“I like the sound of your laugh,” Keith said. “It’s rich. Husky. Sexy as all hell.”

Damn. So he was thinking along those lines, too. The way he said it made me flush with heat, all my thoughts racing back to last night. I needed to redirect the conversation, and fast.

“Did you have a good game?” I finally forced out.

“Good enough. We won.” His tone was low, like someone whose team had just lost a game.

“Winning should be good. You make it sound like it was bad.”

“Colesy and I had a rough go early in the game. We got better as it went on, though.”

“You and Cole are partners or something?” I really didn’t know the first thing about hockey or how it worked, beyond the fact that it was played on ice and in teams. I doubted I’d ever seen a game, and if I had it was so long ago that I couldn’t remember anything about it.

“We’re a defensive pairing, or at least we are for now. When one of us is on the ice, usually both of us are.”

“Defense. Okay, so like in football? You only go out when the other team has the ball…er, puck?”

Now it was his turn to laugh. “No, not like in football. In hockey, both teams always have a goaltender, defensemen, and forwards on the ice.” A couple of sharp barks sounded in the background, and he shushed his dogs. “I’ve got tomorrow night off,” he said after a minute. “You could come over and we could watch a game together on TV. I could explain it to you, and we could go shopping and have dinner, and…” He let his voice trail off in obvious invitation.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was thinking about a lot more than just having a meal and explaining the finer intricacies of how hockey was played, and I cringed at the idea of shopping with him. Nonetheless, there wasn’t any point in denying that the thought of spending another night with him filled me with a tingling, yearning sensation that I was going to have a heck of a time getting rid of. If he was going to have an opportunity to open up to me, then we would have to get together some more. The prospect of another night in his bed was enough that I was willing to give him at least that opportunity.

“If you don’t have to teach a class,” he added when I was too busy mulling everything over to answer him right away.

“I’m done with all my classes by four tomorrow,” I said. Actually, I was done with my last class by two, but then I had a private session scheduled with Devin Shreeve after my students left for the day. Keith didn’t need to know all that, though. He didn’t need to get too far into my personal life until he was willing to let me into his, at least a little bit.

“Can I pick you up at the studio, or should I come to your apartment? And do you like Irish food? There’s this pub downtown that I love. I could take you there for dinner. Great corned beef and cabbage, or shepherd’s pie, and the chocolate cake—”

“Keith?” I figured I’d better interrupt him now so I could answer these first questions before he added a dozen more. And the last thing I needed to hear about was chocolate cake. That only made me start to crave some, and I couldn’t afford to give in to those cravings right now. Not when I was going to be performing again soon.

Yeah, it was only one performance. But still. One job could lead to more. I needed to keep a closer eye on my diet than I already had been.

“Yeah?” he said after a moment, laughter evident in his tone.

“Pick me up at my apartment at five. I need to take care of my cats before I go out.” Especially if I wasn’t going to make it back until sometime the next day. “And Irish food is fine,” I added. I came from an Irish family, even if we were several generations removed from living in that country. When my siblings and I had been kids, Mom had loved to break out the old family recipes that had been passed down through the years, at least every now and then. You could say I had grown up on corned beef and cabbage.

“All right. And I’ll be sure to bring you home again so you don’t have to take the trolley.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Sounds to me like a date.”

Yeah. It sounded like that, too. It sounded a lot like a date, and I couldn’t help but feel both nervous and excited. Now I would never be able to get to sleep tonight, thinking about all the things that tomorrow held in store.

“WAIT!” TANYA’S SHOUT came from the office as I was about to head back into the studio for my session with Devin. “Come back here for a minute. I need you to do a fitting with the costume as it is now, so they can make adjustments or whatever.”

I rolled my eyes, hating the idea of having someone poking and prodding and trying to make me look good in something I had no chance of looking good in, but still I changed course and headed into the office.

Even though I’d been sure I wouldn’t get any work out of that class I’d gone to with Devin, I’d been wrong. There was a big show he was putting together in a couple of weeks. Dancers from all over the city, coming from every dance background imaginable, were going to be involved—and he’d asked me to work with him on a specific piece, just the two of us. He wanted to pair his contemporary background with Latin ballroom to make something new and exciting, something different than you would normally see, and after he’d discovered what I could do in his class, he’d said there was no one better to do it with than me.

I wasn’t so sure about all that, but I was willing to give it a try. The simple fact of the matter was that however much I might enjoy teaching dance, there was nothing that could compare with actually dancing, using my body to do the things I’d spent so many years training it to do. Try as I might to convince myself that I wasn’t equally thrilled and anxious about being on stage again, I couldn’t push the jitters aside. I felt like jumping beans were filling my belly, and they didn’t seem likely to go away until the show actually happened.

Being properly costumed was simply one step on the path to meeting that end, and it wasn’t Tanya’s fault.

“Let’s hurry up and do it then,” I said to her with a forced smile, tossing my gym bag in the corner. “Where is it?”

A woman I recognized as the costumer who’d taken my measurements a few days ago stood up from her seat near the window, a garment in her hands. “Let’s go to the changing room.”

I nodded and indicated that she should follow me, and I headed for the hall. She grabbed a bag full of pins and other torturous-looking implements and hurried along behind me.

“Strip,” she said unceremoniously once we were behind the closed door.

I tugged the baggy tank over my head and let my jersey practice skirt drop to the floor, trying to be nonchalant about letting anyone see me in my underwear, even though I was anything but. She pulled the material of the costume—made of a shimmery, stretchy blue fabric that was way flashier than I was comfortable wearing these days—over my head, carefully adjusting it around my arms so I wouldn’t undo any of her work to this point. It came down over my body and she jerked it into place. And I just about had a conniption fit when I saw myself in the mirror.

I immediately grabbed the hem and started pulling the thing off, but she stopped me.

It had an asymmetrical hem that hung to mid-calf on one side but was cut to above mid-thigh on the other. Way too high. The last thing I wanted was to be up on a stage with that much thigh showing. They’d be able to see my cellulite and stretch marks. And if it edged higher because of the movements? No one needed to see that. It was going to be hard enough for me to try to forget about my body while I performed, but to know that the whole world could see so much of what should stay hidden? No way. I couldn’t do it.

“Hold still while I pin a few adjustments into place so I don’t stick you accidentally,” the seamstress said.

“How about I hold still while you pin an extra panel into place to cover that leg a little better?”

She didn’t respond, bending her head to the task at hand as she made a few adjustments to the neckline.

That, of course, brought my attention up higher, and I wanted more than ever to cover up. There was way too much cleavage visible. Which, yes, I realized it was not only common but somewhat expected to have some leg and cleavage and whatnot showing when you danced Latin ballroom, but most people who danced Latin ballroom didn’t look like me.

I had to fight down the urge to rip myself away from her and tear that stupid dress off.

“You need to get a better bra before the performance,” she muttered through the six stick-pins she was holding between her lips. Her gaze was focused on my boobs in a way that I couldn’t recall anyone ever looking at them before, almost clinically. “One that fits you properly. This one’s clearly the wrong size.”

“And where do you suggest I look for that unicorn?” Not once, since the day when I’d gained the first twenty pounds and couldn’t fit into my old clothes any longer, had I been able to find a bra that actually fit me. I’d been up and down and up and down in size so many times that I didn’t even know where to begin. Worse yet, I had yet to find a store that carried bras in sizes that would fit, so I had to order them online and take wild stab-in-the-dark guesses as to my size, based on some random measurements I took of myself and the posted charts. Those charts were next to useless, though. No matter how accurately I’d thought I’d measured myself, the bras never fit. The best I could do was find one that wasn’t painful and didn’t leave my boobs sagging too badly.

She gave me an exasperated look, tugged on my arm to get me back into the position she wanted me in, and rolled her eyes. “There are plenty of women much bigger than you who’ve managed to find properly fitted bras.” She didn’t give me any indication as to where they’d found them, though.

We didn’t talk much after that. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for chitchat, particularly after her lack of suggestions as to where to begin my unicorn search. Once she’d finished putting all her pins in place, I hurriedly removed the dress with distaste, put my own clothes back on, and rushed into the studio to meet with Devin.

He was sitting on the floor, putting on some proper shoes for Latin dance, when I came in. His head popped up when I came through the door, and he flashed me a grin. “Feels weird to be wearing shoes to dance in,” he said. “I’m not sure my feet remember how to deal with that.”

I doubted his feet would be too happy about wearing any shoes for dancing but definitely not Latin ballroom shoes. They had quite a lift in the heel, almost as much as my own heels had. I shook my head, trying to shake off the negativity that had swamped me the moment I’d seen myself in that costume.

“You sure about all this?” I asked. Maybe he would rethink the whole thing and realize I had no business being part of his show. Maybe I could get out of it.

Not that I actually wanted to get out of it. I wanted to perform again. I did. I just wished I could feel confident about myself when I did it. The doubts I had went so far beyond the way my body looked. I wasn’t positive I could make my body move the way it would need to for this, despite all the reassurances Devin had given me when he’d first made the suggestion.

Size has nothing to do with it, he’d told me then. Your muscles know what to do. They remember what you’ve taught them.

Personally, I was less than confident that muscle memory was going to be enough to pull off something of this scale.

Devin finished tying his laces and stood up. He was taller than me by a few inches, especially in these shoes, but not as tall as Keith. His body was firm, lean muscle everywhere. Today he was wearing a navy T-shirt and lime-green gym pants, and his blond hair was curly and messy all over his head, like he hadn’t bothered to run a comb through it when he’d left the house this morning.

He turned on some music and then crossed over to stand before me, holding out his arms as though to take me into hold. “As sure as I could ever be. This is going to be the big number in my show, you know. The piece that everyone goes home talking about.”

Reluctantly, I put my hand in his, meeting his smile.

“Teach me the Argentine tango,” Devin said, winking. “And then we’ll work together to choreograph our piece.”

Argentine tango? Now I really knew I’d bitten off something I had no business chewing. The Argentine tango was at turns slow and sensual and then sharp and fast, the dance of two lovers coming together in a battle of wills almost. Not only that, but it was full of lifts. He might be strong, but he would kill himself trying to lift me in a routine.

I hadn’t thought to ask him what dance he’d been thinking of when we’d first discussed our collaboration, though, assuming he would want to go with the cha-cha or something along those lines—upbeat and playful. If he intended to merge his choreography with an Argentine tango, then that definitely made the seamstress’s choice in costume more understandable. It did nothing to alleviate my nerves, however.

I took a breath and tried to slow my pulse. Argentine tango. I could teach him that dance. That was my job, after all—teaching people to move to music. Devin had some ballroom experience, even if he hadn’t made use of it in a number of years. He’d studied just about every style of dance a person could learn. He’d be an exceptional student. We’d have to be sure, as we choreographed it, to steer clear of lifts as much as absolutely possible, and to make whatever lifts we did have to include weren’t likely to hurt him.

“All right,” I finally said. “Well, first things first. You’ll remember that in the Latin dances, you always move with a toe lead. Argentine tango is no different, at least as far as that’s concerned.”

“Of course.” Devin grinned at me, and we started to move, and then I didn’t have any more time to worry about what I was going to have to wear.

CHALK IT UP to an irrepressible itch to see her, but I couldn’t seem to make myself wait for five o’clock to roll around in order to see Brie. That was why, at about 3:30 in the afternoon, I was walking through the front door of Rose City, hoping to surprise her when she finished up with her classes. I figured I could take her back to her place so she could see to her cats and change clothes, and whatever else she needed to do before we left. And then we could get started. Shopping was first on my agenda—something I never would have imagined before.

The anticipation that had led me here so soon wasn’t because I hadn’t tried to otherwise occupy myself. I’d gone to practice and the team’s weekly goal-setting meeting—Bergy hadn’t been overly impressed with my goal for this week being, Avoid alcohol and get a good night’s sleep every night, and had insisted I come up with something better to challenge myself—before having lunch with the boys. Then I had stopped by the Light the Lamp Foundation offices—a charity Kally had begun not long ago—so Jessica Lynch, the foundation’s Portland-area VP, could fill me in on what she was going to need from me for an upcoming New Year’s Eve event they were planning. I’d volunteered to help out in any way they needed, and apparently she thought what I was most needed for was as a designated driver. Well, really a celebrity driver. She’d wanted copies of my driver’s license and insurance information, plus a few other pertinent details.

When I had finished with all of that, I’d gone back to my place and taken the dogs out for a nice, long walk along the trails near the house. They’d come home tired and happy, and they’d been content to lounge around while I flipped channels on the TV. I hadn’t been anywhere near that content, though. I couldn’t focus on the screen or the words. All my thoughts had kept rushing back to Brie and the knowledge that I was going to get to see her soon.

And now, here I was.

Tanya’s head popped up when I knocked on the door to her office, and she flashed me a big grin. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be here.”

“I’m glad you are, though. You remember the places I told you about for shopping?”

I nodded. “Thanks again for the help.” Granted, I didn’t know how Brie was going to react once she realized what all I wanted to help her buy. She hadn’t seemed very sold on the idea when I’d first broached the subject, but surely she’d change her mind once she saw how she looked in some things that fit her, wouldn’t she?

The cold hard truth, though, was that I had no idea how she would react. I didn’t really know her all that well yet. I just knew that I wanted to know her, and that we had some of the most amazing, insane sexual chemistry I’d ever experienced in my life. I only hoped she would get over it pretty soon.

“Mmm-hmm,” was all Tanya said. That didn’t give me a ton of hope that I was right. But then again, how long had Tanya known Brie? Maybe not so long. Brie had only lived in Portland for a few months.

“How much longer does Brie’s class run?” I asked to change the subject.

“Class?” Tanya muttered, typing on the keyboard so fast it sounded like machine gun fire. She didn’t bother to look up at me. “Her last class ended at two. She’s in working with Devin Shreeve on a piece they’re going to perform together at his show in a few weeks. The job I mentioned yesterday.”

She was going to perform? Had Tanya mentioned a job yesterday? If she had, it had completely slipped past me in all my thoughts about taking Brie shopping. I’d thought that Brie had convinced herself all her performing days were in the past. I felt a little lighter, just from the thought that she was going to get back to doing something she loved, something that was so much a part of her. That was bound to give her a boost in confidence, something she desperately needed.

“Would they mind if I went in to watch?” I asked, certain that Tanya would tell me to cool my jets and take a seat in the office with her.

She surprised me with her response. “You could go sit up in the gallery. That’s where a lot of parents hang out during the kids’ classes—they can watch what’s going on without being in the way or interfering.” She went on to tell me how to find the stairs so I could make my way up.

It was empty when I reached it. There were a dozen chairs or so set up in two rows looking out over the studio. I’d noticed the space when I had taken that class with Colesy but hadn’t bothered to think about what it might be for. Careful not to make any noise, since there wasn’t even a pane of glass to mask my sounds, I took a seat front and center and watched down below.

The sound system was pumping the strains of “Love Runs Out” by OneRepublic through the space, a strong, driving beat that further masked any noise I might make. Brie and a man who must be Devin were in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by mirrored walls, going through the steps of a tango. Except, even to my untrained eye, it wasn’t strictly a tango. It had all the sharp kicks between the legs and close body position that I expected, but those movements were broken up with spurts where their bodies flew through the space, limbs flailing in exquisitely controlled abandon.

Fragments of it felt almost like ballet, although I couldn’t really say why I thought so. Ballet was about as far outside of my realm of expertise as rocket science. Still, whatever it was, I’d honestly never seen anything like what they were doing, and I’d spent countless hours watching Garrett and Monica dance together over the years. I would have thought it would seem at least somewhat familiar, but it was foreign to me.

Even from this distance, I could tell that Brie was as exhilarated from their movements as I was watching them. Her eyes sparked, her hair flew free from the loose ponytail at the back of her head, and it seemed as though her feet barely brushed the floor as Devin guided her effortlessly across it. Dancing with him was a far cry from dancing with me and my clunky, plodding exertions. They did some sort of twirling, ballet move that ended with Brie back in Devin’s arms in a perfect ballroom hold, foreheads meeting and their noses only a breath away from each other, gazes locked, and Brie executed a fast series of kicks that went directly between Devin’s legs—sharp and deadly enough that, were they not perfectly placed, she could have unmanned him.

When Brie finished her kicks, they stopped even though the music continued to swell into one of the choruses.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want,” Devin said, taking a step back and a few visibly deep breaths. “And then I think I should sweep you up into a lift of some sort.”

Brie shook her head. “Let’s take five and get some water.” Before he could argue, she crossed the floor to the speaker system and stopped the music. She grabbed a couple of bottles of water and tossed him one.

He opened it and drank about half. I could see his expression clearly in the mirrors around the room. He hadn’t stopped staring at Brie, his eyes narrowed. She was keeping her distance, fiddling with a stack of CDs beside the sound system as though reorganizing them was the most important thing on her mind at the moment. After a couple more swallows, he screwed the cap back on his bottle and held it out, gesturing toward her with it. “You keep trying to push me off whenever I talk about the lifts I want to put in.”

“Do I?” She looked up at him, eyes all innocence. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, I have. You’ve done plenty of lifts before. I’ve seen video of you when you danced with Val Nazarov. You were up in the air half the time you two were on the dance floor.”

“Hardly,” she scoffed, going back to her CD reorganization.

“Are you scared of heights?”

“No.”

“Did he drop you? Is that why you two aren’t dancing together anymore?”

“No.” With a move of unadulterated aggravation, Brie removed the band holding her hair back and forcefully redid the whole thing, leaving it messier than before but pulling it out of her face.

“Then what is it? Why are you trying to avoid doing these lifts?”

Her head snapped up, and even from this distance I could see the hurt and shame in her eyes. I knew it was there because that was how she’d looked at me every time I’d tried to look at her body.

My stomach clenched at the sight of her agony, but there was nothing I could do to make it any better. I was trying, but this wasn’t something that could be fixed overnight. For that matter, it wasn’t anything I could fix at all. Brie was the one who had to stop listening to Val’s voice in her head. She was the one who had to start seeing herself in a new light. All I could do was point her toward the mirror when the light hit her and hope that, in her eyes, it wasn’t one of those carnival mirrors that distorted everything it reflected.

“Can’t you let it go?” she pleaded after a moment. “We don’t have to do lifts for this—”

“Who’s ever done an Argentine tango without lifts?” he interrupted.

“But it’s not strictly that. It’s a fusion.”

“True. But I want to keep the flavor of both styles, and that means we need lifts. I’d want to do lifts in a contemporary piece, too. That’s one of my strengths. Surely you knew that about me.”

She shrugged, taking a long slug from her bottle of water, likely to buy time.

“You know why I asked you to do this with me, Brie?” Devin asked after a minute or two during which the only sound had been the ticking of the clock over the door and my own breathing.

She shook her head.

“I knew who you were before you moved out here. When you showed up in my studio and I saw how much strength you still have, the long lines and grace… There was no chance I wanted to do this with anyone but you, especially because I could see the fire you still have in your eyes. You live and breathe for this—for dance. Your body is like a canvas, and I want to create a work of art with it.”

“But if you try to lift me, I’d break your back,” she sputtered, finally spitting out what had clearly been eating her alive.

I could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “You calling me weak?” and I imagined him winking at her.

He wasn’t anywhere close to weak. I could see it, plain as day; she’d have to be blind to miss it. His muscles were different from my own, each suited to the different forms of movement we employed, but they were toned and perfectly primed for the task at hand.

“That’s not—”

He closed the distance between them, putting both hands on her waist. “Trust me, Brie.” And before she could argue further, he lifted her up above his head and held her there while he spun a few circles. When he brought her down, he returned her to her feet as though she weighed no more than a feather.

The glower on her face was priceless. I wished I was closer so I could snap a picture of it with my camera.

“Told you,” he said, laughing gently.

“So you did it once without killing yourself.”

“I’ll do it again and again.” He hit a button on the sound system. “Love Runs Out” started playing again, and he led her back out to the center of the studio, taking her into hold. “Let’s do it from the top, and I’m going to do a straight lift like that when we get to that chorus. We’ll improvise from there.”

Just like that, they were dancing again, stealing my breath and making me wish—for the first time ever—that I could dance like Garrett had been able to. I decided then and there that I liked this Devin, if for no other reason than he was likely to do as much good for Brie’s opinion of herself as anyone could.

THE PURPLE SLIP of paper bearing my measurements that Tanya had shoved toward me as I was leaving for the day was burning a hole in my hand as Keith and I walked through the doors of a Lane Bryant store. I’d never stepped foot in one before, thinking that all plus-size clothes must be the same boring, shapeless masses of fabric. Why bother spending more money on them if they were still going to look as bad as everything else I put on? After all, nothing I could wear externally would change my internal shape. Or at least that was what I’d always assumed. Maybe I was wrong, though. He definitely seemed to think so.

“Can I help you find something today?” a woman asked when we’d barely taken three steps inside the door. She was about my size, I thought, and had on jeans, boots, and a bright camisole underneath a fitted, long-sleeved blouse. A pink measuring tape was draped over her shoulders and around her neck so that it looked almost like a piece of jewelry. “Looking for something special?”

I was shaking my head to turn down her assistance, but Keith said, “Actually, we’d love your help. We need to figure out what size Brie should be wearing.”

She winked at me and started to pull the measuring tape free. “That’s what we’re here for. Let me just—”

“I’ve, uh. I already have measurements,” I said feebly, holding out Tanya’s sticky note. It didn’t seem like Keith was going to be deterred, so I might as well go along with it. Maybe there really were unicorns in the world. I wasn’t going to hold my breath, but I wouldn’t gloat when he proved to be wrong, either. “Pretty sure I’m an eighteen these days. I’ve been up and down a bit.”

“Don’t I know all about changing sizes,” she said, laughing as she took the paper. “Come with me. Let’s take a look.” She led us up to the check-out area and pulled out a notebook. After flipping through a few pages, she came to the one she’d been looking for and compared my sticky note numbers to the ones in her book. “Eighteen, you said?” she murmured. “Is that what you’re wearing right now?” Her eyes flicked over to me, looking me up and down.

I crossed my arms over my chest, scowling. “Yeah, for about the last six or eight months.” I’d been working my butt off, trying to lose more weight, but the scale refused to budge in all that time.

“Well, if these measurements and my eyes are right, you’re much closer to a fourteen. Let’s see what we can find you to try on, and we’ll go from there.”

Fourteen? This chick was crazy. Either that or the numbers were wrong—hers, Tanya’s, someone’s.

She was already moving, though, handing my sticky note back to me before heading to the nearest rack of slacks and thumbing through them until she found the pair she was looking for. I followed numbly behind her, and Keith came along, too, his hand resting almost casually on my waist. “How tall are you?” she asked as she pulled a pair out, holding the hanger up to my waist.

“Five foot seven,” I spluttered. “Or maybe five eight.” Heck, if she thought I was a fourteen, maybe I had no clue about anything to do with myself, height included.

She grabbed a second pair of slacks and headed toward a changing room. “Try both the average and the tall, then, just to be sure, but I think you’ll need the tall. And once you get them on, come out so we can see.” She hung them on a hook in one of the rooms and nudged me inside, closing the door behind me.

There was no denying I was still in a moderate amount of discomfort over this entire situation as I lowered my skirt to the floor and toed off my shoes. Still, I forced myself to go along with it.

“While she’s doing that,” I heard the saleswoman say, “let’s you and I find a few more things for her to try. We got this adorable dress in this week, and I think she’d look amazing in it…” Her voice faded off into the distance.

I took a breath. Or maybe I huffed. Whichever. But then I unhooked the first pair of slacks from the hanger and started to put them on, sure that at any moment the seams were going to rip because my thighs were too big or my butt was too fat.

That didn’t happen, though. They pulled up easily, and I didn’t have to fight with the buttons or the zipper. They…they fit me. I looked at myself in the mirror, my jaw hanging slack. I turned to the side, expecting to see a massive rip in the backside, but all I saw was my butt looking cute and curvy. She must have given me an eighteen and lied to me about the size. There was no chance these were fourteens.

They were about an inch too short, though, so I whipped them off. I stole a glance at the tag before putting them back on the hanger. Fourteen average. Huh.

I took the other pair down and slid them on. This pair fit me as well in the waist and hips as the other pair had, but they were definitely long enough in the leg. I slipped my heels back on and stole another look in the mirror before tentatively opening the door.

Keith and the saleswoman were back, both with their arms laden with clothes. It looked as though, combined, they held about half the store. She looked me over, nodding as she went into the changing room and hung her load of garments on the hooks.

“Those are the tall pair?” she asked before turning around to face me again.

“Yes.”

She put her hands on my shoulders and held me so she could see my back side. “Gather up the hem of your shirt and hold it tight around your waist.”

I felt heat rushing to my cheeks as I did what she’d told me to, all the while keeping my eyes on Keith because I didn’t know where else to look. His lips had turned up slightly, and I felt even hotter when his gaze raked over me.

“How do they feel?” she asked. Before I could answer, she put pressure on my shoulders so I’d turn around. “Are they tight at all?” One of her hands came down to the waistband and tugged at a couple of places.

“No, they seem fine.”

“And they aren’t hanging off you like that skirt was,” she said, smiling. “I bet it feels even better to realize you’ve lost so much weight. Congratulations.”

“I…” I snapped my mouth shut because I didn’t know what I could possibly say to that.

She backed away from me, her eyes still taking everything in. At this angle, a mirror was in front of me. I could see Keith eyeing me even more intently.

“All right,” she said at last. “So now we know your size. Let’s get you some clothes.” She crossed over to Keith and relieved him of all that he still held. Then she carried it all into the dressing room and spent a few minutes hanging the clothing on the hooks, taking a few pieces out as she did so. “Some of these were average, not tall,” she said by way of explanation.

I could only stare at it all. That dressing room was filled with bright colors, clothes that had defined shapes—tons of things I would never dream of wearing.

Keith moved up behind me, putting a hand on my waist. Only then did I realize that I was still holding the hem of my shirt bunched up. I dropped my grip on it, and the material fell down over his hand.

“Just try it on and see,” he murmured in my ear, as though he knew all the thoughts racing through my mind. “If you don’t like something, we’ll put it back. But you might like it.”

“Why are you doing this, Keith?”

“Because of the look on your face when you came out of that dressing room a minute ago.”

“What look was that?”

He shrugged, but that grin hadn’t left his lips. “I don’t know. Like maybe you were starting to see what I see. Maybe a little bit.”

“In you go,” the saleswoman said, giving my shoulder a little nudge. She had about a half dozen pieces in her hands that she was taking away, including the first pair of slacks I’d tried on. “And we want to see you in everything you put on, so be sure you come out to show us.” She moved to close the door but stopped and dropped her voice. “Start with the blue dress I hung at the front. I think it’ll look really nice with your eyes.” She gave me a wink and then shut the door. “You might as well settle in,” she said to Keith. “She’ll be at this a while.”

“I’m ready for the show,” he replied, his voice eager.

The show. Good grief. I couldn’t imagine what he thought he was going to see, particularly since he’d already seen me naked as the day I was born. That didn’t stop a smile from curving my mouth, though. Despite the fact that I didn’t want to be smiling at all.

WE SPENT OVER an hour and several hundred dollars buying Brie new clothes, but in the end she came away with several overly full bags and the beginnings of a decent wardrobe of clothes that fit her like a glove—and wouldn’t leave her hidden in the background.

Every time she’d come out wearing something that hugged her curves instead of billowing over her body, I couldn’t help but appreciate the view. There were definitely a few items that hadn’t suited her, but for the most part she came out of that changing room looking as delectable as anything I’d ever seen every time. My cock had appreciated the way she looked, too, particularly the shy smiles and brightened eyes that had become more and more frequent with each outfit she’d tried on. That was sexier to me than anything—her growing confidence. I was very glad that it was winter so I could lay my coat over my lap as I sat enjoying the fashion show, hiding the evidence of my hard on.

The blue dress—a soft-blue plaid, fitted on top in a way that accentuated her breasts—had looked so good on her that I’d convinced her to wear it out of the store when we left. It made me want to pull her close so those amazing breasts would pillow against me. It had a flared skirt that ended just below the knee, a series of buttons that went from chest to hem, and a wide-banded white belt. She stood straighter and held herself taller in it. Even with her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and only the barest hint of makeup dusted over her face, she looked like a completely different woman when she wore that dress. Probably because she felt like a different woman. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part, hoping that my plan was starting to take effect at least somewhat.

I had offered to pay when we went up to the checkout, since it had all been my idea, or at least to split the expense, but she flat-out refused to take a red cent of my money. Maybe it was a bit too presumptuous of me to think she would have allowed it. We’d only really been on one date before now after all.

Once she’d finished paying, I’d asked the saleswoman to remove the tags, and Brie had returned to the fitting room one final time to change. Now, when she came out, her eyes were glittering and bright, the blue of the dress making the blue of her eyes as clear as the sky on a sunny spring day. I loved that she was letting a little leg show, enough to spark the imagination. Her calves were shapely, made even more so by the heels she always wore and the new confidence with which she walked when she joined me at the exit.

I moved all the bags I was carrying into a single hand so the other would be free.

“What?” she said, completely unable to mask the smile in her voice. I must not have been masking my thoughts very well if that was the first thing out of her mouth.

I shook my head. “Nothing. I was thinking I’d never seen a pair of ankles that turned me on quite like yours do.”

She batted at me with the bag she held.

I took her other hand in mine, leading her out toward my car. “Dinner?”

“Absolutely. I’m starving.”

It wasn’t long before we were downtown and parked in the garage across the street from Kells. There was a bit of a crowd around the pub tonight because of the Trail Blazers game, but Tony greeted us at the door.

“Your usual booth, Burnzie?” he asked, pulling a couple of menus out from his podium and leading us that way without needing to wait for my answer.

Brie laughed. “You have a ‘usual booth’?”

I winked and urged her to come along with me. “Do you like Guinness? Please tell me you do, because I don’t know what I’ll do if—”

“I don’t mind one every now and then,” she interrupted.

I waited until she sat on one of the benches, and then I slid in beside her instead of taking up the other seat. The booths weren’t overly large, and I moved farther in than was strictly necessary, brushing thigh against thigh, arm against arm.

“I’ll bring two your way and send someone over for the rest of your orders, then,” Tony said. He set the menus on the table in front of us and left to greet some more customers who’d just arrived.

“So I take it you really like Irish food,” she said after he’d been gone a moment.

“My grandmother’s Irish. Mom grew up there. She got a job as an au pair one summer when she was in college, and the family she worked for was traveling through Canada. That was when she met my dad, and the rest is history.”

“Do you visit your grandmother in Ireland often?”

“Not as often as I’d like. My only opportunity is during my summers off, but I have to keep up my workouts and stay in shape during the off-season. It’s been a couple of years. I’m planning to go this coming summer, though. Mom and Dad try to get out there at least once a year, but that doesn’t always happen because of their jobs and other things getting in the way. Shane probably visits more than the rest of us.”

I hadn’t planned to talk about my family. Mentioning Shane’s name was what reminded me that it was better to keep my fucking mouth shut. Damn it. Brie was smiling at me, her eyes all lit up, and I could see her curiosity burning in them. She wanted to know more, but I couldn’t give her that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

It was hard to talk about my family when they didn’t particularly want to be my family any longer.

“So this performance,” I said, changing the subject before she could delve into areas better left in the darker corners of my mind. “Tell me about it. When’s it going to be?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. I might not know her very well yet, but I knew that meant she was annoyed about something. Maybe about me changing the subject. Now that I thought about it, that was when I most often saw this expression on her face—when I stopped us from talking about my life, my family.

I’d have to do a better job of keeping us away from those subjects in the first place.

“New Year’s Day,” she said, masking her aggravation with a shy smile. “It’s a big event. The piece with Devin…it’s only one small part of it.”

“Any chance you’d want me to come?” I had that Light the Lamp Foundation commitment on New Year’s Eve, but the next day was a scheduled day off for the team. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than spend it with her, watching her dance.

Her eyes flickered up to meet mine. “You want to?”

More than I could ever explain to her. I wanted to be with her more than I wanted just about anything. The more time I spent with her, the more that desire grew. I nodded.

“Oh. Well, I suppose that would be all right.” But just that fast, she turned away from me. Was it really all right, or was she embarrassed at the thought of me being there? She shouldn’t be embarrassed at all. She was insanely talented. She was born to be on the stage, as far as I could tell.

She held the menu in front of her, staring down at it. I took the opportunity to study her hands. They were delicate. Soft. Her skin was like porcelain, all over her body, almost flawless other than a stray freckle or beauty mark here and there. I had found one on the back of her neck, usually hidden by her hair. She had another on the inside of her thigh that I doubted had been seen by very many eyes. Now that I took a moment to study her hands, I realized she had a tiny one on the back of her left hand, directly above the wrist on the side closest to her thumb. I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed the beauty mark.

She blushed and tugged her hand away from me. Then she cleared her throat. “So the corned beef and cabbage is really good here?”

“And the shepherd’s pie. I’ve thought about licking the bowl after eating the shepherd’s pie a few times, but it’s too hot. It comes out piping from the oven, and I love it so much that I eat it faster than I should. The bowl is still scorching when I finish it. I’d burn my tongue. Might never be able to taste again, and that would be a damned shame.”

For that matter, I might burn my tongue if I licked Brie right now. With her wearing that dress, I could see more of the slope of her shoulders and her neck than she usually let show. Her blush started at her chest—or maybe even lower—and it crept all the way up her neck, her face, and ended somewhere past her hairline, making me wonder if she had any idea what I was thinking about.

Tony dropped off our beers right as our waiter came to take our orders—Brie asked for the shepherd’s pie—and then they both hurried off, taking our menus as they went.

Without the menu to hold, she started fidgeting with her hands as they rested on the table. I put one of mine over the top of them, stilling her movements.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Why do you think something’s wrong?” She removed her hands from mine and tucked them on her lap beneath the table.

I sighed. “You seem… I don’t know, you seem nervous.”

“I am.” She took a swallow of her Guinness, savoring it for a moment before she continued. “You make me nervous.”

“Do I, now?” I’d have thought she would be well beyond that stage after all the time we’d spent in bed together, but it was no matter. I inched a little closer to her, putting my hand at the base of her neck, one finger lightly brushing the raised bump of her beauty mark. After a moment, she looked up at me. As soon as she did, I bent my head down and kissed her.

The chocolate-and-coffee aftertaste of her sip of Guinness wet my tongue, and with only the tiniest amount of coaxing, she opened for me, a soft hum running through her. I felt the vibrations of it beneath my fingertips.

All too soon, I remembered we were in public and broke away from her. My gaze lingered on her lips. She pulled the lower one inside, biting down on it. I went hard almost instantly, imagining her teeth on me. She’d bit me once, the last time we had sex, in that space between my neck and my shoulder. Hard enough to leave red marks. I wanted her to mark me all over.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” I ground out.

Brie laughed, a husky sound that would have brought me to my knees if I’d been standing. “At least a little idea.”

I KEPT PEEKING over Brie’s shoulder while she was looking around the Hips & Curves website on my laptop, trying to get a feel for the things that drew her eye. I already knew what drew my eye, but this was about her. We’d come back to my place after dinner—she had eventually given in and shared a piece of the chocolate cake with me, although she’d hardly taken more than two or three bites—and now she was ordering a few bras and panties and the like since she’d promised Tanya she would. She was on the sofa, both legs tucked up beside her, leaning back against the armrest. Since I’d just come in from walking the dogs, I was standing behind the couch and hoping to figure out what I might be able to buy for her that she’d actually wear—at least long enough for me to see her in it, watch her confidence grow, and then take it off her.

To my slight disappointment, she seemed to be veering toward the sensible and away from the sexy. It would take time, I knew, and more than a little encouragement for her to step outside her comfort zone. Simply getting her to buy clothes that were colorful and shapely instead of drab and boxy had taken no small amount of cajoling, even though it was clear from the way her face lit up that she liked what she saw in the mirror.

As she scrolled down a page of bras, a lacy black one caught my eye. I pointed at it on the screen. “What about something like that?” I asked.

“Not a chance,” she scoffed. “That wouldn’t do a thing to hold me up. What would I want with a few scraps of lace?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured, thinking about all the reasons I might want to see her in a few scraps of lace and leaning my head down closer to hers so that my breath tickled her ear. “Maybe so you could feel sexy when I undress you.” I had one hand resting on her shoulder. I drew it up higher until my fingers rested over the pulse that was jumping in her throat. “So you could make me crazy with wanting to know what you had on underneath your clothes. So you could watch the need in my eyes as I found out for myself.”

“There’s not much sexy about saggy, baggy boobs drooping halfway to my waist draped in something that doesn’t have enough support to do them any good.”

“Ah,” I said softly. I slipped my hand down the column of her neck, my fingers teasing the skin of her chest. I dipped my hand beneath the fabric of her dress, only stopping when my fingertips rested at the upper curve of her breasts, just where her bra stopped. “You mean these boobs? Because I can promise you there’s not a damn thing that you could put them in to keep me from getting hard in an instant. Truss them up, wrap them tight, let them jiggle and wobble and bounce—it’s all going to turn me on.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Maybe so, but I know an amazing pair of breasts when I see them, and that’s what these are.” With that same hand, I undid the top button of her dress, watching from above as the fabric spread a bit. Her breathing turned shallow when I undid the next button, and one more, then dipped my fingers under the top of her bra and slid my hand in to cup one breast in my palm.

Her nipple pebbled as soon as I made contact, and she sucked in a breath, her head falling back against my shoulder. I kissed her, first her mouth, then the long column of her throat. Her pulse thundered beneath my lips and tongue.

“If you don’t stop touching me, I’m not going to end up ordering anything.”

I grinned down at her. “I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of you going around half naked.” I waited a beat, savoring her pursed lips and narrowed eyes. “Or all naked.” I waggled my brows at her, only withdrawing my hand right before she aimed a throw pillow at my head.

She tugged on the collar of her dress, as though that would do anything to keep me from thinking about everything she had hidden underneath it. “Do you constantly think about sex?”

“Not constantly, no.” I headed into the kitchen for a bottle of wine and some glasses. “Well, maybe I do now. Since you.”

I could hear her fingers tapping on the keys, so she must be putting an order in. Probably without the lacy bra. Too bad. I’d give my left nut to see her in something like that. But then again, there was nothing preventing me from ordering a few things for her and having them shipped here so I could surprise her. Nothing too crazy, of course. Just a few things that weren’t quite as sensible as the rest, to see what might strike her fancy.

When I sat down next to her and passed a wineglass into her hand, she closed down the browser and shut the lid of the laptop. I slid it off her lap and set it on the coffee table, next to my own glass and the bottle, and took the sticky note from her hand, placing it on top of the computer where I’d be able to find those numbers later.

She took a sip, her gaze focused squarely on me, although I couldn’t even attempt to interpret what was behind it. “Since me?” she finally said. I cocked a brow, and she set her glass next to mine. “Since a week ago, or since…”

“Since that night over the summer. I’ve hardly been able to get you off my mind.” I took her hand and laid her palm out flat on my thigh, tracing the creases and lines until she shivered. “I tried dating a couple of girls when I got back here, hoping they’d help me forget you since I doubted I’d ever see you again. It didn’t work.”

She raised a skeptical brow. “A couple?”

I shrugged. “Three? I don’t know. They all blur together.”

Brie shook her head as though that could change the truth. “I’d think I would have been a blur right along with them. Maybe even more of a blur since we’d only been together the one night.”

“No, not you. You’re all bold colors and defined lines in my mind.” I eased my hand up her wrist and forearm, stopping at her elbow. Her skin was as silken as butter, and a trail of goose bumps popped up in the wake of my touch.

When I leaned in to kiss her again, she put a hand on my chest, stopping me.

“Keith?”

I closed my eyes, and a bedraggled sigh left my lips. “Yeah?” The heat of her hand only made me want to touch her more, to get her hands and mouth and tongue on me, but apparently that was going to have to wait.

“You said you wanted to come to my performance. And you’ve asked me to come to one of your games.”

“I want you to come to as many of my games as you can,” I said.

“So this… Well, this,” she said, as though that would encompass everything around and between us. “You don’t want it to just be physical then? At first it was only about sex—”

“It was never only about sex. You’re lying to yourself if you think it was, even that first night.” I’d known before she ever walked through the door of my hotel room that, at least for her, it would go much deeper than skin. I hadn’t had any idea how much it would affect me, but there was no turning back.

“Be that as it may, it was never supposed to be about an actual relationship. But if you’re coming to my performances, and if I end up going to your games…”

“Then it might be more like a real relationship,” I finished for her. I chucked her under the chin so she’d meet my eyes again, since she’d been looking down at her lap for the last little bit. “That’s what I want it to be. I was cursing myself for months for not getting you to give me your real name, your phone number…something. What we have together is good, Brie.” Better than good.

“I know it is. But sometimes I feel like it really is only about sex between us.”

My jaw ground, almost of its own accord, thinking back to that look she got every time I steered the conversation away from my family, my past. “That’s because we don’t really know each other well enough yet. The more time we spend together, the better that’ll get.” Within limits.

She gave me a sly, cheeky sort of look. “As long as we don’t spend all our time in bed together, at least.”

“Well, there is that. But we haven’t been. Not really.” This had been our second date, and we hadn’t been in bed the whole time for either of them.

“No, I suppose we haven’t.”

“We could get there now, though.” I tried moving in closer, but she kept her hand on my chest, shaking her head. “It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?”

“Not yet. Let’s talk some more. It’s still early.”

Not if you asked my cock, but then again, I’d been hard for what seemed like hours.

“Besides,” she said, raising a brow, “aren’t you supposed to be explaining hockey to me?” She reached for her wineglass and put a little more space between us.

Damn. That was what I’d told her. I gave her a playful scowl as I reached for the remote and my own glass of wine. “Fine. Hockey it is, then.”

At least hockey was a subject that would be easy for me to talk to her about. I wouldn’t have to constantly evade her questions or try to force the conversation back to her. I turned on the game between Dallas and San Jose that was just getting started and settled in, reminding myself that she wasn’t saying no to going to bed with me. She was only saying not right this instant.

Now I had to figure out how to let her get to know me without delving into a past too painful to confront.

I’D BEEN HALF glad when Keith had told me he’d have to be gone for a few days for a road trip. Our fledgling relationship was insanely good on a physical level. I’d never had this kind of chemistry with a man before—not with Val, for sure, nor with anyone who’d come before him. But in terms of emotional intimacy, there was a huge gap between us that I didn’t have the first clue how to bridge.

It seemed as though Keith was more interested in glossing over the fact that we didn’t know each other on a personal level by getting to know one another as well as possible on a physical level. Every time we’d been alone together and I’d tried to get him to talk, he had done one of two things: either he had turned the conversation around so that we were talking about me and my past or he had deftly caused the end of our conversation entirely by distracting me so thoroughly with his touch that I’d been unable to think straight.

I had no complaints about the sexual side of things. That certainly wasn’t the problem. The longer it went on, though, the more I started to feel as though our relationship was entirely one-dimensional, whether he claimed he wanted it to be deeper than that or not. The old saying was definitely proving true in this situation—actions spoke louder than words.

Maybe I was asking for too much by expecting more of him at this point—we had only been on two dates, after all, and we’d only been talking over the course of a week—but the fact remained that he still seemed entirely disinclined to reveal almost anything of substance about himself. I couldn’t understand why he felt the need to hide his past from me, especially considering what I knew about his brother. What was he hiding, and why? Or was it simply that Keith’s emotions about Garrett’s death were still too raw, too painful, for him to talk about it?

I had no way of knowing since he wouldn’t go there at all.

Because of that, I’d hoped the physical distance between us over those few days would help me to build a new aspect to whatever this was we were building, if we were going to have a chance for that at all. While he was gone, the only way we would have contact would be on the phone—talking, texting, maybe getting on FaceTime if he insisted. No sex. No touching me to distract me. I’d hoped that he would begin to give me a nugget here and a morsel there because without that, we probably didn’t have much chance of a future.

As it turned out, hoping hadn’t done me a whole heck of a lot of good. Oh, we’d talked plenty over the five days he was gone. The problem was that most of our conversations had centered on the things currently going on in our lives, nothing about what had brought us here. He knew that I’d known Garrett, and that hadn’t made him any more willing to talk to me about his past. That made it hard to trust that I was really getting to know him. Instead, it felt more like I was getting to know some sort of front he’d put on.

On his side, we talked about his games, the teams he was playing against, the cities he was visiting, and the pranks he and his teammates had played on one another. On my side, I told him about my rehearsals with Devin, some of the students in my classes, and the crazy situation Tanya and I had run into with a man who’d come in off the street trying to get us to hire him as an instructor when he couldn’t dance at all. I’d made a few attempts at getting Keith to tell me more about his parents, his brothers, his childhood, but my efforts had fallen on deaf ears. Each time, he had given me a brief, clipped response and quickly redirected the conversation to something else.

Now he was back in town. He’d sent me a text message very late last night to let me know he was home—in case I was still up, he’d said, an obvious hint that he hoped I was so maybe we could get together—and to ask me if he could take me out tonight since he had an afternoon game tomorrow and then plans with the guys later that night. I saw it when he sent it, but I ignored it until morning. I sent him a brief response, saying only that I had to rush off to work and I’d talk to him later. I didn’t give him an answer one way or another about seeing him tonight. Even now, on my lunch break, I was debating what I should do and say.

I wanted to see him; my body craved his touch in a way that was downright pathetic. But there was a niggling voice at the back of my mind warning me to put some distance between us before I let my heart get involved, as all current signs pointed toward me ending up getting hurt. We definitely seemed to be heading down a path that led to becoming emotionally invested and he still wouldn’t let me in. I wasn’t to that point…yet. I was still managing to keep my heart from getting involved too much. It was coming, though. Every date we went on, every night I spent wrapped up in his arms, drew me closer to heartache.

I sat down in the chair opposite Tanya, turning my phone on briefly as I opened my lunch, to see if he’d responded. No new text messages. I wasn’t sure what to think of that.

Tanya leaned over, reaching for a packet of Italian dressing. She’d ordered delivery for us from a nearby sub-and-salad place, and we were using her desk as a lunch table, all her books and notepads shoved to the side for the moment. She opened the dressing and squeezed a little on her sandwich then held the rest of the packet out to me with question marks for eyebrows.

I shook my head and took another bite of my dry salad, turning my phone off again.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked me.

My head shot up at that. “Talk about what?”

“Whatever it is that has you looking like you can’t decide if you want to throw up or eat some more because neither seems like an appealing prospect. And why the hell are you eating a salad at a time like this? Brownies and wine are what the doctor ordered for that expression.”

Choosing to ignore that part about brownies and wine since it only made my salad less appealing than it already was, I met her eyes but shoveled another big forkful of veggies into my mouth in lieu of answering.

“I haven’t seen Sex on a Stick in a few days,” she prodded. “Things going okay there?”

“Fine,” I mumbled. “He was gone with the team on a road trip.”

“Was, hmm?” She waggled her brows. “That means they’re not gone now, right? They’re here?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re pissed that you’re at work instead of bumping uglies with him? Lord knows I would be, too.”

“No! I’m just… It’s nothing.” Nothing I wanted to talk to her about just yet. Actually, I was glad I wasn’t with him since I hadn’t sorted out what I wanted to do. That didn’t do anything to stop the heat from rushing up my neck and face at the thought of being with him, though.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “Keep on denying it.” She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, then wiped her mouth with a napkin. “So should I expect him to show up and hang out in my office for a while before you get off today?”

“I don’t know what he’s planning to do.”

“Why not?”

Because I haven’t given him an answer, I thought as Tanya reached for a potato chip. My mouth watered at the sight of it. But no potato chips for me. And no brownies. Just thinking about them was enough to make me gain a couple of pounds.

I dutifully put another bite of vegetables in my mouth and chewed like I meant it, ignoring the cardboard flavor. “I haven’t talked to him yet. They got in late last night,” I said evasively.

“So why are you sitting here and moping over your lunch with me instead of on the phone with him now? Or better yet, letting him toss your salad?” She pursed her lips and raised her brows suggestively, leaving me no doubt that she wasn’t talking about food.

I didn’t want any more of my lunch after thinking about it that way. I threw out my trash, holding the recyclables aside so I could rinse them. “I don’t know how much of a future there could be with him,” I said cautiously, not wanting to reveal too much. “We’ll see. It’s all still really early.”

“What? Come on!” She grabbed the disposable bowl from me, putting it with some other things she’d set aside for the recycle bin. “I’ve seen how he looks at you, and that is not the look of a man who intends to move on so soon. I’d lean toward the opposite, more like.” She dropped her voice, her eyes wide. “Is he bad in the sack? No, wait.” She held out a hand, shaking her head with her eyes closed. “Don’t tell me that. I want to keep my fantasies pure, not have them tainted with the painful truth if he’s not the most amazing lay ever.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “It’s nothing like that.” If anything, he was too good in bed. That was one of many reasons that might make it difficult to end things.

“Then what? Poor hygiene? Bad manners? He wants to offer you up as a sacrifice as part of a ritualistic orgy with his satanic cult?”

“Who’s having an orgy and didn’t invite me?” said a deep male voice from directly behind me.

Well, crap. I’d know that voice anywhere. It had been saying deliciously naughty things to me in my dreams for months.

The look on Tanya’s face made it clear that my hearing hadn’t failed me. For that matter, I could practically feel Keith standing there, and the scent of his cologne filled my nostrils in a way that made me want to bury my nose against his neck and never move away. His heat radiated all over me. He had to be close enough that if I took a half-step backward, I’d bump into him.

I resisted the urge to do exactly that. My body was ready to betray me, though. It was a fight to keep myself from sliding toward him.

“Hey, Tanya,” he said cheerfully, and then his voice dropped down a notch or two, turning sensual and needy. “Hi, Brie. I thought I’d drop by and see what your lunch plans were since I knew you were here.”

“Ju-just finished eating, actually,” I stammered.

“But she’s got half an hour still before her next class,” Tanya put in oh so helpfully.

I shot her a glare.

Keith put a hand on my shoulder. His touch was barely there, but it was so hot he might as well have branded me. “Perfect. So will you sneak out with me for a bit so we can talk? I thought maybe we could go for a walk or something.”

There wasn’t any good way for me to get out of that, and I had never been one to shy away from confrontation. Generally, I’d rather face things as they came.

I took a breath to settle my thoughts, then turned to him. The sight of him—leather jacket hugging his muscular frame, amber eyes boring through me with unchecked hunger, lips curling in a smile that made Sex on a Stick seem entirely inadequate—made me nearly lose my nerve. I broke eye contact before I froze in that moment and couldn’t move. “Let me go grab my coat.”

When I turned to leave the office, he curled that hand on my waist in, drawing me close for a kiss—only a peck on the lips, but more than enough to throw all the thoughts in my head into confusion.

He winked as he released me. “I’ll be right here.”

When I got to the dressing room, I pressed my forehead against the cool metal of my locker for a moment, hoping it would put a damper on the heat that had started racing through me the moment Keith stepped up behind me. I needed to make up my mind, and fast, about what I was going to do. Go along as things had been and pretend it didn’t matter that he wasn’t able to share his past with me? Or make the move to protect my heart, telling him I couldn’t be more than a friend until he was ready to let me in?

I stayed as long as I thought I could get away with, but I still didn’t have an answer by the time I took out my coat and headed back to the office.

“Ready?” he said, his smile sinful enough to make me weak in the knees. He reached for me.

Not even close to ready. I finished pulling on my coat and took his hand, mentally berating myself for my indecision.

“YOU NEVER ANSWERED me about tonight,” I said as we turned the corner around the building, heading toward a nearby park.

Her hand tensed in mine, only a tiny change in pressure but one that reverberated through me. So my assumptions had been right, then. When she’d only responded to last night’s text with a hasty message about being late instead of telling me if she would go out with me tonight, I’d gotten the distinct impression that something was wrong between us. Not that I had a clue what that might be. I’d come home from our road trip wanting nothing more than to see Brie and spend as much time with her as possible. I’d hoped that she would have answered last night, that I could have seen her then instead of having to wait until today. But that hadn’t happened, and now she was pulling away.

Talk later, she’d said. Not See you later. Those two simple words seemed to carry the weight of a thousand implications.

“No,” she said at length. “I haven’t.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to see me?”

“Not exactly.” Her voice sounded strained. She obviously didn’t want to say whatever it was she intended to say.

I guided us onto the sidewalk that lined the park. With the cold front that had blown through while the team had been gone, there weren’t a lot of people hanging around outside today. A man walking two dogs was heading toward us, and a few walkers and runners were scattered throughout the area, but that was about it. No one could overhear whatever she might need to say. This was as private as we were likely to get, short of going to her apartment or my house.

“Then what, exactly?” I asked when she didn’t elaborate.

She took a few more steps and then gestured to a bench nearby, crossing her arms as though to ward off the chill. I nodded and followed her, taking the seat next to her once she was situated. I wanted to move closer to her, to press right up against her side like I had when we’d had dinner at Kells, but I knew better than to push her. If she wanted space, I’d give it to her even if it killed me.

“I think,” she started, but then she stared at a huge maple tree across from us and took a moment before continuing, her lips turning down in concentration. “I think we’ve rushed into things.”

My chest constricted, taut as a drumhead on the verge of breaking. “I thought things were moving along well.”

“In a way, yes. In others… We went about this all backward,” she said. “We started out in bed and tried to move from there, but instead of getting to know each other, we end up back in bed over and over again.”

“Because we’re good there.” That was only one of the many reasons we kept ending up in bed together, though. My lungs felt tight. Breathing didn’t seem possible. This had to be about Garrett—about my shooting her down every time she tried to get me to talk about the things I couldn’t talk about.

If only she hadn’t known him. Then she wouldn’t realize I was keeping all that to myself. But she had known him, and she knew he’d killed himself, and there was no way to take away that knowledge. No way for me to hide the past, even if I couldn’t confront it.

“We are,” she said after a brief but tense silence. She crossed her ankles and swung them back, her hands gripping the edge of the bench on either side of her. “I need us to be good elsewhere, too, though. I need to feel like I know you, the man on the inside, not only how you like to be touched.”

“Aren’t we getting there?” I asked even though I knew we weren’t, at least in that one way. And that was all on me, just like Garrett’s death.

“In some ways.” She tilted her head up so she could look me straight in the eye. A wry smile was on her lips, almost grim. “You’re getting to know me, at least. But every time I try to find out about your life before now—your family, your childhood—you clam up or change the subject. Why can’t you talk to me about that? About your brother?”

The longer she kept talking, the edgier I grew. Every bone in my body felt ready to shatter, my muscles ready to run. “There’s not much to tell.” Not much I could tell, at least.

“I don’t buy that for a second. Not with what I know.”

“Exactly. You already know, so what’s the use in dragging it all back up?” I could hear the hardness in my voice. Could feel my blood pressure rising. But there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop it.

“I know the parts that are public knowledge.”

Brie reached for my hand. I let her take it but left mine hanging limp within her grasp so that I wouldn’t let all the rage that was roiling beneath the surface come through and hurt her. It wasn’t about her; it was about me. I needed to keep it that way, too, keep all that hurt and anger and guilt and blame under wraps where it couldn’t hurt anyone else, no one but me. I’d already done enough damage.

Her touch was so gentle it nearly undid me.

“What I don’t know,” she said quietly, “is what led to it. How it affected you. What it’s done to your family.”

It had ripped my family apart at the seams, that’s what it had done to us. And it had left me a shell of a man. The only times I’d felt whole since the day I’d found Garrett hanging in my parents’ garage were when I’d been with Brie, when I’d been inside her, holding her, touching her.

“Will you talk to me about it?” she asked after a long moment.

“I can’t.” My voice cracked on the two simple words.

“You can’t?” She squeezed my hand, placing her other over the top of my knee. “Or you won’t?”

It was all the same in the end. I gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Then I need—” She turned her head away suddenly, reaching a hand up to her face as she let out a sniffle. “I need to take a few steps back.”

I felt as though the sand of an hourglass was drifting through my fingers. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to catch all the tiny pieces and put them back where they belonged.

I’D BARELY WALKED through the front door, herding all three of my dogs back inside with all their yapping and barking and dancing about, when my phone started ringing. I slammed the door shut, tossed my keys on the counter next to the unopened package from Hips & Curves, and whipped my cell out of my pocket, answering it without even looking to see the name or number popping up on the screen.

“Brie?”

“Not unless Mom and Dad have some serious explaining to do, although maybe that would make a few things easier to understand.” Shane, my youngest brother—no, my only brother now—let out a mirthless laugh that cut me to the quick after the day I’d had. “Who’s Brie?” he asked, half casual even though I knew he was just trying to pry.

The woman who broke my heart. Not that I had any intention of telling Shane that. He had enough weapons to use against me already. I wanted to keep her separate in my mind, whether she and I were going to have the sort of relationship I wanted or not.

“Just a friend,” I finally said, echoing the words she’d said to me only a few hours before. She didn’t think she could be any more than a friend to me right now. Not until I was ready to face my demons. “What do you want?” I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit, and that was all I could expect from Shane these days.

“Oh, I don’t know. How about a ride to your place from the airport and a room to stay in through the holidays?”

I almost dropped the phone. “You’re coming to Portland? When?” It’d been seven years since anyone from my family had come to Portland during the season. Since Garrett had died.

“Now. I’m at PDX.”

“Now?” I definitely wasn’t keeping up. I still felt as though I’d been kicked repeatedly in the gut from my conversation a few hours ago with Brie, so I thought surely I had misheard my brother.

“I’m at baggage claim waiting for my suitcase to come down the chute. Get off your ass and come get me.”

“Wha—” I dropped the dogs’ leashes, and Pepper immediately took off chasing after Dexter, barking loudly enough the neighbors would probably start issuing noise complaints any minute. “Are Mom and Dad with you?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around the idea of my brother being here.

“They flew to Dublin to spend the holidays with Gran. I had initially intended to go with them. Changed my mind at the last minute.” He let out a couple of grunts, probably getting his suitcase off the conveyer. “You did ask me to come for the holidays, you know.”

“Two years ago,” I said, dumbfounded.

“Yeah. And? I’m here now. Are you going to come and get me or what?”

“I—” A whoosh of air left my lungs, and I ran a hand through my hair. Shane was here. If I was ever going to have the chance to make things right between us, this was it. I grabbed my car keys from the kitchen counter, raced upstairs to deposit the package in my bedroom until I could figure out what I intended to do with it, and headed for the garage. “Give me twenty minutes,” I said.

Broken heart or no, this wasn’t an opportunity I could let pass me by.

HE LOOKED EXACTLY as I remembered, if only a few years older—almost as tall as me, fit, his dark hair cut short and neat, clean shaven. He had my eyes. Garrett’s eyes. There had been no way to miss the fact that the three of us had been brothers when we were growing up. We’d been practically identical, at least if you ignored the age differences.

Shane had his coat draped over his left arm when I found him at baggage claim, and he had on a fitted, short-sleeved red shirt, a few buttons open to reveal the black T-shirt underneath. The long, white scar on his right forearm was as visible as ever. It was an old hockey injury from back in major junior. He’d been fighting for a puck in the corners when a couple more guys joined in, bumping into him awkwardly and knocking him down to the ice. One of the guys trying to dig the puck out had stepped on his arm, and the blade has sliced straight through my brother’s jersey and into his arm. Shane had left a trail of bright-red blood from there all the way to the bench as he’d skated off for repairs. A full period and eighty-three stitches later, he’d gone back out for more.

Maybe he hadn’t been the best hockey player out there, but he’d had the most heart, the most grit. No one had doubted his courage. His masculinity. He’d fought harder on the ice than anyone he’d played with or against. No one had ever picked on Shane the way we’d teased Garrett. We would never have dreamed of it. Garrett had been the so-called sissy boy who’d chosen dance over hockey, the “queer” who would rather wear sparkles and rhinestones under disco lights than smelly hockey pads in a cold rink. He’d been the easy target.

Garrett might have been easier to pick on, but it was Shane who was gay.

Only I hadn’t known.

He’d seen how my friends and I had tortured Garrett, and he’d been too afraid to let anyone know. It was only after Garrett had killed himself that Shane even came out to our parents, but he’d made them swear they wouldn’t breathe a word about it to me. And that was when everything between me and my family had gone to hell. They all blamed me for Garrett’s death, much as I blamed myself. But they also had Shane’s secret to protect.

I only found out a few summers ago when Gran had let it slip. That was when I’d asked Shane to come and stay with me for the holidays. So I could try to do anything I could to make sure he knew I loved him, no matter what. That I’d never meant any of the things I’d called Garrett. That I’d only caved in to peer pressure. That I knew I was a worthless piece of shit, but that I was going to do everything possible to make a better man of myself.

He hadn’t come then, but he was here now.

“Hey,” he said. He looked at me with a one-shouldered shrug, holding out a hand to shake.

“Hey.” I took his hand and pulled him in for a hug.

It was an awkward hug, one of those back-slapping guy hugs during which neither party is comfortable with what’s happening but doesn’t want to be the first to end it. I was the one, in the end, to pull back.

“Good to see you,” I said, feeling as awkward and gangly as I had as a fourteen-year-old with pimples trying to ask Tasha O’Neil out on a date.

He nodded and bent down to his carry-on bag. He opened an outer zipper pocket and pulled out an envelope addressed to me, then shoved it toward me. “From Mom,” he said. “She asked me to bring it to you.”

“Thanks.” I slipped it into my coat pocket. Whatever was inside, I didn’t really care to open it here. “You waiting on anything else?”

“Nah.”

“Let’s get out of here, eh?” My lips quirked up as soon as the eh came out of my mouth, taking me back in time. For years, that had been about half of our vocabulary. I grabbed the handle of his suitcase and headed out to the parking garage.

He helped me to put both his bags in the trunk and we got in without a word. It was only after I’d merged on the highway that he said, “So you never did answer me. Who’s this just-a-friend Brie? You sounded like you were desperate for me to be her.”

That was because I was.

I WAS CRAVING bacon again.

That always happened whenever I felt down in the dumps. The way I coped was to stuff my face with that smoky, fatty, crispy awesomeness. Having a couple of strips of bacon wouldn’t be a problem, of course. I wasn’t keeping myself on such a strict diet that I couldn’t indulge a little bit. No, the problem was that when I had a craving like this, a little bit would never be enough.

I didn’t want a couple of strips of bacon; I wanted a pound of it.

Never mind the fact that I didn’t keep bacon in the apartment just for this reason. I had to get rid of the craving, and the only way I’d found to combat bacon cravings was with pickles. I headed to the fridge and pulled out my jar of Claussen spears. It was close to empty. I said a little prayer that five spears that were left would be enough this time and took the jar with me into the living room, curling up on the couch as I started to eat.

It was a methodical process. I ate one bite at a time, spear after spear, until the vinegary acidity of the pickles had cut through the need for bacon. BC and Richie both jumped up to join me as I worked on the first piece.

I really shouldn’t be this upset. The reason Keith and I were stepping back to the friend zone was because I’d insisted on it, after all. But spending the night holed up in my apartment with my two cats instead of doing whatever it was he had planned for the two of us—followed by a night in his bed—definitely wasn’t up to par.

BC head-butted the pickle jar where I had it precariously perched on my lap, nearly sloshing a bunch of juice all over me. I scowled at him and scratched behind his ears with my free hand. “I know you love me, buddy,” I said soothingly amid the sounds of his purring.

But then again, it could be the dill and vinegar smells that he loved. You never could tell.

I kept eating my pickles until the cravings finally eased after four spears. I replaced the lid and got up, much to my cats’ displeasure, to put the sole remaining spear back in the refrigerator.

My cell phone beeped while I was still in the kitchen. I pulled it out of my pocket, hoping it would be Keith, at the same time dreading that it might be him. No need for either of those emotions, though. It was Tanya.

You okay? Can I bring you ice cream?

She’d forced it all out of me when I’d come back from walking with Keith this afternoon. She had even offered to see if she could get someone else to come in to cover for my last couple of classes of the day. That wouldn’t do me any good, though, so I refused. Sulking wouldn’t help anything. Burying my head and doing my work would. Besides, Devin and I’d had another session scheduled this afternoon, and I couldn’t miss that even if I wasn’t in the greatest of moods.

I typed a response.

Me: I’ll be fine. No ice cream required.

Tanya: Chick flick then? I’ve got every Reese Witherspoon or Sandra Bullock movie ever made on DVD. I can be there in ten minutes.

Me: Legally Blonde? Miss Congeniality?

Tanya: You got it. I’ll bring both. See you in a few.

I wasn’t entirely sure that a chick flick or two was the cure for what ailed me, but it couldn’t hurt. Neither would having company. I got up and tidied a few things that I’d left lying around. Richie took that as his sign that it was time to hide. Cleaning things up wasn’t always a sign of company, but it could also mean the vacuum cleaner might appear. There were few things in this world that terrified him more.

I’d barely finished straightening my living room when Tanya knocked on my door. “I brought cupcakes,” she said the instant she came inside, thrusting a bakery box in my direction. She had a bag slung over her arm. “Sunshine Cupcakes. They’re the best in Portland, so you might as well familiarize yourself with them now.”

“I don’t need cupcakes.” But I took the box anyway, carrying it into the kitchen.

“Honey, if ever there was a time to have a cupcake, it’s when your heart’s broken.” She followed and took a seat in one of the barstools. Then she pulled a bottle of red wine out of her bag, along with a corkscrew. “They’re triple chocolate or something. Perfect for the occasion.”

I’d just eaten a meal’s worth of pickles to keep myself from overindulging in bacon when the bacon hadn’t even been around for me to dive into. Now I had cupcakes and wine tempting me. This couldn’t end well.

I leaned on the bar, resting my chin on joined hands propped up by my elbows. “I’m not sure I should be eating things like this when I’ve got that performance…”

“Speaking of which, your routine with Devin is coming together nicely.”

It was, especially since I’d started trusting him to be strong enough to lift me. “He’s pretty amazing.”

“You’re not too shabby, yourself.”

I shrugged the compliment off. “Well, it’s turning into a good partnership. One that I never would have come up with on my own.”

“Shannon is planning to bring the costume in tomorrow for a final fitting. Have your new bras come in yet?”

“Just this afternoon.” I hadn’t even opened the package yet, in all my self-pity.

“Good. Be sure you wear one of them so we can see how things will really look on the night of the performance.”

“Not sure they’ll make such a huge difference but whatever.”

“Not a huge difference?” she scoffed. “Have you paid any attention to the way you look since you went shopping with Sex on a Stick that day?”

“Please don’t call him that.” It only made me think about what I’d given up, which wasn’t going to help anything.

“Fine. Keith, then. Don’t evade the question.”

I rolled my eyes. “They fit well.”

“They fit you amazingly. And you look great. And your confidence is definitely up, and it shows.”

“A makeover isn’t going to change anything about me.”

“Hmm,” she said, but she left it at that.

“How come you aren’t out on a hot date tonight?” I asked, hoping to move our conversation away from me. Since I’d met her, I’d never known Tanya to date the same guy twice but she was always going out.

“Because I still haven’t convinced Devin Shreeve to ask me out, and you needed me.”

“I don’t know that I needed you tonight.”

In answer, she pointed to the wine and cupcakes.

“Fine.” I laughed. Even if I wanted to fight it, it was nice to have someone to commiserate with. “Devin, huh? That’s who you’ve got your sights set on now?”

“Well, I figure Sex—I mean, Keith—is off the table, even if you’re not jumping his bones. So yeah. Devin it is. There’s something about that long, curly hair…”

“Want me to poke around while we practice and plant some seeds?”

“You really needed to ask?” Tanya sighed dramatically. “I even brought chocolate to butter you up.”

That she had. I straightened up, turned to the cabinet, and took down two glasses.

She grinned. “I’ll take that as my cue,” she said, opening the bottle. She poured two rather full glasses while I took out saucers and forks for the cupcakes.

“Forks?” Tanya laughed with the question.

“They’re huge, and they look sticky.”

She shrugged “More to lick off your fingers. But fine,” she said with a drawn-out sigh, picking up a saucer and fork. “Have it your way.”

We took our wine and cupcakes into the living room, me carrying a big stack of napkins just in case, and settled in for a double feature.

DURING THE REGULAR season, I lived for overtime. It was five minutes of four-on-four skating and lots of open ice, perfect for someone who played like I did. I could hit, I could use my speed to stay with my guy and force him off the puck, I could defend in my own end like a motherfucker, and I could sneak in on offense and surprise teams with my slapper if they forgot about me. In overtime, teams tended to forget about trailing defensemen all too often. All the better for me.

Needless to say, it didn’t hurt my feelings at all that we were on our way to overtime right now in our game against the Minnesota Wild. We’d come out of regulation all tied up at two, but Bergy wasn’t quite as happy about the state of things as I was. He and Webs had pulled out a whiteboard and dry-erase markers, and they were drawing up a play. They had all the forwards gathered around them.

I stood next to the bench, guzzling Gatorade during the TV time-out. Colesy was right beside me. In the last couple of games, he and I had started to figure each other out on the ice. We felt a little more comfortable in terms of each of us knowing what the other would do in any given situation.

Hancock could have been doing the same sort of thing with the D, but he was letting us breathe and mentally prepare ourselves for what was to come. Tonight, our defense had been pretty solid for once. It was the performance of our forwards that had been shaky.

When the horn sounded, we all headed out to center ice so they could drop the puck—Colesy and I on the backend, Zee and Jamie Babcock up front. Babs was in his third year in the NHL, but he was still younger than most rookies. He’d made the team straight out of camp the year he’d been drafted, at only eighteen. But today was a special day for him. Babs had just turned twenty-one.

Zee circled over to me and Colesy before lining up at the dot. “I’m pulling it back to you,” he said to me, holding his glove over his mouth so the guys on the other side couldn’t read his lips. “Babs and I are going to clear some space for you, throw them off the scent. Let’s fucking end this fast and get the hell out of here. Act like you’re going to pass it to one of us but rip off one of your fucking slappers instead.”

I glanced over at Babs, who appeared to be chatting idly with Zach Parise, one of the Wild’s forwards. I doubted it was idle chatter, though. It was likely pure gamesmanship, both guys bragging about what they were about to do to the other, something like that. This year, Babs had really started to come out of his shell. He’d always been kind of shy and easily embarrassed, but something had changed over the summer. He’d left after we’d been ousted from the playoffs last spring as a boy in a man’s body, but when he returned to Portland in the fall, he came back a man.

Maybe the transformation had already been underway—it was hard to be sure—but there was no denying it now. The kid was growing into a natural leader on the team, and it was starting to feel weird to think of him as a kid at all.

Tonight, the boys and I had plans to help Babs celebrate his birthday, but I had an idea as to how I could help him start the party early. I nodded my head in Babs’s direction, indicating that he should come over to us. “I’ve got a different idea,” I said when Zee raised a brow.

He skated our way, shouting something at Parise that I hoped none of the girls on the front row behind him could hear. When he joined us, he had a big, shit-eating grin on his face.

I cuffed him on the back of the head for good measure. It was something I’d started doing his rookie year, and I saw no reason to stop now. “So I was thinking.”

“There’s a first. It’s about fucking time,” Babs said, making my hand itch to cuff his head again.

Instead, I kept going. “Zee said you two were going to clear some room up front. But I thought maybe Colesy could do part of that, too—”

“The fuck kind of idea is that?” Colesy cut in.

“A brilliant fucking idea,” I said. “Because they’ll never expect it. They won’t have a clue what the hell’s going on.”

“Hurry up and finish telling us your plan,” Zee said, eyeing the ref at center ice.

“So Babs can crash in around the crease while you two are wreaking havoc, and I’ll fake my slapper but actually pass it off to him. He can roof it, and we can get the fucking party started.”

Zee eyed me for a couple of seconds, and then he shrugged. “Sounds as good as anything. But Colesy, don’t get caught up ice if it doesn’t work.” Then he and Babs skated off for the face-off.

The look on Colesy’s face made it clear he wasn’t as sold on the idea as Zee.

“If you do have to turn on your jets and book it back to our end,” I said to him as we skated into position, “it’ll give you a chance to show Bergy your fucking dancing lessons have been paying off.”

“Yeah,” he said, scowling at me. “Right.”

The ref dropped the puck, the crowd went wild, and the game was back on.

Zee wasn’t able to win the puck cleanly. He and the Wild’s centerman were all twisted up, using sticks and skates and anything else they could to gain an advantage. Babs and Parise both came in to help out, and Zee lost his skates in the mess. Somehow he managed to kick the puck free, but it went straight to Colesy instead of me.

He took one look over at me, only a half-second’s indecision, and then he started in motion. Zee and Babs barreled toward the zone, holding up long enough for Colesy to join them. He crossed over, passed the puck back to me right as I slipped into the zone, and then he went to work banging bodies and heading for the net.

Sure enough, seeing Colesy anywhere near the opposition’s goal threw them all off. The next thing I knew, two of Minnesota’s defenders were chasing Colesy, of all people, leaving me wide open. I hesitated as long as I could, picking my moment. Just as Babs slipped free from his man, I wound up and let it rip, angling my fake shot slightly off the net and right onto Babs’s stick. A quick deflection and it was flying past the goaltender’s shoulder, glove waving wildly.

THE BOYS WERE all in good spirits as we headed out of the arena in the early evening. It had been one of those weird afternoon games that could throw our schedules all off, but at least we’d won it in the end. After I had cleaned up and taken my turn with the media, I’d gone up to the owner’s box to collect Shane, and now he was coming with me and the rest of the team to celebrate the win and Babs’s twenty-first.

“You’re still not saying what we’re doing after dinner?” Jonny asked warily. He’d always been a bit of a homebody, a guy who’d rather have a quiet night in than go out and party. In a lot of ways, he was my complete opposite, but we still got along pretty well—even if half the time he wanted to kill me for the things I dragged him into.

I’d turned a lot of that over to Soupy this season, which Jonny had more than appreciated since Soupy’s idea for a good time lined up more with his own, but I’d kept the planning for Babs’s birthday to myself. How often did a guy turn twenty-one? I had big plans. Tonight was going to be epic.

Now that Jonny and Sara Thomas, the daughter of our former coach, were an item, I knew he would far prefer to be spending the night with her—but I’d said no wives or girlfriends tonight. I wanted it to be just the guys. When Shane had shown up yesterday, I’d decided to alter that to include him. He was a guy, at least, even if he wasn’t part of the team.

“It’s a surprise,” was all I had told any of them before, and it was all I said now. “Everyone head down to Old Town Pizza. Pay for parking for the night. We can walk where we’re heading from there after we eat.”

“The only thing I know of near there that’s within walking distance is Voodoo Doughnuts,” Chunk complained, following dutifully behind me and Shane as we headed toward the parking garage. Chunk’s real name was Kyle O’Roarke. He’d been with the team for a few years now, spending most of his time up in the press box as a healthy scratch. Almost everything he said came out as a complaint these days, probably due to frustration at never getting to play. I chose not to let his complaints bother me, particularly since I knew what was in store and he didn’t.

“We’re not going to Voodoo,” I replied.

The guys had dispersed throughout the parking garage when we’d entered. Shane and I got to my car, and I grabbed Vladdie by the shoulder and pulled him along with me. The guy’s English was horrible, and he was only twenty. We were going to have to sneak him in or get them to turn a blind eye. I didn’t think that would be an issue, but I wanted him with me just in case.

I pointed toward the backseat. “Get in,” I said.

The massive Russian gave me a look I couldn’t interpret and folded his big body into the backseat, his long legs cramped. Maybe I should have told Shane to get in the back instead.

Off to my right, I saw Chunk and Babs getting into Soupy’s SUV. Good deal. Everyone was on the way.

I climbed into the driver’s seat and started up my car.

“While it’s only the three of us,” Shane said, with a meaningful glance over his shoulder at Vladdie, who was muttering something—likely uncomplimentary—in Russian beneath his breath, “where exactly are we going?”

I backed out of my spot and headed for the exit. “A drag show.” I turned out onto the street. Even though I was focused on the road in front of me, I could sense my brother’s shock.

“This has been planned for a while now, so don’t go thinking it has anything to do with you being here.”

If anything, it had more to do with Colesy, but I had no intention of outing my teammate to anyone, including my brother. Nor did I have plans to out my brother to my teammates. If he wanted to, that was his prerogative and I wouldn’t try to stop him.

“Maybe it’s not such a good idea for me to come with you guys,” Shane said.

“Why not? Drag queens not your thing?” Even as I asked, I wished I hadn’t. Maybe the problem was that they were definitely his thing. I didn’t know. I didn’t have the first clue about any of it where my brother was concerned, and my words had come out much harsher than I’d intended.

“I don’t want to do or say anything that would embarrass you,” he said after a protracted silence.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “You’re my brother, Shane. I love you. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or anything else of the sort.”

“Yeah.” He stared out the window on his side, though, and I knew he didn’t believe me.

Why should he believe anything out of my mouth, though? They were only words, and my actions for so many years didn’t line up with what I was telling him now. I couldn’t blame him for his doubt.

Neither of us spoke the rest of the way to Old Town. We parked in a lot about a block away from the pizzeria and got out to a biting cold wind. A few of the guys had beat us here and had already arranged for a big grouping of tables. Vladdie took a seat next to Slava Lukashenko—Luka being the only other Russian on the team—and loosened up a bit now that he had someone nearby that he could say more than five words to.

I pulled out a chair near Babs, toward the middle of the group, but Shane chose to go off to the end of the long line of tables, separating himself from me. Fair enough. The mess I’d made of our relationship had been years in the making. It wouldn’t be sorted out overnight. I gave a brief start when I saw Colesy take up the seat next to Shane, but then I shrugged it off. Maybe they’d hit it off? Although I wasn’t sure either of them had any plans of outing themselves, so that might be taking too big of a leap.

The rest of the guys showed up, and we all talked and laughed and ate and drank. They had a TV on in the background, but for the most, part none of us paid it any attention, preferring instead to enjoy the present company. During the season, the team ended up spending a hell of a lot of time together, so much that we became like brothers.

A couple of the guys toasted Babs and bought him another round of beer. He was laughing and joking, taking all the good-natured ribbing in stride, until something on the TV caught his eye. I looked up in time to see Katie Weber, Webs’s oldest daughter and the girl Babs had had a crush on for more than two years, at some red-carpet event in Hollywood. It was worse than just seeing her, though. She was on the arm of some slick actor, one of her costars in the show she was set to star in. Well, on his arm wasn’t quite right. More like they were all over each other.

I cuffed Babs on the back of his head to distract him. “Another beer?”

He quirked a grin at me and took the beer, but I doubted he’d get that image out of his head anytime soon.

The next time I got up, I asked the employees if they could change the channel, give us ESPN or something safer. Something that wouldn’t be likely to give him more reminders of the one who’d gotten away.

That only made me think of my own girl who’d gotten away. Brie had agreed to come over to my place tomorrow—several of the guys and their friends and families would be there, too, since so many were in town for the Christmas holidays—but she was coming as a friend only, not as my girlfriend. I was nervous. I wanted to see her, but I didn’t know how well I’d be able to keep my hands off her. And Shane was coming, too, now that he was here. She’d meet him. Would he talk about all the things I couldn’t? Would she hate me as much as he did once she knew?

I wallowed in the comfort of my own beer until it was time for us to head over to Darcelle XV and then paid our tab. When we got up to go, I put an arm around Babs’s shoulders, making sure he couldn’t make a quick escape, and hauled him along beside me. I checked to make sure Vladdie wasn’t far behind us, since he was underage and we were going to have to work some magic to get him in, and we set off for our next destination.

The building where the drag show took place was only about half a block away, if that. We literally only had to cross the street and go around the corner. When we stood in front of the door, Babs stopped cold.

“Are you serious?” he deadpanned.

I dragged him inside. “Serious as a heart attack. Come on. It’ll be fun.” I dropped my voice so only he would hear me. “Besides, it’ll help you to stop thinking about Katie for a bit.” And it would hopefully help me to stop thinking about Brie.

He gave me a look that said I’d clearly lost my mind, but he came through the doorway without putting up a fight. The other guys followed behind us, most of them not overly enthusiastic. Still, they all went in.

I’d made reservations for us so the host ushered us all in, seating us right in front of the stage without bothering to check any IDs. Good. That meant I didn’t have to lie about Vladdie’s age or do any smooth talking to get him in.

“And who is our birthday boy?” the host asked, flashing a grin. He eyed us all up and down, clearly enjoying the view.

“Babs is.” I shoved him forward, taking immense pleasure in the way he was blushing and stammering. This was definitely a birthday he would never forget.

A couple of the drag queens came over. One of them wrapped a feather boa around Babs’s neck. The other put a crown on his head and gave him a kiss on the cheek that left lipstick prints behind.

All of the boys whooped and gave him a hard time, but it was Colesy and Shane that my eyes sought out in all of this. They’d taken seats near the back of our group. Neither looked uncomfortable, for which I sent up silent thanks. They were laughing and enjoying Babs’s embarrassment as much as the rest of us.

A photographer came along and organized us all for a shot with Darcelle, the drag queen who’d started this show decades ago. They sat Babs down on a chair, and Darcelle sat on his knee with an arm wrapped around his shoulders.

After that, we all ordered drinks and settled in for the show, feeling a bit looser about it all. Babs leaned over toward me right before the lights went down. “You know I’m going to kill you for this, right?”

“I’d expect no less.” I flashed him a grin.

This time, he cuffed me on the back of the head.

The music started up, bright lights flashed, and the drag queens came out in all their glittery, made-up, fake-eyelashed glory.

Through the whole show, they paid a lot of extra attention to our group. It probably wasn’t every night that they had a big group of muscular, mostly straight men sitting in the front, and they didn’t seem to care about which way any of us swung, anyway. Tonight, we were their captive audience. Babs, in particular, got a ton of attention from the various drag queens as the night went on.

I was a little surprised when, a few numbers in, Jonny reached into his pocket and pulled out a bill, waving it for the performer. The drag queen came down off the stage, sat in his lap, and encouraged Jonny to put the money in his cleavage.

That seemed to be all it took to get the rest of the guys to loosen up completely. This might not be something any of the other guys would have come up with for Babs’s birthday, but they decided to make a fun night out of it. I was glad to see that Babs took it all in stride, too, even taking a few dollar bills from me to offer up on occasion.

I kept checking back over my shoulder to see how Colesy and Shane were reacting, though. It was only when, about halfway through the show, I caught Shane’s eye and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod that I could relax.

It was going to be all right. Somehow, I was going to make it all right.

NEVER IN MY life did I think I would end up backstage at a rock concert, let alone backstage with The End of All Things, only one of the biggest bands in the world. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d known that they were based out of Portland, but it wouldn’t have ever crossed my mind that I’d get the chance to meet them. Not until Devin had shown up at our rehearsal this afternoon brandishing a stack of tickets and telling me he’d been offered a chance to work with them.

So here I was, along with Devin, Tanya, and a few of the other dancers involved in the show Devin was putting together, surrounded by the six members of a band I had idolized for more than a decade. I was trying to act cool, calm, and collected, but I was fairly certain it was coming across as boring and intimidated out of my ever-loving mind.

I’d grabbed a bottle of water off the table laden with every type of food and drink imaginable and found a seat off in the corner where hopefully I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself. One of the other dancers, Emily Bergen, had come over to join me about ten minutes ago, and we were keeping up a nice flow of chitchat. She seemed immune to the celebrity we were surrounded by, so I had to wonder if she even had a clue who The End of All Things was. At least talking with her helped me to keep my mind off Keith and the party he was holding at his house tomorrow. I was probably more nervous about going to that than I was about being here around one of the biggest bands in the world, so that was definitely saying something.

I didn’t know how I would react when I saw him again, and I definitely didn’t know how he’d react to me being there. Yes, he’d invited me, but that didn’t mean he really wanted me there. I’d hurt him. There’d been no way to misunderstand the look in his eyes when I’d asked to step back, to only be friends.

He didn’t want to be just friends.

I didn’t particularly want that, either, but I refused to settle for being in a relationship like what we’d been building. It wasn’t enough for me. I needed more than great sex and tell-me-about-your-day conversations.

That, and Tanya’s enthusiasm over the prospect of getting to go out with Devin—even if we would be surrounded by a bunch of other people—was what had convinced me to come along tonight. It was better than sitting at home alone gorging myself on pickles, after all, even if Richie and BC were as sweet as could be.

At the moment, Emily was telling me all about a dance class she’d just taken—Bollywood—when Devin cleared his throat from over her shoulder. I looked up to find he wasn’t alone; flanking him on either side were Kellan Davies and Emery Johnson from the band.

Kellan, with his spiky black hair and gold tips, was the lead singer that every girl I’d gone to high school with had drooled over at night. Emery’s skin looked like smooth, dark coffee and his eyes and dreadlocks matched. He was the guy in the band who played a little bit of everything--keyboards, saxophone, trumpet, guitar, some percussion. Not only that but everyone said he was the genius behind their unique sound, a rocker with so much soul it seemed to ooze out of his fingertips.

“Emily, do you mind if we steal Brie for a few minutes?” Devin asked.

What on earth did they want with me?

“Not at all,” she said, winking at me as though I was in on whatever it was. Apparently she knew, even if I was in the dark. “There’s something I need to go tell Tanya, anyway.” She was up and scurrying to the opposite corner of the room before I could object.

Kellan took the seat she’d vacated, making my nerves shoot through the roof, and Emery and Devin sat across from us.

“So there’s not a lot of time before they have to hit the stage,” Devin said, “so I’m going to cut straight to it. You know that the guys asked me to choreograph a routine for their next music video. Kellan and Emery just played the song for me, and the idea that struck me was to do something similar to what you and I are working on already.”

“Devin told us about that,” Emery said. “We want to see it so we can decide if it’s what we’re looking for or if we want him to come up with a different idea.”

To this point, I kept sitting there, nodding as though I understood what was going on, even though it all felt surreal. I still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that I was talking with two of the guys from The End of All Things, never mind what they were saying. I reached for my bottle of water and unscrewed the cap, putting it to my mouth for a sip.

“So will you dance for us?” Kellan asked.

I spluttered and would have spewed my water all over Devin and Emery if not for quickly covering my mouth with my hand, keeping it in. I coughed on it, hard enough that Kellan started pounding on my back, which only made me freak out more because, Oh my God, Kellan Davies was pounding on my back.

“Are you all right?” Emery asked, but my eyes were watering and I couldn’t seem to get myself enough air to speak. All I could do was nod as the fit slowly subsided into a random cough here and there. “You’re sure?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I croaked. My voice sounded like sandpaper. Thank goodness I wasn’t a singer because that would be ugly.

Kellan grinned at me when it seemed the worst had passed. “So what does that mean as to whether you’ll dance for us?” he asked.

“I don’t… When?”

“Right now,” Devin said. He stood up and reached out a hand for me.

“But we’re not ready, and I’m not dressed—”

“They want to see it now, and they have to go onstage in a few minutes. It doesn’t have to be perfect. We just need to show them what we’re working on, give them the flavor of it.”

Somehow, I ended up on my feet and following Devin out into the wide, concrete walkway of the arena, with the guys from the band coming along behind me. It wasn’t only Emery and Kellan, though. All six of them came out and one of them pulled out an iPod and some speakers. The next thing I knew, the music to “Love Runs Out” had started, and I was in Devin’s arms and dancing the routine we had been putting together.

I had worn jeans tonight since we were going to a rock concert—the first time in recent memory that I’d gone much of anywhere in pants instead of a long, baggy skirt—and I had on a stretchy, fitted blouse. Definitely not something that felt right for dancing an Argentine tango. I was also wearing one of the new bras. Tanya had been right; they fit me properly, and they made my clothes look better, and I had more self-assurance wearing them. At least I was wearing heels, even if they weren’t proper dance shoes. Still, I didn’t feel even remotely confident about performing in front of The End of All Things dressed like this.

After the first couple of bars of music, Devin pulled me in to a closed hold and he met my eyes. “Breathe,” he said.

I took a breath and held his gaze, and the music and the movement began to take over. Amagues and pasadas, caresses and ganchos, all mixed with the lyrical qualities of Devin’s contemporary phrasing.

My breath caught when he lifted me, and I twined my legs around his waist, my back arching so far it felt as though I would fall at any moment. I didn’t fall, though. He held me the same as he always had in practice, keeping our bodies in perfect balance. When he set me down on my feet again, he swept me away into the next phase of the routine. I felt almost weightless as we moved together, telling a story through movement that could never be expressed in words.

About two-thirds of the way through the song, we came to a stop. That was as far as we’d choreographed at this point, even though our performance was only about two weeks away. Devin still had me in a ballroom hold, and he caught my eyes as we both attempted to catch our breath.

“I’ve got a great idea for what we should do there,” he said, winking. “Remind me to tell you tomorrow.”

I could only nod because the guys from The End of All Things were coming over to us, all of them talking over one another and trying to get our attention. Still trying to remember how to breathe, I only took in two things. One, they loved it. And two, they wanted us to choreograph and dance for their music video.

Us. Meaning both of us.

Not just Devin.

They wanted me, too.

I doubted I’d ever remember how to breathe again, and all I could think about was how bad I wished I could call Keith and tell him.

“I’LL HAVE YOU know I’ve got the police pre-programmed into my phone so I can issue a noise complaint.” Mrs. Stephenson waved her phone in front of me as though that proved her point. As soon as she’d seen all of the cars coming along the street and parking near my house, she’d stomped over to let me have a piece of her mind. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”

As if I would ever doubt it, considering she’d already done exactly that at least three times since the start of the hockey season, and who knew how many times in the previous years. “This isn’t going to be a loud party. It’s only my teammates and their families—wives, girlfriends, kids, parents, you name it—coming for a little Christmas get together.” As though to prove my point, Soupy and Rachel pulled up and parked right at that moment, and Rachel’s son Tuck bounded down from the SUV, running straight for me.

“Mr. Soupy said you have three dogs, Mr. Burnzie,” he said, his smile as big as his face. He had a green cape tied around his neck and a matching Santa hat on his head.

His sister Maddie came over a lot more slowly than he had, her hair the same bright red as both his and Rachel’s. “And Mommy said you have to be nice to the dogs because they’re big enough to eat you.”

His grin turned into a goofy expression, half scowl, half worry.

“They don’t eat superheroes,” I said to him with a wink.

That brought the grin back just in time for Soupy, Rachel, and Babs to join us. I hadn’t seen Babs get out of their SUV, but he must have since I didn’t see his car anywhere. He lived across the hall from them in a big condo.

He picked Tuck up and tossed him over his shoulder. “Come on, Ginger Ninja. Let’s get inside where it isn’t so cold.” They walked off with the little boy squealing with giggles.

Soupy rolled his eyes as he took Maddie’s hand, and the rest of them followed Babs and Tuck into the house, leaving me to finish dealing with Mrs. Stephenson in relative peace.

She was scowling when I returned my attention to her. “You just see that you keep the noise to a minimum,” she said, huffing as she stomped off back to her house.

Honestly, with all the party goings-on taking place inside and as much distance between our houses as there was, I doubted she ever heard anything more than cars coming and going. She liked to stick her nose in other peoples’ business, and issuing complaints about me allowed her to gather as much information as she could about who was coming to my house. I was pretty sure she was the source for a number of minor things that had leaked out into social media about me in the time since I’d bought the house, not that any of it was anything worth trying to hide or being ashamed of.

“And a merry Christmas to you, as well!” I called out after her retreating form.

When I turned to go back inside, I caught sight of Brie coming down the road from the direction of the bus stop. I had to curb the desire to rush over to her and pull her into my arms, instead shoving my hands into my pockets and walking like there was nothing of the sort on my mind.

“I’m glad you came,” I said when we were close enough to talk. Even though she’d said she would, I’d had my doubts.

“Me too,” she said, giving me a shy look. Then her eyes flitted over to the long line of cars parked in front of my place, and she took a deep breath.

“It’ll be fine.” I reached for her hand and then hesitated. Just friends, I had remind myself. That meant I couldn’t go all grabby hands and haul her up against my side. I shoved it back into my pocket so I wouldn’t be tempted. “There are a lot of people, but I think you’ll like them. I know they’ll like you.”

She nodded and walked toward the house. “I’ll be fine.” She shivered against the cold.

“I wish you had let me come to get you instead of taking the bus.” It took a hell of a lot of restraint to keep from putting my arms around her to warm her up.

“You needed to be here for everyone arriving.”

I could have left Shane to do that, though. But then, Brie didn’t know he was here. I’d forced myself to avoid calling her or texting her over the last couple of days, giving her the space she’d wanted.

“Well, at least let me take you home later. I don’t want you out waiting for the bus so late.”

She gave me another shy smile. “All right. I can do that.”

At least she would agree to that. It may have only been a small thing, but it was one brief way for me to spend a little time alone with her.

I opened the door and ushered her inside. Once I had closed the door behind us and the sounds of holiday music and laughter and chatter met our ears, I reached for her coat. She unbuttoned it and took it off, and my mouth watered at what she revealed underneath.

She’d worn a pair of black slacks that I’d been with her to buy, and she had on a green, white, and red checked shirt underneath. It was some sort of silky material that draped over her breasts in a way that made me want to toss her over my shoulder and carry her up to my bedroom, guests be damned. Her new bras must have come in, too. The cut of her blouse gave me a tiny peek at the top edge of her bra—a sage, satiny thing that looked completely different from anything I’d ever seen her in before.

She looked like a dream.

Of course, I should have known that the new stuff had arrived—the lingerie I’d ordered was here, too, sitting upstairs still unopened. I should probably give it to her, even if she wouldn’t let me see her in it. Not right now, though. That was going to be an awkward enough exchange even if we weren’t surrounded by a bunch of other people. How would she react when I gave it to her?

“Um…” She cleared her throat, and a gorgeous blush raced up her neck and cheeks. “Are you going to just stand there holding my coat?”

“Sorry.” I forced myself to stop staring at her long enough to hang her coat in the closet. This was going to be impossible, having her so close but not being able to touch her, to pull her into a private room and kiss her senseless, to take her to my bed and make her come until she realized that we weren’t meant to be just friends. Today was going to be utter and complete torture for me.

“You look amazing,” I finally said to ease the awkwardness between us.

“Thank you.” Brie didn’t look at me when she said it—she was too busy staring at the floor—but she didn’t try to deny it or shrug it off, either. So maybe it was starting to sink in. I hoped so, at least.

“The party’s this way,” I said, leading her toward the stairs down to the lower floors. Before we’d gone two steps down, my doorbell rang.

“Go get it,” she said. “I can find my way.” She kept going down the steps without waiting for a response.

I turned around and headed back up to find Luka and Vladdie waiting at the door along with Luka’s wife and baby—and an unexpected sight for sore eyes. Nicky Ericsson was standing directly behind them, his blond hair longer than normal and looking like it hadn’t seen a comb in a week.

I welcomed them all in, taking their coats and sending the Russian contingency downstairs so I could pull Nicky into a hug.

“How are you doing, man?” I asked, slapping him on the back because I was so glad to see him I didn’t know what else to do.

“Good,” he said. “Better.” He backed away a step and shrugged. “I just got out of rehab again yesterday. Kally said everyone was going to be here and that I should come.”

“Fucking right, you should come.” I started making mental calculations as to how much alcohol I had around and how I was going to keep it away from him.

“I’m not drinking,” he said, as though he could read my thoughts. “And I haven’t taken anything. I need to start getting back to life as usual. Kally and Noelle are going to stick right by my side the whole time I’m here,” he added. “It’ll be fine.”

Kally had arrived about fifteen minutes before. I nodded, and a big grin spread across my face. “All right. Sounds like a plan. I’m just so fucking glad to see your ugly face, I can’t even tell you.”

“My ugly face?” he scoffed. “Have you had a look in the fucking mirror lately?”

He headed down the stairs toward the sounds of the party. I went with him and helped him find Kally in the sea of faces. In no time, pretty much all the boys realized he was there, and he was surrounded by well-wishes and good-natured ribbing. The doorbell rang again, and I left him under Kally’s watchful eye.

Half an hour later, everyone had arrived and the party was in full swing. I was finally able to head downstairs and join everyone, and I immediately looked for Brie in the crowd. She was easy enough to find with her strawberry-blond hair. It called to me like a beacon, and I headed across the room to where she was seated near the fireplace in the corner. She had a plate of appetizers on her lap and a glass in her hand, and she was smiling like she always did in my dreams at night.

It was only when I reached her that I realized who she was sitting and talking to. She’d found Colesy, for which I was glad. He was someone she already knew, at least. But Shane was sitting with the two of them, and it was him she was smiling at.

My heart plummeted. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to know my brother. I wanted that more than I could say. The problem was that I didn’t know what he might say to her, and I had no idea how long he’d already been sitting there talking with her. There was no telling how much he might have already told her.

She might never want to have anything to do with me again if he’d revealed how much I’d bullied Garrett, all the things I’d said to him and called him. If she knew how it was the way I’d treated him that had led to him taking his own life.

I swallowed hard, waging an internal debate over whether I should go over and join them or make myself scarce. Before I’d made up my mind, she looked up and her eyes fell on me almost immediately.

She smiled.

There wasn’t a chance in hell that I would be able to stop my feet from heading in her direction right then. She patted the seat beside her when I got close, so I sat—although not as close to her as I would have liked.

Shane gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. “Brie was just telling us how she’s going to be choreographing and dancing in a music video for The End of All Things.”

“Are you?” That was something I would have definitely remembered if she’d mentioned it.

She gave me an apologetic look. “Apparently so. It’s all happening out of the blue.”

At least that meant it wasn’t something she’d been keeping from me. There were definitely things I hadn’t been able to tell her, but as far as I knew, she was only prone to hiding her body from me.

“That’s exciting,” I said. “We should celebrate.”

“It’s terrifying, is what it is.”

“But well earned,” Colesy put in. “If you can teach me to dance…”

“You’re learning to dance?” Shane asked him.

“A little here and there to help my core and balance for skating.” He shrugged. “Some ballroom, a little ballet.” He kept his voice down.

I understood his caution, but I doubted anyone who wasn’t right here with us would hear him. “And it’s already paying off,” I said.

I felt Shane’s eyes fall on me, a thousand painful questions roiling under his stare. So it’s okay for your teammate to dance, just not your brother, huh?

“When’s the next class you’re going to?” I asked. “I might join you again.”

That caused both Shane and Brie to turn sharp looks on me.

“You’re going to dance classes?” Shane demanded.

“He’s come to one,” Colesy said, definitely unaware of the tension between me and my brother.

“The academy is closed for the rest of the year for the holidays,” Brie said, but her tone had turned wary. She wasn’t so sure she wanted me to come to any of her classes, then.

Distance. Just friends. Fuck, this was going to kill me.

“I guess that means you’ll have plenty of time to work with Devin,” I said, trying to ease into a safe subject. If we were still seeing each other, it would mean plenty of time she could spend with me, too. She could come to my games. She could get to know my friends, the people in my life.

She could be a buffer of sorts between me and Shane. Not that I’d use her as one. There was already too much between my brother and me to warrant putting anyone or anything else in that chasm if I could avoid it.

“Yeah, I should. Thank goodness, too, now that we’ll be working on this project with The End of All Things.” She spent a few minutes telling us how that had come about, how they’d been at the concert last night and danced for the band. How it still felt surreal and she couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that something like this was happening to her.

Having watched her dance with Devin that day, I knew exactly how it was happening. There was no reason she shouldn’t still be dancing professionally as she had before her health had turned on her other than her own inability or unwillingness to see that she was still entirely capable.

I hung around with the three of them for a while, wishing that I could take Brie somewhere alone for a bit but not daring to try it. She didn’t seem inclined to ask Shane any questions about the past. She didn’t bring up Garrett. She made no effort at all to get him to tell her all the things that I’d been unable to. The conversation stayed on the present—her work, our game against the Wild yesterday, how embarrassed Babs had been at Darcelle XV last night—fully focused on safe subjects. At some point, I stopped worrying about what Shane might tell her and started noticing instead little things about my brother…and my teammate.

They’d stuck together a lot last night, so it was only natural for Shane to gravitate toward Colesy today. Out of everyone here, besides me, Colesy was probably the one that Shane already knew the best. But there were little things in the way they looked at each other that made me start to wonder.

After a while, I had to get up and mingle with the rest of my guests, playing the host. I went down to the game room and made sure that all the kids were having a good time. I brought more food down from the kitchen, making sure we wouldn’t run out of anything. I moved from group to group, from room to room, spending a few minutes with everyone that was here.

Even though Webs was one of the coaches now, not one of my teammates, I’d invited him and his family to come today, as well. They’d been part of everything with the boys for a long time, so it only seemed natural.

I found him hanging out with a couple of the older, married guys and their wives in the TV room, sipping on a beer. The TV was on, and it flashed to one of the images from last night of Katie with that guy on the red carpet. Webs glared at the TV. “Fucking dipshit better get his fucking hands off my little girl. She should have fucking stayed here and dated Babs.”

“I thought Babs was a dipshit, too,” Zee said. “At least you called him one a bunch of times.”

Zee’s wife, Dana, got up so she could stretch and walk around. She was seriously pregnant, near to bursting, and it looked like she couldn’t get comfortable. She put both hands on the small of her back for support, which made her belly stand out more than it already did. “You said she had to make her own choices,” she reminded Webs. “And she has.”

“I never said she should make stupid choices like getting involved with that asswipe,” he said, pointing at the TV screen. “He’s nothing but trouble.”

I took a look at the screen and made a note of the guy’s name—Jesse Carmichael. I hadn’t heard of him, beyond seeing him with Katie on TV a bit and knowing that he was going to be in a new show with her. I didn’t really keep up with any of the Hollywood stuff, though. I was more focused on things that affected me directly. Although, I supposed now that Katie was in Hollywood, things like that did affect Webs directly, if not me.

“And you’re not there to beat the snot out of him,” Laura Weber said, rolling her eyes. “We know.”

“She’ll be all right,” Dana said. “Katie has a good head on her shoulders. She might make a few mistakes along the way, but she’ll come out of it okay.”

“If she doesn’t,” Webs said, “you can fucking bet I’ll beat the snot out of that motherfucker. And I’m going to have a few things to say to her when she gets home tomorrow. You can count on that.”

“Don’t be too hard on her, Webs,” Soupy said. “You’ve got to let her live some.”

Webs snorted, but he didn’t say anything else.

I stuck around with them for a while before moving on again.

Babs was hanging out with a few of the younger guys on the team, blissfully unaware of what he’d been missing in terms of seeing Katie with Jesse Carmichael hanging all over her again.

Vladdie and Radek “Radar” Cernak were sitting together in the den, trying to come up with some sort of common language they could use with each other. Radar was the only Czech player on the team and spoke very little English—only slightly more than Vladdie did. I doubted anyone else would be able to understand the pair of them, but at least they seemed to be getting along.

With the kids otherwise occupied, I caught Soupy making out with Rachel in a quiet room. They probably didn’t get a ton of time for that kind of thing. It only made me want to do the same with Brie, though, so I quickly moved along.

I dropped in here and there, talking for a few minutes, sharing a laugh, but I felt as alone in my big house as I was when it was only me and my dogs.

I’d bought this house a few months before Garrett died. I’d hoped it would be a place that my parents and brothers would come to spend time with me when they could. None of them had ever seen it until now—until Shane had shown up a couple of days ago.

After a while, people started to take their leave. I saw them all out to their cars, making sure everyone got away safely. Since I’d left Brie and Shane talking while I made sure everyone got to their cars all right, I didn’t worry about taking a few extra minutes talking to Nicky before he headed home. He didn’t seem drunk or high or anything else of the sort, so I was able to go back inside breathing a little easier about that, at least.

I still didn’t know how it would be when Brie and I were alone together in my car, and I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted myself not to try to kiss her. Nevertheless, I’d asked her to let me take her home, and so there was no more point in putting it off. I headed back inside to grab the package of lingerie from upstairs and steal her away from my brother.

A bump against the wall in the stairs leading to the upper floor stopped me in my tracks, and I turned to see if maybe she was up there. It wasn’t Brie I saw, though, but Shane. And Colesy.

Kissing.

Colesy had pushed Shane up against the wall, and their hands were all over each other in a touch-and-grab frenzy of movement. I felt like a voyeur watching them, especially when Shane opened his eyes and met my gaze. Colesy broke off the kiss. Shane stared me down, daring me to look away, as though trying to will me to let my disgust show.

I wasn’t disgusted, though, and I refused to let him think I was. I kept watching for a few moments more, and then I backed away with a nod and a smile. There was another set of stairs I could use to get up to my room. I didn’t need to disturb the two of them and embarrass Colesy, just to get the sexy bits I’d bought for Brie. Granted, he was making out with my brother in my house, so he must not be too worried about me discovering them.

Still. One step at a time. One of these days, Shane would know that I loved him and accepted him exactly as he was.

KEITH WAS PRETTY quiet the whole way back to my place. He didn’t seem upset, exactly—pensive was probably more accurate. I wasn’t sure what I could say to draw him out, or even if I should say anything at all, so neither of us talked the entire ride until right before he turned onto my street.

“I miss talking to you,” he said so softly that I almost didn’t hear him over the constant sound of the car radio. “I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I like being able to hear your voice.”

I thrummed my fingers on my thigh, weighing my response. “We can still talk, you know. Friends talk.” Friends often talked about a heck of a lot more than the two of us ever had. With all the friends I’d had over the years—the ones who were more than merely acquaintances—I knew about their families, their pasts, their hopes and dreams. Those were the kinds of things I knew from their own mouths, not little bits and pieces I had gleaned secondhand from someone in their family who had unintentionally let a secret slip.

If Keith and I hadn’t already been sleeping together from the start, of course, and had instead begun as acquaintances working our way toward friendship, it wouldn’t bother me so much that he couldn’t talk to me about his family and his past yet. We hadn’t known each other very long at all. That was further proof that we’d jumped into the deep end of an icy pool without bothering to learn how to swim before taking the plunge.

He gave me a half-grin, definitely of the cheeky variety. “I just can’t go all grabby hands while we do it, huh?”

He was trying. I could appreciate the fact that he was making an effort, not pushing me away now that I’d insisted on getting to know him beyond the confines of the bedroom.

I chuckled. “Exactly.”

“I love your laugh, Brie.”

A desperate heat welled up in my belly and spread to my limbs. I had to find some way to quash that response to him or I’d never stick to my guns.

He pulled into a spot near my apartment and put the car in park. “Thank you for coming today, even if I didn’t get much time to spend with you. I wanted you to know the people in my life, if nothing else.”

Which only served as further proof of his efforts. I had a ton of respect for that. He wanted a real relationship even if he didn’t know how to have one anymore.

“I want to know them, too.” I chose my next words cautiously, fully aware that I might be opening a can of worms Keith wasn’t ready to face. “It was good to meet your brother. I didn’t know he would be here.”

He let out a snorting sort of laugh. “Neither did I.”

“Shane made it seem like he hadn’t really seen you much in a while. Several years.”

Pretty much since Garrett died, actually, based on what little I’d managed to piece together from what he’d said—and what he’d neglected to say. Shane didn’t seem any more inclined to talk about the past than Keith was, or at least not with me. But why should he tell me anything? All he had wanted to do was keep me entertained and try to sort out if he liked me at all during his brother’s party. It was kind of sweet, actually. Shane had stuck right by my side the whole time I’d been there, him and Cole, and it had seemed as though he was vetting me to determine if I was good enough for Keith.

The Burns brother with me now stayed silent.

“He said you two don’t really see each other even over your summers off when you go back to Nova Scotia,” I added, cautiously testing the waters a little more.

Everything about Keith tensed now—his jaw, his shoulders, the grip of his fingers on the steering wheel. I’d pushed too hard.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“How much did he tell you?” There wasn’t even the slightest hint of anger in his voice. Only pain, deep and raw and thoroughly unrelieved.

My hand itched to reach across the divide and soothe him, but I couldn’t do that. That was against the rules, and I’d been the one to set them in the first place; I couldn’t cross that boundary. “Not much,” I finally said. “Only that he doesn’t get to see you very often.” I’d read between the lines and had formed my own conclusions, but there were still a ton of gaps in my interpretation.

The tension surrounding Keith was only growing. Nothing I had said was doing a darn thing to ease it. I should have left talk of his family alone and kept our conversation to lighter topics. I shouldn’t have tried to get him to talk about his past the very first time we’d seen each other after insisting we’d been moving things too fast, skipping too many steps.

“Do you—” I broke off, not entirely sure if inviting him up was wise of me, considering the circumstances. But there really wasn’t anything else to be done, as far as I could see. “Do you want to come upstairs and talk for a while?” I’d have to be sure to keep some distance between us physically. I might be able to use BC for that, actually. My cat would be all over us, and the cat could keep Keith’s hands busy.

His lips quirked up the tiniest bit at my invitation. “As long as you’re sure it doesn’t break any of your just friends rules.”

“If you keep your hands to yourself, everything will be fine.” I gave him a wink.

“There are plenty of things I can do without the use of my hands, you know. My lips and tongue have some skill…” Even as he made the lewd joke, he shut off the engine and got out of the car, grabbing the package he’d tossed in the backseat when we left his place. He came around to open my door for me, but he made a show of not reaching for my hand, merely sweeping an arm to the side in an overly grand gesture, indicating that I should lead the way.

I shook my head, unable to stop myself from smiling at him.

Once we got up to my apartment, I took off my coat and hung it in the hall closet. I turned around for his and caught him appreciatively eyeing my backside.

“Knock that off,” I warned him, reaching for his coat. Damn if I didn’t nearly laugh when I said it, though. He wouldn’t take me seriously if I couldn’t keep a straight face.

He handed it over to me and held his hands up in surrender. “No touching, like I promised, but I can’t help but enjoy the view. Please don’t ask me not to look because that’ll just about kill me. Have I ever told you how amazing your ass is?”

My breath caught. He was bound and determined to flirt with me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t prevent myself from reacting in kind. I closed my eyes for a moment while I was hanging his coat next to mine, trying to compose myself with the knowledge that even as I did so, he was staring at my butt.

“You haven’t,” I finally managed to say, jumping slightly when something brushed against my leg, until I realized that it was only BC coming to greet me. “But that’s not what we’re going to talk about right now.”

“Damn. Too bad.” Keith backed out of the way as I moved past him into the kitchen, BC racing me the whole way.

“Something to drink?” I asked.

“Whatever you’re having.”

I grabbed two bottles of water, handing one to him as I made my way into the living room. BC came running after me again when I headed toward the couch, leaping up onto my lap when I’d only been sitting for about 0.024 seconds. I would never figure out how he managed to time that move, but he always executed it perfectly. I set my water bottle down on the coffee table so I could use both hands to rub on him. I’d been gone a lot lately, and both my boys missed me. I’d have to make it up to Richie later tonight, after Keith left. There was no chance he would come out of his hiding spot until then.

Keith sat next to me, maintaining a safe distance and tossing the package on the coffee table. He looked at me funny, one eyebrow cocked in question, and then he sniffed a couple of times and laughed. “It smells like pickles in here.”

I sniffed, too. Crap. Sure enough, there was a definite vinegar-and-dill scent on the air. BC must have actually knocked some of the pickle juice out of the jar without me realizing it the other night. I wouldn’t have noticed it then since I’d had pickle juice all over my hands and filling my mouth. “So it does,” I murmured.

“You have a thing for pickles?”

“Sometimes,” I said evasively. He didn’t need to know why I’d been eating them. Especially since he already seemed to think I ate like a bird.

“Mmm-hmm.” Keith reached over, and for the briefest moment I thought he was going to touch me. For an even briefer moment, I thought I might let him. It turned out that he only intended to scratch BC’s ears, which my cat loved, of course. His purr motor kicked into high gear, and he closed his eyes in blissful surrender. BC was an absolute wanton for human attention.

Almost as wanton as I was for Keith’s attention. Yet again, I needed to redirect my thoughts, and fast, or I was liable to do something I would regret—like tossing my cat to the floor and sliding closer to Keith so that he would pet me until my purr motor was in overdrive.

He pointed toward the heavy, gray plastic package on my coffee table. “I, uh…I bought some things for you. Sexy things,” he clarified, and I felt heat race to my face again. “I ordered it before you said we needed to step back, but I thought you should still have them. Even if you never let me see you in them.”

Sexy things. Things I had no business wearing. Ever. My thoughts immediately went back to that little lacy bra he’d pointed out when I’d been ordering online. Based on the size of the package, though, there had to be a lot more than just that. A few scraps of lace didn’t take up that much space.

I shook my head. “Why did you order this for me?”

“Because you deserve to wear something that makes you feel as beautiful as you are.” He hadn’t hesitated, not even for a fraction of a second. “That’s where we started out, you know. That first night. I wanted to help you find your confidence again, to believe in yourself. I still want that.”

“I do believe in myself.” In some ways, at least.

“Someday, I want you to believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.”

I hadn’t brought him up here to talk about me. We’d already spent more than enough time on my body issues and all of that. Tonight, I wanted to see if I could get him to open up to me, even if it was only a small amount.

“So why don’t you see your family much?” I asked. I was probably pushing my luck in asking him that, but I had to try. I wanted to understand him. I wanted us to have a future, to be able to share not only our bodies but everything about ourselves.

He kept scratching BC’s ears, chewing his answer over—almost literally. He was grinding his teeth, and his forehead was drawn together above his nose. “It’s a long story,” he finally said. He hadn’t said it was a story he wouldn’t tell me, though.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You might not want to see me at all anymore—not even as friends—if I tell you.”

I highly doubted that, but he seemed entirely sincere in his belief. “If it was that bad, Shane wouldn’t be in Portland right now.”

“It is that bad. I still don’t know why he came to visit, but it’s even worse than that bad.”

“Try me.” I let my fingers move closer to his, almost close enough to touch him while we both scratched BC’s head.

“I’ve never—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “I’ve never talked to anyone about it. I don’t know how to start. And I don’t think I can take it if I tell you and then you do loathe me, like I know you will. I really care for you, Brie, and right now you’re the one person in my life that makes me feel like I’m not alone.”

Whatever it was, the pain of it was clearly ripping him to shreds on the inside. His eyes were dark and hollow, every muscle in his body ready to jerk into motion so he could run. I’d seen the fight-or-flight response enough in Richie to recognize it in this man before me. I never would have thought that Keith Burns was the sort to run from a problem; he seemed far more likely to confront things head-on. But right now, he looked ready to dart away and find himself a hiding spot just like my cat always did when he was afraid.

And that, more than anything before now, made my heart ache for this man. I wanted to comfort him. To help him face his fears instead of diving for cover.

I wanted him to let me.

“You’re not alone,” I said. Against my better judgment, I put my hand over his, leaving BC to his own devices. “You’re not. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. You have to talk to someone about it, whatever it may be, so why not me?”

WHY NOT BRIE? Because revealing what an ass I had been to my brother would be all it took to run her off as fast as lightning streaking across the sky. Brie was a dancer, for God’s sake, and everything I’d done and said to Garrett, all the things that had led to him taking his life, had been because he was a fucking dancer, and like the other kids I’d told him exactly how soft a choice that had been, even though I hadn’t really believed any of the things I’d said to him. The way we’d bullied him had been brutal. There was no explaining that away. No excusing it. She’d known him, and she was still pursuing the same path he had chosen, and he was dead because of me.

She would despise me if she knew the truth. She might think I believed the same things about her that I’d said to him, even though watching Brie dance was as good as breathing to me. She came to life when she was dancing in a way that I rarely saw in her. Hell, I rarely saw that kind of expressiveness in anyone. There was a light in her eyes when she was dancing that didn’t appear at any other time, at least as far as I could tell. If I revealed everything, she might not give me a chance to explain, not that there was any explanation.

But neither would she let me be with her—at least not in the way I wanted—if I continued to hide the truth or even attempted to hide it. I was stuck in a lose-lose situation. There wasn’t a reasonable way out of the mess I’d created, just like there wasn’t any way to undo the past.

She slid the pad of her thumb over the back of my hand in a soothing manner, and BC butted his head up against our joined hands. She gave him a little nudge on the backside. “Go sit with Keith, buddy. He needs you more than I do right now.” As though he had understood what she’d said, the cat got up from her lap and walked a few steps, stopping when he’d settled himself on mine.

With the hand Brie wasn’t holding, I stroked his back, and he arched up and purred, putting his face right up next to mine. He settled with his body stretched out all along my chest, almost in a hug. His long whiskers tickled my cheek. I didn’t realize that I needed a fucking hug until this damn cat gave me one. It was almost enough to make me crack, to break down everything I’d built around me to keep myself safe.

What a fucking joke that idea was. Why should I be kept safe? Where was the wall to keep Garrett safe when he’d needed it? It wasn’t anywhere because I’d bashed it in when, as his older brother, I should have been his wall. I should have been the one to tell all those other guys to go fuck themselves, that if they had a problem with my brother or with dancing, then they could take it up with me. I should have rearranged their faces for daring to be such fucking idiots. That was what a good brother would have done. But me? I’d joined in so they wouldn’t say I was gay, too, and pick on me the way we all picked on him. Because I was a chickenshit. Because I didn’t have the balls to stand up and do what was right. I was trying to do the right thing now, but I knew it was too little, too late.

In the here and now, the cat was still purring. He rubbed his cheek on mine, and he didn’t stop hugging me, and eventually I started to talk.

“I haven’t seen my family much since Garrett—” I stopped as suddenly as I’d started, nearly choking on the words. Even that little bit was almost too much. The words died in my throat, and I felt sick to my stomach, as though saying one more word would force all the life left in me up my throat and out through my mouth to wither away into nothingness. That might be preferable, except for the fact that the truth wouldn’t disappear—only what goodness remained. If I said the words, they would probably reverberate in my mind forever, never letting me go, and I would be stuck being nothing more than a miserable excuse for a brother and human being for the rest of my life.

Of course, that wouldn’t be any different than how things were already. I couldn’t let any of it go. Garrett couldn’t come back, he couldn’t live the life he’d been meant to live, so I didn’t deserve to be free.

Maybe that was what was really behind me faltering in my attempt to tell Brie—the idea that if I spoke it aloud, I’d be letting myself off the hook to an extent, and I knew enough to know I would never be worthy of whatever small relief it might provide.

“Since Garrett died?” she said softly. Somehow she’d moved closer to me, so close that the heat of her thigh was warming mine.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. That didn’t seem to help much. “Right,” I said, and my voice cracked again. I sounded like a fucking bullfrog, not like a grown-ass man. Like I was going to start crying. I hadn’t cried since I’d found Garrett hanging from a belt in my parents’ garage. Not when I told my parents and Shane and the police and Monica what had happened. Not at his funeral. Not in the time afterward, when Shane and my parents cut me out of their lives. Not when Gran revealed that Shane was gay and I understood the true extent of why my family wanted nothing to do with me.

She nodded, as though to encourage me to go on, and there was so much goddamn compassion in her eyes, and her cat rubbed his cheek on my jaw again, and I couldn’t take it. I didn’t deserve to be treated with that much fucking kindness. I tried to move the cat off my lap, but he didn’t get the memo; he climbed straight back into position, this time gently digging his claws into the fabric of my shirt. He had no intention of leaving.

“It’s my fault.” Even as the words left my lips, I felt a hot tear streak down my cheek.

“That you haven’t seen them?”

I nodded. “More than that. It’s my fault he died.”

“I…” Light as a butterfly, her fingers fluttered over my thigh and settled in place near my knee. “I thought he committed suicide.”

“He did. Because of me.” My anger at myself taking over, I brushed the fucking tears away with the back of my fist, nearly punching myself in the eye as I did it. “He never would have done it if I hadn’t—” If I hadn’t, what? Treated him like a piece of shit? Acted as if I wanted nothing to do with him, was disgusted by him? I was the one who was disgusting.

The more I revealed to Brie, the more I hated myself. Every second that passed increased the roiling in my gut, the heavy sinking sensation pressing down on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I was covered in sweat, an even sheen covering every inch of my skin and bubbling up, spreading, drowning me. Drowning would be too easy.

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“It was.” I couldn’t sit here and do this any longer. I couldn’t let her comfort me. There was no one less deserving of her comfort than me.

Brie reached to take my hand, and I jerked it away from her, nearly leaping to my feet in the same move. BC jumped out of my arms and flew halfway across the living room, hissing at me because of the sudden movement.

I was halfway to the door when she said, “Don’t run from this.” She placed a hand on my elbow, her too-gentle touch stopping my progress. I hadn’t even recognized the fact that I was trying to run from it—I never ran from my problems—but Brie knew. She slid her hand down to mine, taking it between both of hers. “You’ve been insisting on helping me to see myself the way you see me, and I’m still not sure I can do that, but I’m trying. But you can’t keep running away from this. From your past. You have to face your demons, Keith.”

What did she mean, I couldn’t keep running away from it? “I don’t make a habit of running from my life.”

“Don’t you?” She inched around in front of me, blocking my path to the door. “Why haven’t you seen your family, then?”

“Because they blame me. And they’re right.”

“They don’t blame you. Shane wouldn’t have come here to spend the holidays with you if he blamed you. He wouldn’t have spent the whole night glued to my side, trying to figure out if I’m good enough for you if he blamed you.”

“He was trying to figure out if he could somehow use you against me,” I argued.

“No, he wasn’t,” she insisted. “He loves you.”

“He might have…once.” I took another step toward the exit, and Brie backed up until she was pressed against her door, making sure I’d have to physically move her in order to leave. Her dual grip on my hand was firm, insistent.

“So what did you do, then? What was so awful that the people who once loved you supposedly stopped overnight?”

“It wasn’t overnight. It was years in the making.” Christ. Years. How long had I tortured my brother? Four years? Five? Once I’d left for college to pursue my hockey career and all of my so-called friends had gone off to do whatever they’d wanted, I’d stopped, but the damage had all been done by that point.

After that, I hadn’t really seen him much. He was busy with dance; I was busy with hockey. When we had seen each other, our relationship was strained. How could it not be? Those family gatherings where we were forced together were tense, awkward affairs, and it had gotten to the point where I’d avoided as many of them as possible. I’d only been home for a day following my rookie season with the Storm when I’d found him in the garage, and the plan had been for me to stick around for at least a month. There was no other explanation for what he’d done, why he’d done it. He couldn’t bear the thought of spending that much time with me. Ending everything had seemed preferable to pretending things were all right between us.

Brie let go with one of her hands, reaching up to brush some wetness from my cheek.

“Don’t.” I shook my head, backing away from her. She let me go, but at that point it was too late. Her compassion had opened the flood gates, and all the self-loathing and guilt and pain I’d been wallowing in for years, keeping bottled up inside me, it all came pouring out of me in a torrent.

I collapsed on the floor, dropping my head to my knees and wishing I could make it stop. But the more I tried to get myself back under control, the more it came out of me.

I don’t know how long I cried, how long I stayed there on the floor nearly in a fetal position. All I knew was that when it finally started to subside, when I became aware of anything beyond the pain wrenching my heart out through my eye sockets, Brie was on the floor beside me. My head was buried in her neck, and she had both arms wrapped around me. She didn’t say a word. She held me, stroking my head and back as my mother had when I was a little boy.

If she really understood what an ass I’d been, she would never want to touch me. She would kick me out and never look back. That was what she should do, at least.

So even though I didn’t know how I’d manage to get the words out, I started to tell her everything, waiting on the moment when her anger and disgust would prevail over her desire to comfort me.

Even though it took me over an hour to get it out, and she had countless opportunities to separate herself from me, she didn’t. We stayed right where we were, on the floor of her living room, her arms pulling me to her. At one point, I realized that BC had come back and settled himself on my lap again. I stroked his head the same way Brie kept stroking mine. Having something to do with my hands eased the telling, somehow. Later, I realized that another cat had joined us, as well. He was curled up in the bend of Brie’s knees, one eye on me but not running away. I supposed he’d eventually gotten used to the sound of my voice as I’d droned on and on, recounting all the vile things I’d done and said to my brother, the things that had led to his death.

I couldn’t understand why she was still sitting here with me when she should be kicking me out of her apartment.

“Garrett wasn’t gay?” she asked quietly after I’d fallen silent, other than some sniffles as I attempted to sort myself out.

“No. Not as far as I know. He always had girlfriends.”

“But Shane is.”

I nodded, but then I wondered how she knew. I hadn’t said anything about that. I’d only been confessing everything to do with how I’d treated Garrett.

I must have tensed in response, because she said, “I caught him and Cole kissing earlier, while you were out seeing everyone else to their cars. On the stairs. I backed away before they noticed me because I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“He’s never told me, you know,” I said. My throat was raw after all the talking and crying. “Gran let it slip a while back. I can only guess that he was afraid to tell me because…” There wasn’t any need to explain why. Everything I’d told her to that point was reason enough. “I saw them making out tonight, too.”

“Does he know?”

“He looked right at me, daring me to react.”

“But you didn’t, did you? You never meant any of the things you said to Garrett, and you’d never dream of saying anything like that to Shane.”

“But I still said them.”

“You did, because you were young and stupid and going along with peer pressure. We all make mistakes, Keith.”

“But most people don’t make mistakes like this.” Most people don’t kill someone they love through making stupid decisions.

“Do you know that there were no other factors playing in to Garrett’s decision?” she demanded. I tried to shrug it off, but she kept pressing. “There were rumors always flying around the ballroom community that he’d been suffering from depression for years. A lot of people who are highly competitive are depressed, you know. Especially if they always seem to fall just short of where they want to be. Val and I had been beating him and Monica a lot at that point. They came in second to us more than they came in first.”

“If he was depressed, it was because of me.”

“If he was depressed, it was because of a chemical imbalance in his body,” she argued. “Same as my thyroid issues. They screwed up my weight, my vision, my career… Depression is a disease, and external factors are only one part of it. They say it might run in families, you know. Has anyone else in your family ever been depressed?”

My mother had been taking anti-depressants for as long as I could remember. I didn’t want to let myself off the hook that easily, though. I’d been carrying it all on my shoulders for so long, and now Brie was trying to shoot all that out of the water. Hell, I was probably depressed, too, but that only made sense after what I’d led my brother to do.

“That doesn’t matter,” I said.

“It does. And so do you.”

Somewhere along the way, she’d pulled herself away from me, one hand still resting on my thigh, and now she was leaning back against the wall. She straightened her legs out in front of her, angling her feet in a stretch. We’d been on the floor too long; we weren’t kids anymore. I didn’t know how kids could sit on the floor all the time without aching everywhere. I started to get up, more slowly this time so as not to leave BC disgruntled with the way I dislodged him, and I reached down, offering my hand.

She took it and allowed me to help her up. When she moved, the other cat ran off to hide in her bedroom again. We watched him go, Brie’s hand still in mine. I wanted to pull her into my arms and bury all the emotional garbage that had been dragged up today in making love to her. I wanted to drown myself in her scent, to lose myself in her touch. I wanted to forget about everything but me and her and right now.

But then she let go of my hand and moved over to her sofa, and I knew she wasn’t ready to move back to that sort of relationship. She might not hate me for all that I’d done, but we were never going to have the sort of relationship that I wanted.

I’d just laid it all out on the table, and I had been absolutely right. She didn’t want me.

IT HAD TAKEN every ounce of restraint and willpower I possessed to keep myself from falling into Keith’s arms last night and taking him to my bed. That was what he’d wanted. It had been plain enough to see that in his eyes. And some part of me—not a small part, either—had been of the same mind.

It would have been the easy thing to do, of course, but not the right thing. He’d finally started opening up and letting himself feel all the emotions he’d been trying to hide from for so many years, and his primary inclination was to bury it all again by falling back into our old pattern. Don’t wanna talk about it? Why not have sex?

It would have been the simplest answer, but it would have set us back almost as far as we’d been before he’d finally started to open up about Garrett’s death. So instead, I’d put a little physical distance between us and kept the conversation going. Try as I might, I hadn’t been able to get Keith to admit his brother’s visit could possibly be an olive branch, an effort toward reconciliation. He was still determined to see himself as the bad guy, as someone his family would never be able to forgive, let alone love. I was more of the opinion that the only person in that family who hadn’t forgiven him and who didn’t love him was himself.

He’d stayed for a long time, until well past the time we both should have gone to bed. He had a game tonight and should have been resting up for it, and I had a long session with Devin today to work on our piece for his show and start on the number for the music video.

When Keith had finally gotten up and headed for the door, he’d asked me to come to his game tonight. I hadn’t had the heart to say no, and I had at least met some of his teammates’ friends and family at his party yesterday, so I’d agreed.

Now I was second-guessing myself, wondering if I was sliding too quickly from friend to girlfriend. How was I supposed to make that distinction? When was it okay to step over that line in the sand that I’d drawn? Right now, it still felt too soon…but how was I supposed to recognize the signs that would tell me the timing was right?

All of that was running through my mind as I rode the bus to the studio for my session with Devin. I sipped from my coffee cup and stared out the windows, watching Portland pass me by and worrying about what my next step with Keith ought to be.

When I stepped through the door to Rose City, it was to find Devin leaning one shoulder casually against the doorframe to the office and flirting outrageously with Tanya. Based on the playful look in her eye, she was giving it back to him in kind. I had no intention of getting in the middle of all that.

“Morning,” I said briefly, brushing past them and heading straight for the changing room. At least that way they’d know I was here so Devin could extricate himself whenever he was ready and we could get to work.

I pulled on an oversized T-shirt and a long skirt made from a polyester-and-spandex blend, admiring the way the shirt hung on me now that I had the new bras. That only made me think of that package Keith had brought over to my place last night, though, and then my cheeks flushed.

I’d taken a look through it after he’d left. There’d been a lot of silky, lacy things—teddies, matching bra and panty sets, baby-doll nighties, even a corset and garter—and it had been all I could do to keep myself from trying them on then and there. They were my size, but that didn’t mean someone my size ought to wear them. I’d shoved it all back into the packaging and left it on the coffee table, wishing I could forget about them. That didn’t seem very likely to happen at the moment, when simply looking at myself while wearing a properly fitted bra made me think of it all…and of the man who’d bought it for me.

The only way I was going to get all that off my mind right now was to focus on something else—my work. I left the changing room and headed to the studio. I’d barely gotten through the doors when I stopped short. Devin wasn’t in there yet, but the room wasn’t empty. Far from it. The six members of The End of All Things were lounging along one wall, staring at me.

My jaw must have been on the floor because Emery winked at me.

“I guess Devin didn’t fill you in on the change of plans, huh?” he said. “We wanted to be with the two of you when you first heard the track so we could all talk about ideas before you got to work.”

I forced my mouth closed, nodding, and attempted to prevent my eyes from bulging in shock at the band’s presence. “Great idea.”

Devin came in, ready to work, with a look in his eye that left no doubt he’d just stolen a kiss or more from Tanya before joining us. He grinned at me. “All set?”

I was as ready as I’d ever be, though that wasn’t saying much. I nodded and set my mind to the task at hand.

COLESY HURRIED AFTER me when I left morning skate, rushing through the parking garage. “Hey! Burnzie,” he called out. “Wait up.”

I slowed down so he could catch up to me.

“I, uh…” He dragged a hand through his hair, looking as sheepish as I’d ever seen him. He looked all around us, as though making sure no one else would hear, but we kept walking toward my car.

“I’m not going to say anything,” I assured him.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind what this was about. If he hadn’t seen me when I’d caught him and Shane making out on the stairs last night, he’d sure as hell seen me when I got home from Brie’s house and found the two of them half dressed in my kitchen. They’d come down for snacks after the first round—at least that was how it seemed. I’d grabbed a bottle of water and headed upstairs to my room without saying a thing to either of them. There were too many other things on my fucking mind at that moment to worry about what Colesy thought about me knowing he was gay. He’d left before I got up this morning.

He’d been tense all through morning skate, screwing things up that he wouldn’t usually otherwise. I’d known exactly what was behind it, but that wasn’t something I could talk to him about with all the other guys hanging around and listening in. If he brought it up, that was one thing. I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—be the one to do that, though.

“I figured it out not long after the season started and I haven’t outed you yet. I’m not going to change that now.”

Colesy let out an audible breath of relief.

Everything that had happened between him and my brother last night had only weighed on my mind the whole night when I should have been sleeping, as much as everything I’d told Brie about my relationship with Garrett. Shane might be here to find some way to get back at me, but he wouldn’t do something to hurt anyone else in the process. If he’d come here with the intention of finding some way to hurt me, what was he doing with Colesy? It didn’t line up in my head, making Brie’s assertion—that Shane wanted to make things right between the two of us—seem more plausible. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it, though, no matter how much sense it made.

I didn’t know if he had any intention of forming a real relationship with my teammate or if it was just a vacation fling. Either way, my previous assumption that he was here to cause me trouble was proving pretty flimsy.

Colesy set his jaw, as if he was chewing something over. “You already knew?”

“Yeah, I did. But I doubt the rest of the boys know. You keep it under wraps pretty well.”

He nodded, but he looked about as far from being convinced of that as we were from taking a swim on the surface of the sun.

“Even if they do know,” I said, “who gives a fuck? That shit doesn’t matter, and if it does matter to someone, they can take it up with me.”

He stopped cold then, and I turned to face him.

“You don’t have to— I mean, I don’t expect—”

“You’re a part of this team,” I cut in. “You’re one of us. Nothing else is important, and anyone who tries to make an issue out of it is going to have to answer to me. That’s all there is to it, Colesy. I don’t give a damn if you’re screwing my brother or if you dress in drag or if you’ve slept with half the gay men in Oregon or if you dye your skin pink. What matters is you’re my teammate and my friend. Now come on. Let’s go have lunch with the rest of the boys.”

“Yeah,” he said, surprise coloring the word as it slipped out. But then he caught up with me again and climbed into the passenger seat of my car, and we went to meet the team at Amani’s.

When I got home that afternoon, Shane was sitting in the living room with his laptop open, a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. All three of my dogs were surrounding him, Dexter and Shadow hanging out by his feet on the floor and Pepper curled up on the sofa by his hip, looking longingly at his lap. She wasn’t a fan of the laptop being where she wanted to be, and she had never been terribly picky about whose lap it was she wanted to be on. Never mind the fact that she was too damn big to be a lapdog whether someone had a computer sitting there or not.

Shane looked up when I came in, shutting the lid of his computer. “Good practice?”

I shrugged. “Good enough.” Actually, it had been awful. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep again, and I couldn’t get my mind off everything that Brie and I had talked about until well past midnight. Bergy had been all over me all morning, breathing down my neck as though that would clear my head.

The only good thing about the practice was that it was the first time Nicky had gotten back on the ice with us in a while. He wouldn’t be playing tonight—the doctors still hadn’t cleared him for that—but at least he was starting to participate again.

I collapsed back on the opposite end of the sofa, and Pepper took that as her cue to claim my open lap before it was otherwise occupied. I rubbed her head absentmindedly and scratched her ears, trying to ignore the similarities between how she was all over me and how Brie’s cat had been last night.

“Did you have lunch?” I asked since I couldn’t come up with anything better to say. Shane and I hadn’t talked in the easy way brothers did in so long I didn’t think either one of us remembered how it was done. There wasn’t a fucking easy thing about this.

“Leftovers from last night.”

At least there’d been plenty of that, even though it was more snack food than anything I’d consider a meal. I nodded, letting out some sort of grunt.

We sat in silence again, each of us looking at the other every now and then. At least he was as uncomfortable as I was. I’d prefer it if we were at ease with each other, but I didn’t know if that would ever be a possibility again.

“You give Cole a hard time today?” he asked out of the blue.

Or maybe it wasn’t out of the blue. Of course he would expect me to do that.

“No,” I replied cautiously, looking down at Pepper’s blissful expression as I gave her love. It was safer to look at her because I knew how she would react. I didn’t have the first clue where my brother wanted this conversation to go, but I had no intention of saying the wrong thing. I wanted every word out of my mouth to be right. There were enough things in this life that I regretted already, and I damn well wasn’t going to add to the list today.

“I told him his secret’s safe with me as long as he wants it to be a secret. And I told him that if and when the time comes that he doesn’t want it to be a secret any longer, he could count on me to stand next to him.” Not behind him. Beside him, or maybe even in front of him if it came to that.

The same as I would do for Shane. The same as I should have done for Garrett.

I finally got the balls to look over at him. He was studying me, much as he’d done last night when I’d come upon him and Colesy. Staring hard. Trying to figure me out as much as I was trying to figure him out.

“You gonna give me a hard time today?” he asked.

Those same fucking tears from last night choked me. I swallowed before I spoke, but my voice still sounded strangled when I said, “No.”

“How long have you known?”

“Gran let it slip a few years back. She thought I knew,” I added. “She wouldn’t have said anything if she knew I was supposed to be in the dark.”

“I didn’t want to keep it from you. I just—”

“Scared I’d turn on you?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I knew you never meant that shit. I just didn’t know how you’d react since you blamed yourself for Garrett.”

“You blamed me, too,” I scoffed.

“No, I didn’t. Never.” He was suddenly very sober, serious. “Mom and Dad don’t blame you, either, you know. They’re waiting for you to realize it wasn’t your fault. Waiting for you to be able to come home again.”

“I come home every summer.”

“You come to Nova Scotia every summer, but you never come by the house. You never call any of us. You keep to yourself and avoid anything to do with him—especially us.” He took a sip from his cup and carefully returned it to the table. “Look, I get it. It’s hard to go back there. It was two years before I could step foot inside that garage—”

“I’m not afraid of a fucking garage.”

“No, you’re afraid of what it’ll make you feel to go back there. But it’s time, Keith. You’ve spent too many years of your life trying to run from the past.”

“I’m not running now.”

“Maybe not. But you’ve still got your back turned to it.”

“Which means I’m not hurting anyone.”

“You’re fucking hurting yourself, Keith!” He stood up, pacing to the fireplace and back a few times. “And if you don’t knock that shit off soon, you’re going to hurt Brie, too.”

I knew he’d been fishing for ways to use her or my relationship with her against me. I should have trusted my gut on that one. “Keep your nose out of things between me and Brie. Just stay the fuck away from her.”

“I don’t have any intention of getting involved. If you’d calm down for a minute—”

“I am calm,” I growled.

“Bullshit. You look like you want to hit something.”

“Maybe you.”

“Hit me then, if that’ll make you feel better.”

Hitting him wouldn’t make me feel better, though. Maybe letting him hit me would. “Just stay the fuck away from Brie,” I muttered.

“Fine.” Shane crossed his arms, glaring at me. “No, not fine. Because I saw how you watched her last night and I’m not going to sit here and let you fuck that up like you’ve tried to fuck everything else in your life up.”

“Screw you.”

“You’re not my type, but that’s beside the point.”

“So what is your fucking point, then?” I shouted. Pepper got off my lap and ran out of the room when I raised my voice, and both Dexter and Shadow followed her. Maybe it was better if they weren’t around. I didn’t want them to think they were in trouble, and I pretty much never raised my voice around them. “Would you get to it, already?”

“The point is you’re my fucking brother and I fucking miss you, you ass,” he shouted in return. “I need you, and I’m sick and tired of fucking sitting around waiting for you to get over yourself and come home. We’ve been trying to give you your space and let you deal with your grief in your own way, but it’s been years and I can’t do it anymore. I need my fucking brother back, and you’re the only one I have left.”

“You’ve been doing all right without me.”

“Says who?” he scoffed. “Gran told you I’m gay, but I guess she forgot to mention that I’m bipolar, huh? Did she tell you I’m on all sorts of meds, and they’re the only thing that keeps me from pulling the same shit Garrett did?”

“You’re bipolar?” I vaguely recalled Mom using that term to describe her depression years before. I had never noticed her problem much, other than a few times over the years when she would get really down for a while, or maybe she would have these crazy bursts of energy and she wouldn’t level out until she went back to the doctor and got her medications adjusted.

“Same as Mom and Garrett,” Shane said. “I probably still wouldn’t know, if not for Mom insisting I go get checked out after Garrett died. She said she’d seen the signs in both of us for years, but she’d always told herself that it was all in her imagination, that it was only her own disease talking and trying to convince her she wasn’t alone in it all.”

Not much of what he was saying sunk in for me. One thing kept repeating itself in my head over and over again, though: Garrett was probably bipolar. And undiagnosed. So he wouldn’t have been taking anything to help keep him straight, to keep everything level.

“Did you hear me?” Shane demanded, pacing again. “Garrett was depressed. For a long time.”

“Because of me,” I argued feebly, but the argument was getting old, even to me.

“He knew you didn’t mean that shit, same as I did. You were our fucking brother. We knew you loved us.”

“But I—”

“You said a bunch of stupid things. I’m not going to deny that.” He plopped down next to me on the sofa. “Hell, I called him a pussy, too, and a lot more than that. We were kids. We were trying to be tough and cool, we acted like idiots, and we hurt each other. That’s what brothers do. Don’t you think it’s time we grew up and stopped, though?”

He really meant it. Shane wasn’t trying to throw punches. He wasn’t here to get back at me. His face was all screwed up, as though he was fighting to hold back his emotion. The same as I was.

“Why don’t you hate me?”

“Why don’t you hate me?” he said in response.

I could never hate him. He was my brother. “Because I love you.”

He gave me a well, duh sort of look. “Well, I love you, too, you fucking asswipe.”

“You really think Garrett…that it wasn’t because of me?”

“He always gave you back as good as he got. Me too. We all went at each other like boys do. He didn’t kill himself because of you.” Shane reached down to scratch Pepper’s ears since she’d come back after all the shouting had stopped. “Look, you weren’t around much the last few years before that. You’d gone off to play in college and then you were here. You didn’t see what he was like. I did. He was pretty fucked up. I think dancing was the only thing keeping him even a little bit okay.”

And that hadn’t been going as well as he would have liked, according to Brie.

“Damn.”

“Damn doesn’t even begin to cover it. Can you let yourself off the hook already?” Shane asked. “It’s been way too long.”

Just like last night, tears stung the backs of my eyes and threatened to press through to the front. At first, I tried to fight it down, but if I couldn’t cry in front of my brother, who the hell could I cry in front of? I stopped trying to fight it off, letting the damned wetness fall.

I wasn’t the only one crying, either. Shane was as much of a mess as I was when he reached across the space between us and pulled me in for a hug. It was a real hug, not a guy hug. It had been so long since I’d hugged anyone in my family but Gran that I didn’t want it to end. I held on longer than he might have been prepared for, but he initiated the whole damn thing so he was going to have to deal with it.

I wasn’t sure how long we held on to each other, crying like that. It was only when all three of my dogs tried to get in on the act, three huge animals trying to smother us and join in the hug fest, that we separated, laughing.

“You tell Cole that I cried all over you and I’ll kick your ass,” Shane said, laughing.

“I’d like to see you try. And if you fucking make me cry again, I’ll kick your ass so hard that you won’t be able to sit for a week. Brie already got me started with that shit last night. I’ve had enough.” I punched him lightly on the shoulder, and then I got up to grab a box of tissues from the kitchen. Once I’d pulled a couple out for myself, I tossed the rest of the box at him.

“So…” he said after a minute, once we’d gotten ourselves under control a bit. “Brie. Tell me about her.”

“You mean tell you how I’ve already royally screwed things up with her and now all I can do is kick my own ass?”

He laughed. It was good to hear my brother laugh.

“Something like that. But I don’t get the feeling it’s as bad as all that.”

I hoped he was right.

BETWEEN THE BRIEF hockey lesson that Keith had given me recently and sitting with Shane in the owner’s box now, I thought I was following the action of the game fairly well, particularly since I still considered myself very much a novice in terms of understanding how the game was played and why. I wasn’t anywhere near as lost as I might have been, at least, and I was actually enjoying myself.

It was pretty crowded in here, with all of the wives and girlfriends and kids who’d been at Keith’s party yesterday, along with parents, siblings, and friends. There were more people here than you’d typically expect during a regular season game on a weeknight, but this was the Storm’s last game before the Christmas break, Shane had explained to me, and so a lot of people had come to town to spend time with the guys on the team, like he had. They were scheduled to play on the road a couple of days after Christmas, so the next few days was pretty much all the players had to spend with their families and loved ones.

Keith had chosen to spend as much of that time as he could with me.

I’d thought that with his brother in town and the fact that I’d insisted we could only be friends right now—and especially considering that Keith had finally opened up to his brother about everything surrounding Garrett’s death—he would want to spend the whole time with Shane and not have me around. They were brothers, and they’d hardly said two words to each other in years. Why involve me? But Keith had put it off to the fact that I wasn’t going back to Illinois to visit my family because I couldn’t afford the trip right now. None of them were coming here to spend the holiday with me, either, so he wanted the two of them to be my family this Christmas.

Shane had laughed when I relayed that to him earlier, not long after we’d arrived in the owner’s box. He might just want you to be a buffer between us, he’d said. And maybe he’s right to want that. It’s been a long time. We can’t jump back into things as they were.

I wasn’t sold on the idea of being the go-between for them, but I did like the idea of getting to know Shane while he was here, not to mention getting to know Keith as he was with his family. One thing I’d learned over the years, particularly during my time with Val, was that you could take the true measure of a person when they were with their family. Thinking back on it now, Val had been loud, belligerent, and verbally abusive to his mother and sisters when I’d spent time with them all together. There was little wonder he’d started behaving that way toward me after a time. I just hadn’t recognized it soon enough. I hadn’t gotten away when I should have.

The clock showed that there were thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds left in the second period. It felt weird to me to call it a period. Until Keith had explained hockey to me, I’d thought all the big sports were played in halves or quarters. Not hockey, though. Three periods, each twenty minutes long.

Play was stopped—a TV time-out, Shane told me—after the puck had gone up over the glass and into the crowd. It was tied at one goal apiece for the Storm and their opponent tonight, the Buffalo Sabres. One of the women I’d met at Keith’s party yesterday—a very pregnant, tall, blond woman—came over and sat next to me in one of the few remaining chairs that wasn’t already occupied.

“I saw you yesterday but didn’t get the chance to come and talk,” she said, holding out a hand to shake. “Dana Zellinger. My husband is Eric, the team captain. Number nine,” she added, probably due to the look of utter bewilderment that I was certain had swamped my face. I could barely keep track of Keith when he was out there, so there was no chance I knew who any of the other guys were.

“Brie Hayden,” I said.

“No need to ask who you are,” she said to Shane with a nod. “You’re the spitting image of your brother. I’m sure Burnzie’s glad to have you here.”

Shane made a sort of mumbled sound and looked out at the ice. He didn’t seem to have any qualms about talking to me, but he definitely wasn’t making any moves to get to know any of the other people around. I had to wonder if it had more to do with what I’d discovered about him and Cole last night and less to do with anything related to his brother.

“It’s nice to see him have someone here for him,” she said, making herself comfortable. I got the distinct impression that she had no intention of moving again for a while—maybe not until her bladder forced her to. She smiled at me. “The girls and I”—she nodded in the direction of the gaggle of women she’d just left to come over here— “we sometimes worry about him and a few of the other boys who don’t seem to have anyone around. I know Shane will have to go back to Canada at some point, back to his job…but you live here?”

“I do.” I didn’t elaborate because the players were lining up on the ice to take the next face-off, and I hadn’t decided yet if I thought she was fishing for information or if she truly wanted to get to know me. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt suspicious, but I did.

Dana turned her attention to the ice, as well, and she laughed. “Babs and Razor haven’t stopped jawing at each other this whole game.”

I didn’t have the first clue what she was talking about.

She explained before I could ask. “You see number nineteen for the Storm?” She pointed in case I’d missed him. “That’s Babs—Jamie Babcock. The guy in white right next to him, number sixty, is Ray Chambers, but the guys all call him Razor. He played here until he got traded over the summer. Babs and Razor were pretty much best friends. Every time they’ve been on the ice together tonight, they’ve been trash-talking each other like crazy.”

The official dropped the puck, and the guys on the ice took off in a flurry of movement. Sure enough, Babs and Razor pretty much stayed together. Even from here, I could see that they were yapping back and forth at each other the whole time.

“How do you know they’re trash-talking?” I asked.

“Because that’s what hockey players do,” Shane said matter-of-factly.

Babs got a little separation from Razor, and Keith passed the puck over to him. He skated with it toward the end where they would shoot. He passed it over to one of the other guys on his team. It had barely left his stick when Razor caught up to him again, slamming into him so hard that they both ended up sprawled on the ice.

“I thought you said they were best friends,” I said.

“They are.” Dana shrugged when I looked over at her, appalled. “It’s what guys have to do when they play their former teams for the first time. You have to show your new teammates that you’re fully invested, willing to play tough even against your friends. That’s why those two have been going at it so hard tonight.”

“Plus, it’s fun,” Shane put in.

Fun, I thought. Right. I couldn’t imagine anything less fun than being banged into at full speed on ice.

Those two had gotten up again as if it was the easiest thing in the world and skated off, and new players were out on the ice in their places. There was a lot of back and forth action, the players skating from end to end and back again so fast that I felt winded just watching them.

Play continued at that neck-or-nothing pace for a couple of minutes without another whistle to blow the play down. But then one of the Sabres’ players tripped, allowing one of the Storm’s players to get past him with the puck. Nineteen, I noticed. Babs. And it was number sixty—Razor—who’d fallen and was now racing to catch up to him.

Babs was too fast, though. For a big guy, it was insane how quickly he could move. It seemed like he ought to be slow and lumbering, but he was speedy and smooth and graceful out there. The only other player on the ice who was anywhere close, other than Buffalo’s goaltender, was number three for the Storm, but I didn’t have any idea who that was.

“What the hell is Colesy doing so far up ice?” Dana said, answering my unasked question.

“The D had a bad line change,” Shane said. “Buffalo thought they’d caught our guys out, but things didn’t go quite the way they’d planned.”

It looked like Babs was going to be able to get right up on the goal and take a shot, and only the goaltender would have a chance to stop him. He didn’t do that, though. He acted like he was going to shoot, but instead he passed the puck to Cole. Even to my untrained eye, Cole seemed stunned to have the puck. He shot it anyway.

The goaltender got his glove over just in time to knock it away, but he wasn’t able to catch it and stop play. It bounced back and hit Babs in the skate, and then it slid underneath the goaltender and into the goal.

Red lights flashed and the Moda Center erupted. Everyone in the box around me was on their feet and screaming. Everyone except for Shane and Dana.

“Might not count,” Shane told me. “It went off his skate, so they could say he kicked it in.”

I shook my head, dumbfounded. “But it’s in the goal.”

“Yeah,” Dana said. “But you’re not allowed to kick the puck in. They’ll review it. It didn’t look like a kicking motion, more like a deflection. It should count.”

Sure enough, I watched as the guys in black-and-white stripes met in the corner where they seemed to be having a conversation. Then one of them skated over to the scorer’s box and put on a pair of headphones while the other three talked to the players on the ice and to the coaches behind the benches, apparently explaining the situation.

On the Jumbotron overhead, they showed the video of the goal over and over again from different angles, giving everyone in the arena a chance to see it multiple times. Not once did the crowd settle down. The celebration kept going as long as the review did.

Finally, the official took off the headphones and skated out to center ice.

“I hope for that guy’s sake he doesn’t have to say it didn’t count,” I muttered. “They might lynch him.”

“It’ll count,” Shane said.

The crowd finally quieted down, only long enough to hear the official say into his microphone, “There was no kicking motion. It’s a good goal.” He gave a signal with his hand and the arena erupted again, as loud and full of excitement as they’d been when the goal had initially taken place.

Once more, the players lined up on the ice for a new face-off. My eye was drawn to the Jumbotron, which had focused in on Babs and Razor. I could see the fire in Babs’s eyes, but more than that, I could read his lips.

I own you, he said to Razor. I can do this all fucking night long.

The fuck you can, Razor said. If anyone has you’re fucking number, it’s me.

Then the puck hit the ice and play resumed.

Babs was true to his word. But so was Razor. Every time the two of them were on the ice that was where my eye was drawn.

It was as entertaining a show as I’d ever seen.

AFTER MOST GAMES, the boys all go out for a meal together, hanging out a little longer, building up that camaraderie and sense of family that seemed to be so prevalent here with the Storm organization. Or at least it had been prevalent since the arrival of Jim Sutter as the general manager. Before that, a lot had been different.

Tonight wasn’t like most games, though. That was abundantly clear from looking around the owner’s box when I went up to snag Shane and Brie. With the Christmas break arriving, everyone had friends and family in town, just about, and so the guys were all splitting off to do their own things.

Well, not quite everyone.

Babs’s parents and his younger brothers—the ones who still lived with them—hadn’t come for Christmas this year, even though Babs’s birthday was only a few days before it. They were in Windsor with his brother Levi. Levi had been drafted by the Storm over the summer, but he was still playing with his major junior team, developing as a defenseman. In a couple more years, he’d move up to play in the American Hockey League, and maybe after a year or two of that he’d get his shot to play in the NHL. I supposed that, as the rest of those boys grew up and spread out to each do his own thing, it was going to be harder and harder to get the whole Babcock family together for the holidays. Every single one of Babs’s brothers played hockey, and if the younger ones got to be half as good as him and Levi, they could be spread all over this continent and maybe even some of them in Europe for the hockey season.

He wasn’t the only one whose family wasn’t here, though. Vladdie’s relatives were all at home in Russia, so he was going to spend his holiday with Luka and the rest of the Lukashenko family. At least the kid would be around people who spoke the same language he did.

A few of the guys were traveling to be with their families. Mitchell “Q” Quincey, one of the other new guys on the team this year, was on his way to Manitoba so he could spend his Christmas break with his parents and siblings, and hopefully get to see his little girl. He’d gotten divorced over the summer, and his ex had been granted custody. He hadn’t seen her in months.

And then there was Radar. He had no plans to make the trip to the Czech Republic and back in the few days we had off, but he was flying out to Philadelphia. He was good friends with a couple of guys who played for the Flyers, so they were going to hang out together for the holidays.

Essentially, that was what Babs and Razor intended to do, too. Razor was staying behind here in Portland while the rest of his team flew back to Buffalo before dispersing for their break, and he and Babs were going to do whatever the fuck they tended to do when they were together. Probably play video games. That was all I ever saw them doing, at least.

Babs hadn’t even bothered to come up to the owner’s box tonight. No one was up here waiting for him, and I think he was worried he might run into Katie Weber if he showed his face up here. If so, he had good reason to think that. She’d arrived in town today, and she was here with her mother and younger siblings now.

Webs walked in to get them all, and Katie jumped to her feet, racing over to hug him. “I’ve missed you like crazy,” she said.

“Have you?” Webs had his Dad face on. Or maybe it went further than that. He looked genuinely upset. “I thought you’d been too busy hooking up with Jesse Carmichael to remember all of us. You haven’t answered your phone in weeks.” He crossed his arms in an intimidating stance after he released her from the hug.

“I’ve been busy. We’ve been working long days—”

Webs scowled. “And you’ve been spending every minute you weren’t working wrapped up with him.”

“That’s not fair, Dad.” She was angled in such a way that I couldn’t see her expression, but her tone more than made up for that. It wasn’t a whine. She was genuinely hurt by her father’s intimations.

“I call it like I see it. And I’ve seen more than I ever wanted to all over the TV.”

“It’s just for promotion! We’ve been doing premiers and all sorts of interviews—”

“He doesn’t need to have his hands on your ass to promote your TV show. I thought we raised you better than that.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“And you’re behaving like someone I don’t recognize. I don’t like it. And I don’t like this Jesse Carmichael.”

She threw up her hands in the air. “You don’t even know him!”

“And he’d better hope I never meet him because when I do—”

At that, Laura Weber grabbed her husband by the upper arm and dragged him out of the owner’s box, the two younger kids following behind them. Dana put her arm around Katie, saying something quietly to her, and then she and Zee walked out with Katie, following behind the rest of her family.

That looked like it was going to be an interesting family holiday. I was definitely glad that Babs hadn’t come up to witness all that. He didn’t need that kind of distraction right now.

As I watched the owner’s box slowly empty, it dawned on me that there wasn’t anyone here who belonged to Cole. I hadn’t heard what his plans were for the time off. And I was the one looking out for him this season. I should have already known his Christmas plans well before now. At least I had this opportunity to make up for it.

“Colesy,” I called out when only a few stragglers remained.

He’d been inching his way toward the door, probably trying to make his exit without anyone realizing he was alone, damn him. He turned around, his brows drawn together in question.

“What are you doing for Christmas?”

He shrugged, watching the last couple of people head out the door until only the two of us plus Brie and Shane remained. Then he looked over at me. “I tend to spend the holidays by myself.”

Fuck that. Not if I had anything to say about it. “You don’t have any family here?”

“No, and I’m not going home to see them, either.” He didn’t elaborate and looked like he had no intention of doing so even if I poked and prodded. I could respect that. I had never been very keen on sharing the details of my family life, either.

I glanced over at Shane, long enough to see him give me a brief nod, and then I made up my mind. “Go pack up a few things and come over to my place. You’re spending Christmas with us.”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit pants. “I don’t want—”

“You’re not imposing, and I’m not letting you spend Christmas alone. Go get your stuff.” No one should be alone at Christmas. I’d spent enough of them all by my lonesome to know how awful that was. Yes, I’d been planning to do that myself until Shane had shown up, but that was beside the point.

Colesy looked away, in the manner I’d come to realize meant he was embarrassed, but he finally nodded. “Yeah, all right. I’ll come.”

One bird down. Now I just had to find a way to convince the other to come and stay for a few days, too.

I almost reached for Brie’s hand, but I remembered myself and shoved it in my pocket before I made that mistake. Shane reached over and helped her to her feet, and the four of us headed out to the parking garage together.

I wasn’t ready to give up on the possibility of taking this relationship further, especially not after talking about her with my brother earlier today. Shane really liked her after talking to her at the party, and he seemed to think she wasn’t as opposed to the idea of there being an us as I believed she was. He thought there could potentially be a future.

And maybe he was right. She’d come to my party, and tonight she came to my game. She hadn’t told me to stuff it when I mentioned that I still wanted to come to her New Year’s Day performance. She wasn’t shutting me out, and I was making an effort to give her what she said she needed from me. Maybe I just needed to stay the course, however difficult it seemed it might be. I had never been very patient when it came to getting the things that I wanted, and I wanted Brie more than was good for me, considering I might not be able to have her in the end.

When we got out to the garage, Colesy headed off in a different direction for his car. I led Brie and Shane to mine, holding open the passenger door for Brie to get in. After I was settled in the driver’s seat and had started the engine, I turned to her. “When we get to your place, would you be willing to pack up a bag and come with us, too? Shane and I talked about it this afternoon. We don’t want you to spend Christmas all alone with your cats.”

She took a moment before answering, the blue of her eyes turning as dark as the midnight sky. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as though trying to slow her pulse. “I can’t leave my cats for that long,” she said. “There’s not anyone I’d be able to get to come and look after them over the holidays, and definitely not at the last minute like this.”

“You could bring them, too. My house is huge. We could set up part of it for them where my dogs will leave them alone.”

She gave me a look full of skepticism, one eyebrow arched almost comically. “You’ve never had cats, have you?” But then she laughed, and it warmed me through. “Moving them even for a few days could be traumatic for Richie, not to mention a lot of work for the three of us. Not only will we have to get the cats and wrangle them into their carriers, but we’d have to grab their litter box and supplies, cat food, toys, some things to help keep Richie calm… It’s a big undertaking.”

“There are three of us and two of them,” Shane said from the backseat. “And we’re all a lot bigger than they are.”

“They have claws,” Brie said. “And sharp teeth.”

Shane’s shrug was visible in my rearview mirror. “Still, my money’s on us.”

“I still have to go to practices with Devin every day but Christ—”

“I can drive you,” I interrupted, cutting off her argument before she could pick up any steam with it. “Or he can come here. I’ve got a room downstairs that should work for you.”

“With mirrors?” The eyebrow raise she gave me nearly cracked me up.

“No mirrors. It’s still a good space even without them, but I can drive you to the studio if you’d prefer, so that’s not a good argument.”

“Is this for the music video?” Shane asked from the backseat.

“Some of it. We’re also working on a show for New Year’s Day.”

“I wouldn’t mind watching you two, if that’s all right,” he said.

I doubted Colesy would mind too much, either, and I sure as hell knew I liked watching her dance. “We can all come, if we wouldn’t be intruding,” I said.

“Great. Just what we need, a huge audience. Next thing I know, you’ll be inviting the whole team over to sit in the peanut gallery and watch.”

“That’s not a horrible idea,” I teased.

Brie rolled her eyes. In the end, she gave in, and we wound up herding her cats, their carriers, litter boxes, cat food, dishes, brushes, toys, and a thousand other things—plus a duffel bag full of what Brie needed for herself, which seemed woefully inadequate in comparison to all of the cat supplies—down the stairs from her apartment to my car. She hadn’t been kidding about it being a big undertaking. When I take my dogs with me for a few days, I only need to grab them, their leashes, and their food. We figure the rest of it out once we get to wherever we’re going. This was an entirely different endeavor, and a hilarious one at that. It took all three of us making two trips with our arms full before Brie said we had everything they would need.

By the time we got back to my place, Colesy was sitting in the driveway waiting for us. It was no surprise that he had beat us there. As hockey players, we spend a lot of time on the road. We’re used to packing up quickly. I pulled into the garage, opening another door so he could park inside, too, and then we all worked together to get everything in the house.

I took Brie downstairs and showed her a few connecting rooms we could put the cats in, helping to close off doors so that they could have a safe space. She set everything up for her cats before she let them out of their carriers. Pepper was trying to help her, and Shadow and Dexter were watching a little too intently, so I herded my dogs up the stairs and out the side door so they’d leave her cats alone. When I came back downstairs, she’d already let both cats out of their carriers to explore. BC was roaming around and sniffing everything in my downstairs game room, but Richie was nowhere in sight.

“He’s crawled inside that recliner,” Brie said, pointing toward one of the La-Z-Boy chairs near the TV. She must have noticed that I was looking for him.

“Inside it?”

“Yep. He shoved his body up the back. He won’t come out until he doesn’t hear voices. Even then, he might not come out for a few hours. Every time we’ve moved since I’ve had him, he’s done something like this. Change is hard for him.”

Change was hard for most of us, but I figured it wouldn’t be very helpful to say that right now. I mean, her cat was holed up inside a chair, for God’s sake.

“Is there anything we need to do for him?” The thought of a cat hanging out inside a recliner for several hours didn’t sound too appealing. I couldn’t imagine it was very comfortable down there, and now that I’d seen Richie at least the one time, I knew he was a huge cat. He had to be squashed in there.

“The best thing we can do is give him some time and space to calm down,” she said.

I nodded and started to head out of the game room. Instead of coming with me, though, she got up and took a little canister around the room, squirting something here and there.

“Pheromone spray,” she said. “It’ll help him calm down. You and I can’t smell it, but cats can. It’s the stuff they produce and rub all over things to mark them with their scent. It’ll help him feel safe and like he belongs here.”

The idea of Brie and her cats belonging here—in my house—hit me in a way that I hadn’t been expecting. I excused myself and headed back upstairs so I could rein my thoughts in again before I made an idiot of myself.

Colesy and Shane had disappeared while I was downstairs with her. I didn’t know if they’d gone off together or if they were each heading to bed separately. It was none of my business, frankly, and this house was more than big enough for me to avoid finding out anything they didn’t want me to know. That thought made me think that maybe they’d intended for me to find them on the stairs yesterday. Testing the waters or whatever. Either way, I had no intention of poking my nose in to whatever was going on between them unless they came to me. Even then, there were some things about the two of them that, as a brother to one and teammate to the other, I didn’t need to know. Ever.

Once she’d finished getting her cats settled, Brie came up to sit in the living room with me. She sat close enough to me on the sofa that I could easily touch her but she didn’t reach out to me. I figured I’d better keep my hands to myself. If we were going to move beyond friendship, whenever that might be, she was going to have to make the first move. I was pretty sure I’d already stepped over the line in asking her to come and stay here for the holidays.

I wanted every opportunity I could get to see her, to talk to her, though. I wanted to stumble into the kitchen in the morning and find her by the coffeepot, or to spend an hour talking about anything or nothing, so long as I could hear her voice. If she hadn’t come to stay here for the holidays, seeing her here and there over these few days—and only at times that I could finagle my way into getting together with her as friends for something—it wasn’t going to be enough. I didn’t have hockey responsibilities to distract me right now and steal my time. Most of my friends and teammates were going to be spending time with their families, so there was no better chance to immerse myself in her life—and her in mine.

“Did you have a good time at the game?” I asked.

“More than I expected.”

I laughed. “You didn’t think you would?”

“I didn’t know what to expect, I guess.” Brie shrugged, drawing my eye to her shoulders.

She’d worn a dress tonight, even though I had insisted it would be a casual affair. The league required all players and team personnel to travel to and from every game in a suit, but everyone else wore whatever they were comfortable in. I definitely didn’t mind seeing her in a dress, though. Particularly this one. It wasn’t something she’d bought when we’d gone shopping together, so I didn’t know where it had come from. It was some sort of wrap dress, tied together with a belt at her waist, in a bold print of rich purples, greens, and blues. Jewel tones, just as the saleswoman had suggested based on Brie’s coloring. That woman had definitely known what she was talking about.

The way the dress draped around Brie’s body emphasized all of her best physical assets. It dipped into a vee over her chest, drawing my eye to her cleavage, the belt showed off the shape of her waist, and then the skirt flared out some below that. It fell to just below her knees, but with the way she was sitting, it parted a little bit, revealing a little more leg than it would if she were standing. The longer I looked, the harder it was going to be to keep my hands off her. I couldn’t look away, though. Not even if my life depended on it.

She shifted to face me a little better, and the skirt parted a bit farther. “I watched you some, but I really spent a lot of time watching Babs and Razor—at least after Dana and Shane told me that they’d been best friends.”

I had to laugh again at that. “They were going at each other all night. I’ve never heard Babs talk trash like that before.” It had brought out a side of him that I hoped we would see more of. The kid had mad talent, but he’d really come alive out there tonight, trying to one up his buddy. Maybe after he’d spent a few more years in the league and had a few more good friends on other teams, he would have this newfound drive a bit more often.

He was smart about it, at least. He wanted to beat Razor, but he wanted to beat the Sabres even more. That meant he wasn’t going to make a stupid mistake only to prove he was better than his buddy.

Brie hadn’t stopped smiling while I was thinking, and I hadn’t stopped staring at her. I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes on any one thing. Every bit of her was gorgeous. This was going to be a long few days if I couldn’t convince her to move our relationship forward again.

“Keith?” she said quietly after a moment, her voice having turned a little husky and sexy, making my mouth water.

“Yeah?” I didn’t even care that my voice cracked on the word. She knew I hadn’t stopped wanting her.

“I think— Can I—” Her face was all pink and flushed and so fucking beautiful, and she slid over closer to me. The movement tugged her skirt apart a little more, revealing a few more inches of her thighs, and I had to fight down a groan. But then she cupped my cheek with her hand and her lips were on mine, and all conscious thought left me.

WAS THIS REALLY fucking happening? It hadn’t been that long since Brie had insisted we back off from the physical side of things between us. Only a few days, actually. But now her lips were pressed to mine. I’d been practically desperate to kiss her again—and so much more—and it was all I could do to keep myself from tossing her back on the sofa and forgetting all about my promise to keep my hands to myself.

She was definitely the one initiating this time, but I couldn’t push for more than what she was ready for. I wouldn’t. She deserved better than that, and I’d be damned if I treated her with anything less than the utmost respect. No assumptions. She might be ready for a little make out session, but that didn’t mean she was ready to move beyond that.

I forced my hands into fists, keeping them clenched at my sides because I didn’t trust myself fully. Not now. Not with the sweet taste of her on my tongue and the softness of her lips brushing against mine.

She tilted her head, deepened the kiss, drove me insane with wanting her. I was so hard I thought I might come if she made even the slightest contact with my cock. It left me torn between wanting her to touch me and hoping she wouldn’t.

Who the hell was I kidding? I wanted her to touch me. I wanted her hands and mouth and teeth and tongue all over me.

Without taking her lips from mine, she climbed up over me and straddled my hips. Her skirt parted to accommodate her new position, and I itched to run my hands along her thighs, to slide them up farther and knead her ass, to draw her down to me. It was torture to keep my fists where they needed to be. One of her hands was on my shoulder, the other against the back of the couch, supporting her. She pulled back a bit, sucking in breath after breath; I couldn’t breathe for wanting to bury my face in the cleavage rising and falling right in front of me.

I closed my eyes, trying to will that beautiful sight away. I ran through a series of unsexy images in my mind, hoping that would help—jockstraps, smelly hockey pads, watching Chunk get about ninety stitches in his forearm a few weeks ago… That was definitely helping.

“I thought we were just friends right now,” I croaked.

“Maybe we can move a little beyond friends,” she said, still panting.

“How far beyond?”

“Far enough for this. Far enough to make out a little.”

To make out a little. Fucking hell, she was going to kill me.

“You can touch me some, Keith.”

My hands jerked as though trying to unclench of their own volition. “No, I can’t. Not unless you’re ready to let me do more than simply touch.”

She lowered herself down onto my lap, stretching her neck so she could lay kisses along the line of my jaw and up toward my ear. “How much more?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

“Unless you’re prepared for me to carry you up to my bedroom, handcuff you to my bed, strip every piece of your clothes off, and make you come about a dozen times, I’m keeping my hands to myself.”

“Oh.” She kissed my throat, right over my Adam’s apple. It involuntarily bobbed from her touch. “I suppose you’d better keep your hands to yourself, then.”

She didn’t keep hers to herself, though. I’d taken my jacket and tie off a while before, but she undid a few buttons of my shirt, pulling the fabric apart so she could place kisses on my undershirt, down the line of my breastbone. My whole body was alive, thrumming with the anticipation of where she would touch me next, and how.

She had both hands splayed against my skin, and she slid them beneath my dress shirt and explored my abs and ribs, moving around behind my back and then up to my pecs. The tips of her fingers swirled around my nipples, and I hissed in a breath, imagining doing that to hers, only with my tongue.

“You’re all muscle,” she murmured, tracing the lines of some of those muscles with her fingers. She was all softness. My hands remembered the silken sensation of running over her body, and it was all I could do to keep myself from doing that and more now.

Then she moved down, down, dangerously close to my cock, pulling my shirt free from my waistband with determination. I tossed my head back against the sofa, ready to explode, but she didn’t take her exploration any lower than my belt before fisting one hand in my hair and drawing me into position so she could kiss me again. We were both winded by the time she ended the kiss, resting her head on my shoulder. The heated air from her lips spread over my neck and chest before dissipating.

“You’re determined to torment me, aren’t you?” I said once I could speak again.

“Maybe a little.” Brie laughed, a husky, throaty sound. “Mainly I want to take things slow, like we should have done to begin with.”

But we hadn’t, and I knew what it was like to be with her, and that made the wanting even worse than it might otherwise have been.

It was the most exquisite torture I’d ever gone through, though, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I was starting to understand that she was right. We already knew we worked together on a physical level. Now we needed to make sure that we were as well-matched in every part of our relationship.

I didn’t want this to be a quick flame, great sex but no substance. I wanted Brie, and not just for now. I wanted this to last.

I had no clue if this meant I was falling in love with her, but I was afraid it might. Love was a dangerous business. I tended to screw loving relationships up, and there was no better example of my failures in that department than the brother who was currently upstairs with one of my teammates.

I couldn’t screw this up, and we’d gotten things off absolutely on the wrong foot. Now, Brie was giving us the chance to turn back time, in a sense, to slow things down and build a foundation for whatever came our way.

However difficult it might be to keep my hands off her, I was bound and determined to do precisely that.

Brie was worth it.

And, damn it all, so was I.

KEITH HAD SET me up in one of the guest bedrooms downstairs, part of the closed off grouping of rooms that my cats had access to. There was a definite part of me that wanted to go to bed with him, but I knew it was too soon for that. Jumping his bones wasn’t going to accomplish anything other than satisfying our lust, and lust wasn’t what I was after.

Well, maybe a little bit. But really, I wanted a relationship, one built on a lot more than merely hormonal drive and sexual connection. That meant we had to keep building on what we’d started in recent days. The thing was, I was about 99.999 percent sure I was falling for him. The last thing I needed was to lose my heart to him and then come to find out that we had little more than the physical to keep us going.

That was the main reason I’d agreed to stay with him for the Christmas holidays. It would give us plenty of time to talk, really talk—and having Shane and Cole around would only encourage Keith to open up more than he’d already started to. Or at least that was what I’d told myself. I hoped it was true. Considering that the relationship between the two brothers was severely strained, regardless of why that was the case, I might be hoping for more than was likely. Or even possible.

Still, I hoped.

Once I’d finally been able to pull myself away from him, I headed downstairs and shut myself away in the guest room, trying to force my body to calm the heck down so I could sleep. I’d only been in bed for about thirty seconds when BC jumped up to join me.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, my exhaustion clear in my voice, not that he would notice. Today had turned into a really long day.

My cat purred and butted his head against mine, and so I scratched his ears for a minute. He was adjusting to the change in his circumstances like a champ. I was worried about Richie, though. I still hadn’t seen any sign of him, so my best guess was that he was still holed up inside the recliner. I would never be able to figure out how he squeezed his big Maine Coon body through the cushions the way he had, but I’d watched it happen. If he could get in, he would be able to get out.

At least I hoped he would. Otherwise, we might have to tear apart Keith’s recliner to free my cat—not something I wanted to have to do. I’d intentionally avoided mentioning that eventuality to Keith. We could deal with it if it came to that, but otherwise it was best not to let him know we might have to take such drastic measures.

I lay in bed for about ten minutes, tossing and turning, and trying to will my body into ignoring the overly sexed-up state I’d left it in, but it was no use. I could still smell Keith’s scent, still taste his skin on my lips. I was horny, and there was no getting around it.

That meant I had two options: I could either screw all my grand plans for really getting to know each other and go upstairs to join Keith or I could dig out my vibrator from my bag and take care of things myself. Option B, while less satisfying in the short term, was also far more in line with my overall plans for the long term.

Oddly enough, it was the sounds of the vibrator and my self-pleasure that brought Richie out of hiding. He jumped up on the bed next to me, his huge green eyes glowing in the bit of moonlight filtering in through the window. I guess he was coming to see if I was all right or something, but I wasn’t really keen on the idea of my cats helping things along. I shoved him unceremoniously off the bed, vowing to spend a long time snuggling with him to make up for all the trauma I’d put him through today.

It took almost no time to get myself off, thanks to the heavy-petting session with Keith, and wondering if he was in the same boat I was at the moment. Then I thought about what he’d said about handcuffing me to the bed, and I wondered if he really had handcuffs—he probably did, considering he’d had a vibrator lying around that first night we’d been together here—and if I would ever let him do that to me. Based on how quickly I came once my thoughts turned in that direction, I was pretty sure I’d be game. I had barely shut the vibrator off when someone knocked at my door.

I popped up on the bed, hastily wrapping the vibrator in a washcloth and shoving all the evidence of my masturbatory endeavors into the top drawer of the nightstand. Both cats skittered away to hide, at least until they figured out whether hiding was what they really wanted to do or not. I straightened my nightgown, took a cursory glance around the room to see if there was any other evidence of what I’d been doing, and opened the door.

Keith was standing there, leaning against the wall with a sexy-as-sin expression in his eyes. Given my current state, Sex on a Stick immediately popped into my mind, and I silently cursed Tanya for ever calling him that in the first place. I doubted I’d ever be able to look at him without thinking of him in those terms.

BC came out from hiding almost instantly, heading over to weave around Keith’s feet.

“Sorry,” Keith said, eyeing me up and down appreciatively in a way that made me tug on the bottom of my nightgown. The light coming in from the hall shimmered on the fabric, outlining every curve of my body.

I shouldn’t have worn it. Heck, I shouldn’t have brought it here with me at all. It was one of the things he’d bought for me, in that package from Hips & Curves—a silky thing in royal blue that didn’t even come close to hitting my knees. I should have brought my usual pj’s, a T-shirt and a pair of flannel pants or something like that, but the fabric had felt so nice against my skin when I’d tried it on, and it had seemed so wasteful not to make use of at least a few of the things he’d bought me. So I’d brought it. I just hadn’t planned on seeing him when I was wearing it. At least not until we had moved further along with things.

Particularly not right after bringing myself to orgasm while thinking about him.

Keith licked his lips and swallowed hard, and I knew exactly where his thoughts had gone. “I wanted to thank you,” he finally said. “After you got me to talk about Garrett, I was able to have a conversation with Shane today. It was a really good talk, and I wouldn’t have—” He cut himself off, narrowing his eyes at me. “Are you all right? You’re all flushed, and—”

“I’m fine.” I tugged on the bottom of the bottom of the nightgown again, debating whether it was better to shut the door in his face and die from shame or if I could somehow survive this. “You’re welcome,” I added, hoping to redirect the conversation away from me and back to why he’d come down in the first place.

His eyes went all dark and sexy and sinful, and I felt insanely self-conscious. I wrapped my arms over my belly and backed away from the door.

He followed me into the room, only a few steps. “Yeah… Yeah, I bet you’re fine. You were just masturbating, weren’t you?”

“No,” I said way too defensively, flashing my eyes over to him.

“You were.”

My face was as hot as the rest of me. I was glad it was still dark so he couldn’t see how red I knew I was, now that I wasn’t in the path of the hall light.

He flipped the light switch, ending that brief moment of respite. “God, that’s hot, Brie. Shit.” He backed up a pace, looking sheepish. “Were you done?”

I had only thought my face was hot before. Now it felt as though it was engulfed in a raging inferno. “Yes,” I clipped off. There wasn’t any point in denying what I’d been doing anymore, since he seemed none too inclined to let it go.

“Okay.” He grinned, leaning back against the doorframe. Then he winked. “Were you thinking about me?”

I glared at him.

His grin turned cocky without losing any of its sexy essence. “Was it as good as the real me?”

Apparently, I was incapable of keeping the truth from being written all over my face. I might as well not even bother trying anymore. “No. There’s nothing like the real you.”

“Good.” He winked. “I, uh…I should let you go to bed. I just wanted to thank you. Like I said.” He backed out the open door, reaching as though to close it but standing there for a minute. Staring. His gaze bored into me so intensely that I felt as though I’d melt into a puddle of want if he didn’t stop soon. “You look amazing in that, Brie. Especially when you’re blushing.”

My blush only intensified by about a thousand shades or so. “Thank you,” I said, fighting down the urge to tell him he was full of it. As hard as it may be, I wanted to see myself the way he saw me.

“Good night, then.” He closed the door partway, but then opened it again. “Would you ever…” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Someday, would you let me watch?”

My eyes went so wide I felt as if they might bug out of my head.

Keith winked. “Think about it. Good night, Brie.” He flipped out the light and shut the door, and I collapsed back on the bed, as mortified as I was turned on.

I’D NEVER EXPERIENCED a Christmas quite like this one. Usually, I spent it with my family in Illinois. When we got together for the holidays, everybody was up in everyone else’s business all the time and the focus was all on my sister’s kids and food and presents. There was never a moment anyone could find for herself. This Christmas couldn’t have been more different from what I was used to.

It was only the four of us—kid free, no presents to speak of, and food of the everyday variety—just hanging out and letting our relationships bloom.

There were times that all of us were together, over meals or watching Christmas specials on TV. Keith made sure that we watched both A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Story, so at least we had some semblance of a typical holiday season. We talked, and we laughed, and we ate, and we generally enjoyed ourselves. It was easy, the four of us together. I was surprised how easy it was, actually, considering all the different levels of emotions that were present between us.

About once a day or so, Keith and Cole would go down into Keith’s gym to work out, keeping themselves in game shape and leaving Shane and me to talk about whatever struck our fancy. He tended to tell me amusing stories about when he and his brothers had been little boys, most of them stories that might embarrass Keith if he knew I’d heard them.

There were points when I took Cole down into the makeshift studio that Keith had mentioned so I could give him a little one-on-one dance instruction, and the two brothers would either watch us as we worked or spend some time alone together, repairing their relationship. I made a point of not asking Keith what they talked about in those moments—that was private, between the two of them—but every now and then he would tell me anyway. They were sharing memories of their childhood. They were talking about the last several years and where their lives had taken them. They were talking about the things that brothers talk about. I was glad for them.

At still other moments, Keith and I split off from Shane and Cole. I made sure that we talked during many of those times, at least, but as the days passed us by, we spent more and more of those moments either flirting outrageously or wrapped up in each other. He continued to keep his hands fisted at his sides most of the time, but every now and then he would forget himself and run them over my body. I got so caught up in his touch, and there was no doubt that he tended to forget himself when he was touching me, so a few of those times we almost went further than I thought was prudent. The line of how far was too far kept moving, though, bringing us closer and closer to ending up in bed together again.

It didn’t take long before I was losing the will to fight against the undeniable chemistry we had. Partially because my need for him was so intense, partially because we were successfully building that foundation for the future that I so desperately needed us to have.

Most days, Keith and the guys all went with me when I had practice with Devin. Tanya came along and opened the building for us. She could have given me a key to the building if she’d wanted, but this gave her an excuse to see Devin again…and flirt with him. She hung out with the guys while Devin and I practiced. They had watched from the peanut gallery above enough times that eventually Devin started asking their opinions on some of the things we were doing.

“When we get to this break in the music, I can’t make up my mind what should go there,” he called up at one point. “What do you guys think?”

“Something sexy,” Keith called back, his voice echoing against the studio walls. “The music is hot there. Your movements should match.”

“Something like this?” Devin asked as he lifted my right leg up until my ankle met his shoulder, toes pointed. Keeping one hand on my thigh, the other on my waist, he lifted me into the air until my knee was in line with his shoulder and I could bend it into a sharp angle, my other leg straight down below me. He spun me in time with the music.

“Definitely like that,” Cole agreed.

“Only maybe bend your other knee to match,” Tanya suggested.

We tried it again, making the changes that had been presented to us. I watched what we were doing in the mirrors, amazed at the images we were creating and how they lined up with the music, the lyrics. They were right. It was so perfect that, at least for a moment, I was able to forget about the fact that I might break Devin’s back if he continued to insist on adding lift after lift to this routine.

A couple of days after Christmas, we were going to have to do our first full run-through of the entire show, so there wasn’t much time left. Before that could happen, we needed to finalize this particular part of the routine, so there wasn’t a lot of time left. Somehow, it didn’t feel stressful, though—only invigorating and exciting. The adrenaline rush of an upcoming performance was starting to seep through every part of me.

On Christmas Eve, Tanya headed out of town to Eugene so she could spend Christmas with her parents and siblings. She offered to leave the keys to the building with me so that Devin and I could practice on Christmas Day if we wanted, but we turned her offer down, opting to use the makeshift studio in Keith’s house instead. In fact, after we finished up practicing his piece at Rose City, he followed us back to Keith’s place for a while that night. We didn’t end up working on the piece for his show any more than we already had that day, though. Instead, we listened to the track we would choreograph for The End of All Things over and over and over again, until it felt almost as though the drumbeat was in tune with our heartbeats, everything lining up together in perfect synchronization. It was called “Night of Open Spaces.”

“I’m thinking rumba with this,” Devin said. The two of us were sitting cross-legged on the floor while the other three guys were upstairs in the kitchen trying to figure out what they could put together for us all to eat.

Devin was right, of course. Of all the Latin dances in my repertoire, rumba was the one that perfectly suited the rhythm and style of this particular song. But if dancing Argentine tango with him had made me nervous, rumba would only intensify that sensation. It was slow and sensual, the dance of love. That suited the lyrics, too—or at least one interpretation of them. As with many of the songs by The End of All Things, there were countless meanings the song could take on, depending on what you wanted to see within them. That was part of their genius, at least the way I saw it.

Under light of moon

It’s just me and you

No pain, now we’re free

No one here to see

Lost and found

Sight and sound

All is gone

We are one

In this night of open spaces

Empty faces

Broken lives

Can’t return to the start

Wounded heart

Darkness thrives

With lyrics like those, it could easily be interpreted as a song of two broken people coming together to complete each other with love. There was no better way to represent that through Latin ballroom than with the rumba.

“Right,” I said finally, resigning myself to the fact that I was going to have to get over myself enough to work on yet another sensual dance with Devin—this one to be recorded in video to preserve it for all the world to see. “Rumba it is, then.”

“That one’s the bedroom dance, right?”

I jumped at the sound of Keith’s voice, and I didn’t need a mirror to know I was blushing like an idiot again. He could do that to me without even trying.

“That it is,” Devin agreed, grinning at me as though he was in on a joke.

“Good.” Keith leaned against the doorjamb almost casually, but he wasn’t fooling me. “I can’t wait to see that one. But it’ll have to wait because I’m starving and dinner’s ready. Let’s eat.”

Devin helped me to my feet and then turned off the music. Without anything better to do with myself, I crossed the floor to where Keith was waiting for me. He pulled me in for a kiss, keeping his hands on my waist with such a fierce resolve that I wondered if I’d be sore when he released me. I wasn’t; I was only hungry for more of his touch.

But that was going to have to wait, too.

“Are you three coming or what?” Shane shouted down the stairs. “Cole’s so hungry he might eat one of the dogs if we don’t feed him soon.”

“No one’s eating any of my dogs,” Keith returned, laughing. He took my hand and pulled me along after him as we went up the stairs, Devin following close behind us.

“Fine,” Cole said when we came into the kitchen. “A cat, then.”

Shane winked at me, and I rolled my eyes.

“Based on how it smells in here,” I said, my stomach grumbling in response to the savory scent of burgers and homemade fries, “I have the distinct feeling that won’t be necessary.”

Everyone fixed up plates, talking over each other, laughing, and having a good time. Cole, Shane, and Devin carried their plates into the living room to camp out in front of the TV. We were apparently going to watch another Christmas special tonight. I was about to follow them when Keith put an arm around my waist and drew me in for another kiss. He lingered over it for a minute, and I reveled in the sensation of his lips against mine.

“There is a pussy I wouldn’t mind eating,” he whispered seductively in my ear, and I shivered at the memory of what his tongue could do. “Maybe for dessert?”

I tried to slow my pulse, to remember how to breathe, but it felt as though I was asking too much of myself in the attempt.

“Maybe,” I said. I met his gaze, saw the hunger there that matched my own. Then I picked up my plate and glass, and I headed in to join the others in the living room.

At least that would give me a little time to figure out if that was the right move to make, or if we were once again rushing into things. I wasn’t sure of much, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about this one thing: once I went to bed with Keith again, there would be no more putting on the brakes, no more opportunity to slow things down. It would be full-steam ahead and no looking back.

I had to be certain that was what I wanted.

IT WAS ALMOST midnight. Devin had left a few hours ago. Colesy and Shane had called it a night around eleven and gone upstairs, leaving me alone with Brie, my dogs, and BC.

BC was by far the more adventurous of Brie’s two cats, and yesterday he’d decided that he’d had enough of being confined when everyone was out and about. Richie was still staying hidden away in his sanctuary, but BC had struck out to explore the entire house, sneaking past Brie at one point when she’d had the door open.

Not only was he feeling his way around the place, but he’d also shown my dogs that he was the boss. Shadow and Dexter had sniffed his butt and decided to let him have his way pretty quickly, but Pepper wasn’t so sure she wanted to be bossed around by a feline. She’d tried to assert her own dominance until the little guy had hissed and growled at her, his hackles raised, and then taken a swat at her nose. He hadn’t gotten her with his claws, but he’d scared her enough with his show of dominance that she’d whimpered and scampered off to hide in plain sight on my lap, as though I would protect her from the mean kitty. This made me fairly certain that she had no earthly clue how big she was.

It also made me start thinking about what it might be like if Brie and her cats were to ever come here to stay, not only for a few days at Christmas. I was starting to think it would work out. Yes, Richie was still in hiding, at least any time that anyone else was around, but Brie swore that he always hid more than he was ever out and about. He was scared of everything, she said. My house was big enough that he could find lots of good hiding places, if he got brave enough to explore and find them. If he could settle in here, there was no reason that they couldn’t all settle in.

Other than the fact that I had no idea where Brie stood on our relationship. I knew where I stood. Sometime in the last few days, I’d realized I was in love with her. It wasn’t just some passing fascination. It wasn’t simply lust. I wanted a hell of a lot more than merely getting her to come back to my bed, although I certainly wouldn’t shoot her down if she decided she was ready for that again. I supposed I’d been in love with her for a while. Why else would I have agreed to back off, when all I wanted was to take things to the next level? I wanted to be with her every moment of every day, but I had no idea when Brie was going to be willing to take our relationship up a notch.

Until now, at least.

Maybe kept floating through my head from when she’d said it earlier. I’d chewed it over, letting that single word roll around in my mind, analyzing everything about the way she’d said it and her tone of voice when the word had spilled from her lips.

Was she ready? Had I proven that I could be real with her, that I could open up to her and share my life and who I was, and not rely strictly on our physical connection as the basis for our relationship? I thought I had. But then again, I’d thought I had gone far enough toward that when I’d first told her about Garrett. That had only been enough to convince her to kiss me again.

But we’d spent hours and hours over the last few days talking about everything under the moon. I’d told her how I’d struggled with boredom during my early years in school, and the only way my parents had been able to keep me from failing and get me to actually put forth any effort was to threaten me with not being allowed to play hockey. For a while, they hadn’t been sure if I’d even graduate from high school, but I’d done well enough that I’d gone on to college.

She’d told me how the thyroid issues that had caused her weight gain had also messed up her vision, and that was why she always wore those glasses. She’d tried contacts, but she’d never been able to adjust to them—especially since her vision seemed to change far more often than was typical for someone of her age—so she’d given in and resigned herself to always wearing glasses. It was yet another thing that made her self-conscious, much like her weight. She thought they made her unattractive. I’d made a mental note when she told me that to increase my efforts to let her know how beautiful she was, as often as possible. I didn’t want her to ever doubt herself, not in any way.

Even now, as we sat in the dark, with only the soft white radiance of the Christmas tree I’d put up before the party to see by, I was amazed by her beauty. She practically glowed in this lighting, similar to the candlelight on our first date but with a softer quality. She’d allowed me to wrap my arms around her and hold her close to my side, leaning her back against my chest, and the lights bounced off her glasses and danced with every breath she took. It was intoxicating to watch her like this, to hold her in such a way.

It felt as right as anything in my life had ever felt. Probably because I was in love with her, and being able to love again, having someone to love, was something I hadn’t realized I was missing.

I didn’t want to end the moment, but that single word kept haunting my thoughts. Maybe. Should I prod her to see if her maybe had turned to a yes? I’d promised myself I would let things go at her pace, that I wouldn’t push her for more than she was ready for. But did asking count as pushing?

I hadn’t made up my mind yet what I should do when she turned her head to me and placed a kiss on my jaw.

“I have something for you,” she murmured. “A Christmas present.”

That made me feel like an ass. “I didn’t get anything for you.” I’d thought that since we were technically still just supposed to be friends right now, regardless of the fact that we weren’t really acting much like friends, a gift might be overstepping where we were in our relationship.

“You’ve been letting me stay here for days,” she said, standing up. “That’s more than enough of a gift. Besides, you’ve already given me something.”

Had I? I’d given her my heart, but I wasn’t sure she knew that yet.

She headed toward the stairs to go down, and I started to follow her, but she shook her head. “Stay there. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I sat back against the couch cushions, and BC came over to claim the warm spot Brie had just vacated. Pepper gave him the evil eye, but she didn’t move to warn him off. He circled around a few times and then plopped down beside me, purring like a Harley-Davidson. The look he tossed my direction was one of pure contentment.

Brie was gone more than a minute, and I couldn’t stop my mind from racing, trying to figure out what she intended to give me. The only thing I wanted was her, all of her—in my bed, in my life—but if that was what I was getting, she wouldn’t be downstairs while I was sitting here surrounded by our pets. Would she?

Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to sit still and wait for her even one minute longer, she reappeared at the top of the stairs. She’d changed out of her clothes, and her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she had on a black satin robe that was belted around her waist and fell slightly over her knees. It showed off her shapely calves, hugged her curvy hips, and gave me the most perfect peek at her cleavage. She had something in one hand that she was taking care to hide behind her.

I’d bought her that robe, along with the nightgown she’d worn the other night, and about a dozen other things. My thoughts went from zero to sixty in about a half-second flat, wondering what she had on underneath the robe, if anything.

She stood there, her nerves apparently so erratic that I could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts with each shuddering breath she took. My mouth went dry, my jaw slack. I wanted her more than I wanted my heart to keep beating, but she’d frozen in place when she reached the top of the stairs and she hadn’t moved a muscle since.

Everything in me was screaming to cross over to her and undo her the belt, to pick her up in my arms and carry her up the stairs so I could make love to her, but I stayed right where I was, forcing myself to do nothing more than take her in.

She licked her lips and looked away, her gaze heading toward the stairs going up—the stairs closest to my bedroom. “I, um…” When she looked at me again, her face was pink, but her gaze was direct. “Will you take me upstairs so I can show you your present?”

That was all the invitation I needed. “I thought you’d never ask.” I crossed over to her in a heartbeat, putting one arm around her waist and guiding her up the stairs and into my bedroom so fast that we were both breathless. Granted, we were already out of breath before we’d started moving, but that was beside the point.

I closed the door, desperate to get my hands on her, but when I reached for her she put a hand against my chest and shook her head.

“Not yet. Sit over there.” She nodded in the direction of an armchair near the window.

The torture wasn’t yet at an end, then. I groaned, but I took a seat.

She set whatever was in her hand down on the bed, but I had no clue what it was. I couldn’t look at it. My eyes were only for Brie.

She came around to the same side of the bed as I was on, leaning back against it while she slowly undid the belt. Her robe dropped open, and my breath caught when I saw her underneath it. She’d put on one of the baby-doll nighties I’d bought her, some sort of soft, red fabric with a loose skirt that swayed with her movements and a fitted bodice that cupped her breasts in exactly the way I wanted to. The skirt fell just high enough for me to get a peek of black satin panty.

My tongue felt thick, and I had to sit on my hands to keep myself in place.

When she took a step away from the bed, the satin fabric of the robe dropped off her shoulders. The material swished to the floor at her feet. She held my gaze for a moment, but then she bent down to pick it up, turning slightly so I had a view of her ass. The nightie shifted to reveal her panty was a thong—a thin strip of fabric between those gorgeous cheeks I was dying to get my hands on.

Brie straightened and set the robe on the foot of the bed. Then she reached for the item that she’d carried in. She opened the pull ties of a silky black bag, and she pulled a vibrator out of it, her face as red as I’d ever seen it.

“You, um…” She shrugged, but then her eyes flickered up to meet mine again. “You asked if you could watch sometime. Do you still want to do that?”

Hell to the fucking yes, and even more if she was going to let me touch her when she was done. I settled for nodding because I didn’t trust my voice.

She took a few breaths, setting the little bag on my nightstand and seemingly working up her nerves. Then she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and lowered them, slowly, incredibly slowly, down her legs. She stepped out of them, toed them away, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Her breaths were heavy, fast, steady. She hadn’t even touched herself yet, but the skin of her chest and shoulders was already flushed and covered with a light sheen of perspiration. She was incredibly turned on, maybe as turned on as I was.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Brie said. “Well, I’ve— Just never with anyone watching, I mean.”

“Don’t be nervous.” I was nervous enough for the both of us. Maybe not nervous. Excited. Filled with anticipation. So damn ready.

“I’m not—” She cut herself off. “Okay, I’m nervous.”

“You have nothing to be nervous about. You’re beautiful. I love— I love watching you come.” I’d almost said I loved her. I needed to tell her soon, but not yet. This was about her starting to find that confidence in herself that she’d been sorely lacking. I didn’t want to steal anything from that moment, didn’t want to make it about something else. Telling her I loved her could wait.

She nodded a couple of times. Then she looked behind her at the bed. “Do you want— Should I—”

“Do whatever makes you comfortable.”

Taking a couple of pillows from near the headboard, she placed them behind her and leaned back against them. Then she drew her knees up and back, and reached down between her legs. And she touched herself.

I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass that I couldn’t.

I would never see anything more beautiful, more trusting, more insanely sexy and sensual and giving in my life.

This was about as close to heaven as I would ever get, and that was all right with me.

AFTER A FEW minutes, I stopped feeling self-conscious about the fact that Keith was watching me. My body jumped ahead of my mind on that point, growing closer and closer to orgasm even before I had come to terms with the fact that I was masturbating with an audience. Whatever embarrassment I’d been feeling changed to exhilaration at some point along the way, and then the vibrator was almost too much for me to take.

I turned the intensity down and moved it inside, moving the vibrations away from my clitoris so I could slow my climax down some. I swirled my fingers around my slick bundle of nerve endings, but even a very light touch was almost too much.

My breathing turned shaky. I was hovering right on the edge of release, but I didn’t want it to happen too soon. With my head back against the pillows and my eyes closed, I tried to focus in on driving myself closer but keeping myself from slipping into that moment of ecstasy.

I was close. So close. The muscles in my thighs and calves and feet and belly clenched, seeking relief from the pressure. Alternately, I couldn’t breathe or I was gasping in huge lungsful of air. I squeezed my eyes and let out a moan.

“Fuck, Brie.”

Keith’s voice had me lifting my head to look at him. He had a hand over his pants, rubbing himself through the fabric, and he looked about as close to orgasm as I was.

His eyes bored through mine. “Are you about to come?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice wobbling.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes.”

In a flash he was next to me, leaning over me to lower the straps of my lingerie down my arms. My breasts had barely come free when he took one in his mouth and molded the other to his palm. I arched up into him, so close to climax I didn’t think I could stop it now.

So I stopped trying to hold it back. It washed over me, leaving me shuddering and boneless and completely unable to think.

Thinking was overrated, anyway.

Keith kissed me, long and deep and full of need, his hand cupping the back of my head to keep me where he wanted me. “Can I make love to you?” he asked when he came up for air. “God, it’s been too long.”

“It’s only been about a week,” I said, laughing, but only because I felt the same way he did. It might have been slightly longer than a week, but it felt as though it had been longer than the six months between our first night and when we finally found each other again.

“I don’t care. I— I need you, Brie.”

“I need you, too.”

It took him no time at all to get his clothes off—which I was glad he could manage on his own since I still could hardly lift my head—and slip a condom in place. And then the vibrator was gone, and he was inside me, and we were moving together, my legs wrapped around his waist to draw him closer.

It was hard and fast and needy, utter perfection in every way. I could only hold on to Keith’s shoulders, nipping him lightly as I came again. Two strokes later, he shouted and stilled, and lowered himself down over me to recover.

After a minute, he rolled off me, pulling me with him with an arm around my waist. He tucked my head into the spot between his neck and his shoulder, keeping me right by his side. “Merry Christmas,” he murmured, still running his hands along my body in an almost obsessive manner.

I couldn’t really complain about that, since it felt good, and since I was still doing the same to him. The bit of a break we’d taken had been good for us in more ways than I’d imagined. I never thought the physical aspect of our relationship needed work or to get better, but this was definitely better.

“Merry Christmas to you, too. Maybe we should take a week off from sleeping together more often, if this is what comes of it.”

“Don’t even fucking joke about that,” he said. “I can’t take it. I nearly died being around you and not being able to touch you.”

I smiled into his chest, mainly because I knew exactly how difficult it had been for him. It was all too common for me to look over and see him grinding his jaw, fisting his hands, trying to physically restrain himself from stepping across the invisible boundary I’d placed between us.

But he’d done it. He’d done everything I’d asked of him and more. And now we could move forward.

With one hand, Keith adjusted the strap on my lingerie, pulling it back up over my shoulder where it belonged. I adjusted the bra cups, putting my boobs back inside, as he drew the blankets up over us, so if we fell asleep, at least we were in a good position for it.

“How did you feel?” he asked quietly. “Wearing that, with me looking at you like I was?”

That was a loaded question. I took a moment, weighing my answer. I felt nervous and excited and entirely too aware of everything about myself. I felt alive. I felt afraid that I wouldn’t have the guts to go through with what I’d planned. But more than anything…

“I felt beautiful.”

I LOST TRACK of how many times Keith and I made love that night and over the course of the next day and night. We did go down to eat and to spend some time with Shane and Cole, who were likewise seeming to spend a lot of time upstairs and shut away from us, but for the most part we stayed closed off in Keith’s room, enjoying each other.

When we got up the day after Christmas, though, the four of us all knew that our idyllic few days had finally come to an end. There was a sense of unspoken acknowledgment over breakfast that morning. Keith and Cole were leaving later that day for their short road trip; I had to really devote myself to Devin’s piece since we still hadn’t managed to get through the whole thing and our performance was less than a week away; and Shane had to occupy himself while his brother and Cole were gone. His flight home wasn’t until January third, so he was going to have to figure out what to do over his next four days here by himself.

I suggested that he could come along with me and Devin to our practices, but Shane turned me down, saying he would rather explore the city and see what it had to offer, since he hadn’t spent much, if any, time here in all the years that Keith had been playing for the Storm. In Keith’s rookie season—the last time the brothers were essentially on speaking terms—Shane had been a senior in high school and playing major junior hockey in Canada. He’d only come out once, following the conclusion of his season in juniors, and even then it had only been a few days with the whole family together.

This was his opportunity to get to know the place that Keith now called home, at least most of the year, and to do it on his own terms.

We agreed to get together for lunch or dinner a few times while the guys were gone, but otherwise he was on his own, and I was back to life as usual—or at least as close to life as usual as I could come with the knowledge that this performance was bearing down on me, and as soon as we were finished with that, we would be working on the music video for The End of All Things.

The guys all helped me to get my cats and all of their paraphernalia back to my apartment. Cole and Shane headed down to the car once everything was situated, leaving Keith behind for the moment.

He drew me in close and put both arms around me, resting his chin on the top of my head. He was only going to be gone for a few days, but it felt like so much longer than that. Probably because we’d been so fully immersed in each other for the last several days. That was what I told myself, at least. I even halfway believed it.

“I haven’t even left yet, and I already miss you,” he said.

I could understand that. For whatever reason, I felt as though as soon as we let go of each other, we were going to be half a world apart. It left me with an empty, hollow ache that I couldn’t explain and wasn’t sure I wanted to. “How soon do you have to leave?” I asked, hating the despondence in my tone.

“A few minutes. I have to get packed and head up to the practice facility by ten.”

A few minutes didn’t seem nearly long enough, particularly after spending almost every waking moment together—and many of our sleeping moments—in recent memory. I wrapped my arms tighter around his waist, drawing him closer to me, as though that would sear the sensation of having our bodies pressed together into my brain.

“If I FaceTime you, will you put on another piece of lingerie and show it off for me?”

I did my best not to snort out loud. “Depends. Do you have a roommate when you’re on the road?”

“Nope. It’s just me. Me and my hand. Good times.” A silent chuckle rumbled through him and into me.

It was somehow comforting that he could make thoroughly inappropriate jokes and be charming, all at the same time, when I was all torn up in knots that he was leaving. The simple fact that I was a mess about him going away for a few days was something worth examining, though. I knew I cared about him—there wasn’t really any point in denying that, to myself or anyone else—but how deep did that run? It was more than a just-friends sort of companionship. It had been even when I’d insisted we needed to keep our relationship limited to that. But had we gone over the line from friends-in-lust or casual dating to something more like love? I wasn’t certain, but the few days apart should give me ample time to sort through that and figure out at least where I stood on that matter.

“I’ll think about it,” I finally hedged, not willing to give him a definitive answer one way or the other. The fact was, I was leaning toward doing exactly that for him. I couldn’t explain it, but the more willing I was to step outside of my comfort zone in terms of my body image issues, at least when Keith was involved, the less they seemed to plague me. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to wear that skimpy outfit that the seamstress had made for my performance with Devin, but I was at least a lot closer to ready than I had been a few weeks ago. The way he looked at me, no matter what I was wearing, gave me a confidence that had been sorely lacking for a very long time.

“I guess I’ll have to accept a maybe, then, and hope for the best.”

He pulled back a bit, far enough that he could tip my head up toward him, and he kissed me very soundly. I pushed up on my tiptoes to meet him, deepening the kiss. We were both out of breath, our pulses frantic, by the time we had to separate.

“You really have to go?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“I do. Four days, Brie. That’s all. I’ll be back on the thirtieth. Well, late that night, but still.”

“I know.”

He cupped my face with both hands, planting kisses over every spare inch of skin he could find, it seemed. That was more than enough to steal what little breath I had left. No one had ever kissed me like that before, as though every piece of me was precious. When he released me and stepped toward the door, I had to put a hand on the bar between my kitchen and living room to steady myself.

“I love you, Brie,” he said.

Then he walked through the doorway and was gone.

I SPENT A lot of time with Colesy on the road that trip. He admitted that he didn’t know exactly what he had going with Shane, but that it was nice to know he could potentially be in a relationship and have someone know about it and be okay with it. I tried not to pry, but I inadvertently did when I asked him why no one from his family came to visit for the holidays.

“Dad is about as homophobic as they come,” he told me over coffee. “Once I came out to my parents, Dad pretty much wrote me off. He won’t let Mom have anything to do with me. She secretly sends me letters and stuff. I wish she’d stop, though, because if he finds out…”

The way he left it hanging made me wonder if his father was a violent man. I got the distinct sense that I wasn’t too far off the mark.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about anything where I’m concerned,” I assured him. “I’m pretty sure you could come out to the rest of the team if you wanted and everything would be fine. But only if that’s something you want to do.”

He changed the subject pretty quickly, so I knew my suspicions were right and he wasn’t ready for that kind of step. But he did have me, at least. I was glad I could be the one person he felt comfortable enough to be real with. I only wished there were more.

That could come in time.

Even though we were only gone for four days on this trip, we had three games. We beat San Jose five to four in a wild one on Saturday afternoon, then flew down to LA. Sunday night, we lost to the Kings when we left Bobby out to dry. The second game of a back-to-back was always iffy, and as Hunter’s backup, Bobby had drawn the short end of that stick. None of us had any legs after the track meet of a game we’d had the day before against the Sharks. We finally had a day off again on Monday, complete with no travel, before we were set to face Anaheim.

I talked to Brie as often as I could while we were gone, but between my schedule and hers, it wasn’t easy to find moments that worked for both of us. Whether she would have been willing to give me a show on FaceTime or not, there hadn’t been a good time for us to work that out, either.

She hadn’t told me that she loved me, too. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe not yet. I’d jumped headfirst into love with her a lot faster than I’d ever imagined, so it was only natural to think that it might take her a little longer to get there. How long did it take most people to fall in love? I’d never bothered to ask anyone. It had never seemed to matter until now.

As long as she knew that I loved her, though, and she wasn’t trying to pull away from me again, I was all right with waiting for her to get there. I told her again every time we talked, sometimes more than once. She would usually get a little quiet when I told her, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. It could just mean that she was trying to let it sink in. I’d noticed that she did the same thing every time I told her how beautiful she was, too.

Regardless of all that, something between us was awkward when we talked Monday night. We’d been on the phone for at least twenty minutes, all of them slightly uncomfortable, before I finally figured out what wasn’t quite right.

She’d been telling me about her latest rehearsal with Devin, how they’d finally finished all the choreography and there would be no more changes to the piece for the New Year’s Day show. Tomorrow was the dress rehearsal.

“I can’t wait to see you dancing that number in front of a real audience,” I said. “The way you come alive even in practice? I bet it’s magnified a hundredfold when you’re on a stage with all the lights.”

“I’m nervous,” she admitted quietly.

“This is what you do, though. There’s no reason to be nervous.” I always had a slight case of nerves before going out for a game, but once my skates hit the ice, all my nerves melted away. Then it was only adrenaline and the repetition of practice that got me through.

“It’s not about dancing. That’s about the only part of my life where I feel truly confident.”

“Then what?”

Brie hemmed and hawed, putting off giving me a real answer. But then she finally came out with it. “The seamstress came back with my outfit today, all complete with sequins and beads and whatnot. It fits a little too well.”

There was no such thing as something fitting Brie too well, at least not in my mind, but I had a feeling that telling her that would have the opposite effect of what I was going for. I bit my tongue, giving a thoughtful, “Hmm…” and then waiting for her to finish.

“The way it’s cut, and the way it hugs my body… I’m just worried that I’ll be so focused on the fact that people other than you are seeing me dressed that way that I won’t focus on the dancing.”

“The way you move, they aren’t going to be able to focus on the dress, Brie.”

“You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”

“No, I’m not. I doubt that even I will be able to focus on how you look in that dress, and I can promise you that I want to focus on that, at least a little.” I waited until she chuckled. “Have Devin and Tanya seen you in it?”

“Yeah. And Shane, too. He came by today to take me to dinner and got there just in time for me and Devin to do a rehearsal in it.”

I was a little jealous that my brother had seen her in it before I did. Not to mention the fact that he’d gotten to go to dinner with her tonight. Okay, maybe I was a lot jealous. “What did they have to say?”

“They said no one will be looking at the dress.” Her voice held a definite pout.

“Well, then, I guess I was right.”

“Maybe.”

“Mmm-hmm. You keep thinking that. When I get back to Portland, you can dance in it for me and then we’ll really see.”

“Or I could dance for you in something else…”

My mind raced through all the different pieces of lingerie she hadn’t worn for me yet, and I imagined watching her doing a strip-tease. A reminder alarm on my phone beeped in my ear, though, telling me I had to get off the phone and call it a night. I had to be up early for a leadership meeting before morning skate, and Bergy would murder me if I wasn’t well rested.

“Time’s up,” I said halfheartedly. The last thing I wanted to do right now was hang up the phone and try to sleep. There would be very little chance of me actually sleeping if all my thoughts were on Brie and her sexy body doing a dance just for me. “Gotta hit the hay.”

“Mmm…me too,” she murmured. “With all these practices, I’m worn out. Thank goodness I haven’t had any classes to teach the last couple of weeks. I don’t know how I’ll get through the work on the music video once classes resume.”

“You’ll figure it out.” I had no doubt that Brie could do anything she set her mind to. “I love you, Brie.”

She fell silent for a few moments, quiet enough for so long that I thought I might be able to hear her heartbeat through the phone. That might only be one of her cats purring, though. It was really hard to tell.

Then, “Good night, Keith.”

“Good night.”

We hung up, and I was still waiting to hear those three little words from her mouth.

BERGY PULLED ME, Colesy, and the rest of the Storm’s defensemen aside after morning skate on Tuesday before our game against the Ducks. “Nicky’s back in tonight,” he said, his arms crossed over his chest. “The doctors have cleared him, and he’s been looking really good in practices, so he’s getting the start. We’re going to send Bobby back to Seattle, which I’m sure they’ll be glad about.”

The Seattle Storm was our AHL affiliate team. Without Bobby, they’d really been struggling in goal. That was one area that the Storm organization apparently didn’t have enough depth. I knew Jim Sutter, our general manager, had been trying to work out some sort of trade for another goaltender of decent skill to plug in over there, but as of yet nothing had panned out.

Bergy looked each of us in the eye, glaring through us with the same kind of intensity he used to bring to the game in his playing days. “It’s been a while since he’s seen any game action, though. He’s going to be rusty as a fucking nail, and that means he’s going to be relying on the six of you more than ever. So everything we’ve been working on, all the communication that I’ve been preaching, that all comes into play tonight more than ever before. You’d fucking better be talking to each other out there, and talking to Nicky. And if you don’t, you’re going to find your asses glued to the bench. Am I clear?”

A chorus of “Yeah,” and “Got it,” met his pronouncement.

Apparently we’d been doing what he wanted lately because Bergy hadn’t changed up the defensive pairings in weeks—not since he’d put me and Colesy together. Each of the partnerships had definitely had some struggles at first, but things were really starting to click. Well, as long as you ignored that last game against the Kings. I was pretty sure we would all like to put that one as far in the past as possible and forget that it had ever happened.

“Burnzie, you and Colesy are going to be stuck like glue to the Getzlaf line all night. Every time they go out, you go out, too. Pay particular attention to Perry. That guy has Nicky’s number and always has. I don’t want him getting in Nicky’s head tonight, so I want you to deal with him.”

I couldn’t stop the grin from stealing over me. There was nothing I liked better than playing against a guy like Corey Perry. He talked trash all night long, but he could back it up, and he always played right on the edge of what was legal. Sometimes he crossed over that line, but he was always right there, pushing until you broke.

There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to break.

“I can handle that,” I said, nodding at Colesy. Perry was definitely my responsibility for the night. Dealing with that guy would require no small amount of the snarl I could bring to the table. It was just the thing I needed since I couldn’t get Brie off my mind.

“Glad you’re looking forward to it,” Colesy said when we were heading back to the locker room to clean up. “That guy drives me insane.”

“Me too. Good thing for us that makes me a better player when someone’s driving me insane.”

Sure enough, Perry seemed to have an extra-pesky streak to his game tonight, always trying to get in tight on Nicky. He kept me on my toes, but no matter how hard he tried, he never quite got clear of me.

Not until midway through the third period of a scoreless game, at least.

Up until that point, the D had done a great job of keeping all of the Ducks forwards out of the middle. We let them have room from the outside, trusting that Nicky could see those shots and stop them. And he’d done a great job of it so far all night.

But then Perry gave me a dipsy doodle kind of move and got me all twisted around. He broke into the zone, heading straight for the slot. He didn’t have the puck, but that didn’t matter. They were onside, and Getzlaf had the puck. He sent it straight toward the tape of Perry’s stick.

I made a diving play with my own stick, hoping to either knock the puck away or lift Perry’s stick. Both would have been all right.

What I accomplished was getting the blade of my stick between Perry’s feet. I didn’t touch his skates, but you couldn’t tell from the flop he took to the ice, selling it to the refs like he tended to do. Like I said before, he was always one to skirt the line of legality. He’d take a fall if he thought he could draw a call.

The refs bit. I didn’t hear the whistle, but I saw the zebra with his arm in the air and the tripping signal…and the point toward center ice. I wasn’t getting a two-minute minor; he’d called me for a penalty shot.

“That was a fucking dive,” I shouted at the ref, getting right up in his face before I could think better of it.

“Yours was, Burnzie, but you tripped him.”

“Perry pulls this shit all the fucking time.”

“Maybe, but your stick was in his skates.” He tried to skate past me toward center ice, but I didn’t make it easy on him.

“I didn’t touch his skates. Seriously, a fucking penalty shot?”

“Get your ass to your bench before I call you for unsportsmanlike conduct on top of it,” the ref warned.

I was about to launch a few more choice words in his direction when Colesy grabbed me by the back of the jersey and dragged me away.

“Lay off him, Burnzie. Nicky’s been on so far tonight. Let’s trust him to get you out of this and then worry about how we’re gonna beat these guys.”

I nodded and took my spot on the bench, still stewing. Perry circled around, waiting for the refs to signal that he could go. I turned my attention to Nicky, though, trying to see his eyes through the cage of his mask. When he was really dialed in and on his game, his eyes were almost solid black, pure focus. Because of the angle, I couldn’t tell what they were doing, though.

The ref gave the signal and Perry took off wide, but with a full head of steam. He skated in fast, deked once, and then went top shelf, glove side. Nicky’s glove shot up just in the nick of time. He caught the puck and held it straight up in the air, almost taunting Perry and the Ducks’ fans as he tossed it toward the ref.

“Attaboy,” Bergy shouted. He moved along behind the bench, slapping shoulders and helmets. “Let’s get back out there and give our goaltender some fucking help, huh?” He sent out the top forward line along with Jens and Ny for the next shift. Then he moved up right behind me and bent down over my shoulder. “I saw your stick. It didn’t touch that fucker’s skates. But that doesn’t matter. You blow up at a ref like that again, and you’ll be spending a lot more time with your ass planted on this pine bench than you want. You’re supposed to be one of the guys leading this team, not digging us a bigger hole.”

I nodded to let him know I got his message, loud and clear. Then I turned my attention back to the ice. We had a fucking game to win.

I’D NEVER EXPERIENCED a longer four days in my life. The reason it seemed longer than it should have, or at least one of the reasons, was because I was desperate to tell Keith something after he’d told me he loved me, but I had no idea what that ought to be.

The one thing I did know was that no matter what it was I eventually settled on telling him, I couldn’t do it over the phone. Some things really need to be said in person, and I love you was at the top of the list. I don’t know if I love you yet was right up there, too.

I’d been so stunned when he’d said it on his way out the door. He’d left as soon as the words had slipped past his lips, leaving me gaping like a fish out of water. But then I’d spent a little time thinking about it. Okay, I’d spent a lot of time thinking about it. Any time that wasn’t spent working with Devin was tied up in trying to sort out how I felt about Keith.

I hadn’t merely thought about it. I’d talked to Devin about it when we took breaks, sitting cross-legged on the floor while we chugged water and tried to get our wind back after a long session. I’d talked to Tanya about it over lunches around her desk, trying to get her to help me see past the Sex on a Stick aspect to my relationship with Keith. Those conversations had left me leaning toward it being love, but I still felt unsure.

But then I’d had dinner with Shane.

And now I knew. I absolutely, unequivocally knew. I loved Keith.

I loved the way I felt when I was with him. I loved the way he looked at me as though there was no other woman on the face of the planet he would rather be with or look at. I loved the way he was so diligent in making sure I knew I was perfect exactly as I was. I loved that he was finally able to talk about the parts of his life that he’d kept hidden away for so long and that I’d had something to do with that change in him. I loved that he cared so much about his brothers—both of them—that he would take Cole on as his own special cause in an effort to change his karma. But really, more than anything, I loved who I was when I was with him.

I was bolder. More daring. I believed in myself more when I was with him because he believed in me so much. It was impossible to think all the things Val had said to and about me could be true when Keith was around me, helping me to see the truth.

So now, I was desperate to see him again.

The team flew home after their game in Anaheim, but Keith texted me before they left, saying he would come to my rehearsal and then take me to the Light the Lamp event once it was finished. It was going to be about three a.m. by the time the team plane landed, and he didn’t want to screw with my sleep schedule when my performance was only a couple of days away.

My heart sank that I would have to wait another twelve hours or so to see him, but there wasn’t really any better option as far as I could see it. Unless I went to stay at his house, of course. But that seemed insanely presumptuous, so I’d decided I’d better not. Instead, I waited as patiently as I could for our opportunity to see each other.

New Year’s Eve brought with it the final dress rehearsal with all the dancers. We were even doing our rehearsal in the venue, Keller Auditorium, despite the fact that it had to be costing Devin an arm and a leg to rent it an extra day. I was far more used to doing these final run-throughs in a studio somewhere that would only cost a fraction of the Keller’s fee.

I had to be there by nine, and I had a feeling Keith would still be in bed at that hour if he didn’t have to go in for practice or something, so I decided to take the bus over to the auditorium and send him a message to let him know where he could find me when he had time.

When I walked in, I realized for the first time how enormous this production was going to be. Keller Auditorium was massive and glorious, and seriously imposing. The show was going to be equally massive, too, based on the number of dancers streaming in and getting into costume. Devin stood at the front of the stage, directing traffic, giving directions to the sound and lighting people, and generally staying calm and collected.

The more I saw, though, the more pressure I felt. I’d been expecting a few hundred seats being filled. This place would house thousands. All the nerves that I’d told Keith about came rushing back, and I worried that I might be sick. Still, I forced my feet to move, and eventually I made it up to the front to find out where Devin wanted me.

He winked when he saw me. “Your dressing room is marked. Stacey can help you find it whenever you’re ready.” He indicated a blonde next to him, and she smiled at me. “After that, I need you to sit in front with me until it’s our turn, so you can help me decide what changes we might need to make. You’re my second set of eyes today.”

I didn’t feel as though I could adequately be my own set of eyes, given the jumping jacks taking over my stomach, but I nodded and let Stacey lead me to the dressing room. Only when we got there, I stopped short. It was a private room with my name on it. I’d been expecting my name to be listed alongside a number of other dancers, not all by itself. The only other private dressing room I saw was Devin’s. Everyone else was sharing, most of them five or six dancers to a room, everyone bumping into each other.

“He can’t be serious,” I muttered.

“Oh, he is,” Stacey said. “This is all yours. We’ve got someone coming in to do your hair and makeup. She should be here in about fifteen minutes. Let me know if you need anything, Brie. I’ll be either back in this hall or out front with Devin.” She left me to pick my jaw up off the floor on my own, winking as she headed out the door.

I tried to get over it, but it felt as though Devin was trying to make me out as some big star or something. I wasn’t a star. I was simply the ballroom dancer he’d wrangled into working with him on this show.

For a moment, I wished that Keith was here with me. He would be able to calm me down, help me to accept whatever it was that Devin was throwing at me. But he wasn’t, and I didn’t know when he’d show up, and so I had to figure it out on my own.

I got dressed and waited for hair and makeup, all the while checking my phone to see if I had any messages from Keith. Nothing. The woman came in and glammed me up in a way to match my dress, and still nothing. I sighed, putting my phone back in my bag and leaving it in the dressing room. Devin said he was counting on me to be his second set of eyes, so I figured I’d better get out there. I didn’t know what help I could be for him, but I definitely wouldn’t be any help at all if I spent the whole day hiding in my dressing room and incessantly checking my cell.

DEVIN AND I took up our opening position near the center of the stage, a bright spotlight bearing down on us and blinding me. That didn’t keep me from being nervous, though. I knew how many dancers and other crew members were out there in the crowd, watching. Staring. At me, in this getup.

As much as I hated it, I was shaking like crazy, and I doubted anything would make the shaking stop other than Keith somehow walking up and helping to soothe my nerves. But he hadn’t shown up yet, and I’d expected him hours ago, and I hadn’t been near my cell phone because I’d been busy helping Devin all day. I was going crazy not seeing him.

Devin chucked me under the chin and kept his hand there until I met his eyes. “You’re beautiful, Brie. Stop worrying. You don’t have any reason to be embarrassed. You look amazing. I would never ask you to wear something or do something that wouldn’t show you off to your advantage.”

I gave him a curt nod. That was the best I could do at the moment because I was all choked up. The truth was, I believed he meant it. The same way I believed Keith found me sexy. I’d known for a long time that what I saw when I looked in the mirror didn’t line up with what most of the world saw when they looked at me, but now what I saw in the mirror was gradually starting to change. It was a slow process, though—not something that could happen overnight.

There were no mirrors here on the stage, but I’d seen myself in my dressing room before I’d come out. I’d seen a curvy woman in a gorgeous dress getting ready to dance. I hadn’t necessarily recognized her as being me, though.

“Eyes on me,” Devin said, and I set my jaw and shot my gaze back up to meet his. The music started. He took his first step, his hands pressing against mine in the gentlest nudge—my indication as to how and where to move—and then the dance took over. I no longer saw the lights, the people behind them in the seats, the massive auditorium in front of us. All I could see was Devin, and all I could feel was the music, the pulse of it, the drive.

It had always been easy to forget everything else when I was dancing. The music, the movement, the flow of limbs and stretching of muscles all combined to take me into another time and place, outside of myself. It wasn’t my current body I wore when I danced, but my former body—the version that hadn’t been up and down and all around, the version that never worried about how it looked. For the three and a half minutes of our routine, I could be the woman I used to believe myself to be. For that moment in time, I lost all inhibition, all self-consciousness, all worry about what someone might think when they saw me. I just…danced.

When the music came to an end and Devin caught me in the final wild leap of the routine, only then did I remember all the reasons I ought to be worried about my appearance. That all fell away when the other dancers erupted into applause around us, and Devin grinned down at me.

I took a few breaths and made my way down the steps to sit in the front row again so Devin could go over some final notes with everyone. When I got away from the spotlight, I saw Shane in the crowd. Not Keith.

My heart sank, but I smiled and waved at him anyway. He nodded in acknowledgment and I took my seat, trying to focus on everything that Devin was saying, but all the while my wheels were spinning. Why was Shane here and not his brother? Had something happened to Keith? Shane didn’t look upset, but I didn’t know him well enough to know if he could hide his emotions well or not.

Ten minutes passed before Devin finally finished running through his list of notes. As soon as he was done, I darted out of my seat and raced up the aisle to get to Shane, thoroughly impatient to find out what was going on.

“Everything’s fine,” he said before I could demand he tell me what was going on. “I can see the panic all over your face, so try to breathe.”

“I’m breathing. Where’s Keith?”

“You know about Nicky? The Storm’s goaltender?”

The one who had been out of the lineup lately, probably because of his addictions. Yeah, I knew about him. He’d played in the game last night—I’d been watching, more often than not—but that didn’t mean he was all right. “Has he overdosed or something?”

“No. Nothing like that. But Keith’s with him, and he said he can’t leave right now.”

He couldn’t leave. Why couldn’t he leave? My heart plummeted, my mind racing through a thousand possibilities. None of them made sense. I stood there gawking until Shane took pity on me.

“He asked me to come and pick you up. Get changed and I can take you to him.”

“YOU DON’T ALL have to stay with me all day, you know,” Nicky said. He passed his gaze from me to Colesy and finally to Babs as he spoke. “I don’t need three babysitters. I swear, one of you will be more than enough.”

“Tough,” Babs said. “You’ve got three.”

And soon, he’d have two more. At least I was fairly certain Brie was coming with Shane. That would make five. The three of us had been the only ones still hanging around after practice this morning when Babs noticed Nicky sitting in his stall and visibly shaking.

His first thought—and mine, too—had been that Nicky had taken something and was high. It turned out he hadn’t taken anything at all; he was really fighting the urge, and having a pretty big struggle with it.

Babs had been staying late to do some extra reps on the weight machines in the gym. He’d taken to doing that this year, and I couldn’t say it was hurting him. Colesy and I had been in Bergy’s office, talking about our goals for the rest of the season since he’d told us he intended to keep the two of us as a defensive pair as long as we didn’t take any steps backward. Since he’d made our pairing official, he’d decided that meant it was time to set more goals for the future. I was starting to get the feeling that Bergy had a goal for what time of day he took a dump. It was a little unreal.

Anyway, Colesy and I had walked into the locker room about a minute after Babs had found Nicky like that, and the three of us had decided right then and there that we were going to stick with our goaltender for the rest of today. We were all going to be at the Light the Lamp Foundation event tonight, anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal. The only problem was that I still hadn’t seen Brie, and I knew she’d been expecting me, but she hadn’t answered any of my text messages all day.

I wasn’t worried about her—I knew exactly where she was and why she was too busy to respond—but I was worried about Nicky. He had to take precedence right now, and I knew Brie would understand. Or at least I hoped she would.

Once it was decided that the four of us were going to spend the day together, I’d suggested we all go back to my place to hang out. I had a grocery service drop off food whenever I returned from a road trip, so the kitchen was well stocked and we would have plenty of things to do all day until we needed to head out for the event. On top of that, it would keep us away from bars or any of the other typical New Year’s Eve haunts. I didn’t want to offer Nicky any more temptation than he already had.

At the moment, he was looking around at the three of us like we’d all lost our minds. “Don’t you boys have something better to do today?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Colesy said. He put his feet up on the ottoman and stretched his neck to the side. Pepper took his change in position as an invitation to help herself to his lap. He let out an “Oof!” and shifted to better accommodate her.

I really needed to figure out how to convince her she was far too big to be a lapdog. Not that I had a clue how I’d go about that. Maybe I could find a dog whisperer somewhere.

“So what was it?” Babs asked, broaching the subject that we’d all been skirting around since that moment in the locker room. “What set you off?”

“We need to know so we can try to help you out better,” Colesy added, when Nicky gave Babs an odd look.

Nicky shrugged. “I don’t know, honestly. I felt good last night. A little shaky at first, but it had been a long time since I’d been in the net. By the time I had to stop that penalty shot, I had really settled in and everything had started to feel right. My adrenaline was pumping. Maybe that was it,” he said, a circumspect expression clouding his eyes that made me think there was a lot more he wasn’t telling us. He shook his head. “Maybe it was too much adrenaline when I hadn’t had much of it lately, and my body wanted something…more. I had a hard time sleeping last night, too. Really hard. I was up, pacing and sweating, desperate to take something that would calm me down and put me to sleep. But I didn’t. I called my sponsor even though it was the middle of the night. Talked about it. I managed to get through the night without taking anything, but I hardly slept, and the itch hadn’t left me. Then we had practice…”

What he didn’t say was that he’d had a particularly bad practice this morning. He hadn’t been on his game at all. None of us had worried about it too much, not even the coaches, because we knew he was just returning and struggling to get his timing back. Plus, we didn’t have another game for a couple of days.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was such a letdown after the big rush of being back in the net last night. And once I’d showered and sat down for a few minutes, I started shaking.”

I thought it over for a minute, and then I leaned forward, making sure he was looking at me. “Sounds to me like you need to figure out a way to channel the adrenaline of the game. Because without that big rush, there wouldn’t be the huge drop-off afterward.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Sounds great. Any suggestions?”

I didn’t have any, but Shane and Brie came through the door before I could answer him, and then he clammed up. I guessed he didn’t want to talk about it in front of Brie. That was all right. We could talk more when she wasn’t around.

I got up and pulled Brie in for a kiss, taking it deeper than I’d initially intended to because it had been too damn long since I’d had her in my arms.

“Hi,” she said a little dreamily when we finally broke apart. I loved that I was able to make her go goofy like that with nothing more than a kiss.

“Hi, yourself. Sorry I couldn’t come pick you up today.”

She shook her head with a tiny glance over at Nicky. “Don’t be. I understand. But later…there’s something I need to tell you.”

“We’ll find time. I’ll make time.” I didn’t know when—maybe not until well after I’d finished my taxi duty for Kally’s charity tonight—but I would find a way to get her alone.

She smiled and nodded, and then she went and took a seat next to Colesy. Pepper seemed to think that was her cue to spread her canine body across both their laps, so she flopped her head down on Brie’s legs. Brie rubbed my dog’s ears, and they both let out contented sighs.

I watched for a minute, again thinking that there was nothing more perfect I could imagine than having Brie here all the time. She fit here. She belonged in my life.

I just had to figure out how to make it happen.

IT WAS WELL after two a.m. by the time I finished taxiing people home and Jessica Lynch gave me the go-ahead to call it quits. I’d missed the ball dropping in New York, being otherwise occupied with entertaining Kally’s guests. No one here was drinking, even though it was New Year’s Eve. Light the Lamp was all about helping addicts turn their lives around, so having alcohol present wouldn’t work out. So I wasn’t acting as a designated driver—only a celebrity driver.

My last stop of the night was at Nicky’s house. I pulled up in his driveway and put the car in park. “You sure you’re all right here alone tonight?”

“I’ve got to figure out how to do this on my own sometime,” he said.

“Sometime doesn’t have to be tonight. I’ve got lots of room. It wouldn’t be an imposition.” I knew Shane wouldn’t mind, and I was sure Brie would be fine with it, too. I’d taken her back to my place a couple of hours ago. She needed to rest up for her performance tomorrow, and it had become clear really early that I wouldn’t be done until the wee hours of the morning. I couldn’t ask her to stay with me that late, but at least she’d agreed to spend the night at my place. I couldn’t wait to crawl into bed with her.

It was the simple things that I’d missed more than anything while I was gone, like holding her while she slept or waking up with the sun gleaming off the red in her hair and making it spark like fire. It was starting to make sense why Soupy and Rachel were acting like teenagers now that they were married. They couldn’t get enough of each other. I supposed that was just how it was when you were with the person you were meant to spend your life with.

“I know it wouldn’t bother you,” Nicky said. “But I need to do this. I need to do it for myself. To know I can be okay.” He still wasn’t talking about whatever else it was that had set him off this morning, but I didn’t know how to get him to do that. Lord knew I’d been a tough nut to crack—I still wasn’t sure how Brie had gotten me to talk about Garrett—but there didn’t seem to be a guidebook that would explain how to get him to talk about his demons, whatever they may be. I supposed that meant we’d have to be patient.

I reached over and gave him a punch on the shoulder. “All right. But call if you change your mind. Or just show up. Whatever.”

“I will.”

“Remember, you’re not fucking in this alone, man. You’ve got twenty-two brothers here to help you through.”

“You boys all made that very clear tonight. Thanks, Burnzie.” He reached for the door handle, then looked back at me. “I’ll call if I need help.”

I nodded, and he got out. I waited until he got safely inside before backing out of his driveway and heading for my own house. Shane and Brie had left a couple of lights on for me, but there wasn’t any sign of either of them downstairs. I let the dogs out one final time for the night so they wouldn’t bother me too early in the morning. Pepper’s barks were loud enough she was probably going to wake Mrs. Stephenson, but I couldn’t make myself care. I wanted to get up to bed—to Brie—as soon as possible.

Once I’d ushered them all back inside and locked up, I bounded up the stairs and into my bedroom.

Brie’s eyes popped open when I came in, and she gave me a sleepy smile while I stripped down to my boxers. “Did you get everyone home safely?”

I crawled into bed, resituating the blankets so they covered both of us. Almost immediately, she snuggled against my side and put her head on my shoulder as though that was where it belonged. I couldn’t say I disagreed with that sentiment, either.

“Everyone’s home safe. And now I’m here with you.”

“Good,” she said, placing a kiss on my collarbone that only made me want more, even though neither one of us needed to be up even later tonight.

There was one small piece of business I thought maybe we could handle before she fell back to sleep, though. “Earlier,” I said, “you mentioned there was something you wanted to tell me?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Her breaths were warm against my chest, tickling my skin as the air fanned out over me.

“And it was…?”

“Oh.” Brie yawned, and her grin was so big then that I could feel it against my skin. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you, too.”

Almost as soon as it was out of her mouth, she was asleep. I doubted I’d sleep for hours, though. I could understand, to some extent, what Nicky must have been going through last night, because the adrenaline pumping through my veins made it feel as though my heart might explode at any moment. Or maybe it was simply love making me feel that way.

Either way, it didn’t matter. Brie loved me. That was the only thing that seemed important right now.

I WOKE THIS morning in the warm cocoon of Keith’s arms with only the vague memory of him coming in last night, and the even more ambiguous recollection of having told him I loved him. The words had been hovering on my tongue for a few days, so there was little wonder they’d slipped free without my conscious permission.

As soon as I woke, though, everything kicked into high gear: a new day, preparations for this afternoon’s performance, and the dawn of a new year—heck, maybe even a new era. Because I loved Keith, and that had to mean things would change. I didn’t know what those changes were going to be. All of this change had excellent timing, but with it all coming at once, things were a little stressful.

Even though it had been an extremely late night for all of us, Keith and Shane both got up when I did and helped to get me out the door. The show was scheduled to start at two, but I had to get there for costume, hair, and makeup, and I’d promised Devin I would help him out by making sure all the dancers were present and accounted for—not to mention help Stacey and Tanya in sorting out the last-minute issues they might have, which always popped up during an event like this—so he could oversee the other changes to staging, lighting, and sound. It was going to be an all-day affair and that meant I needed to get there ASAP. I wasn’t sure if Tanya had agreed to be part of this because she wanted more opportunities to flirt with Devin or if she really wanted to be involved, but either way, I was glad she was here. There couldn’t be too many familiar faces around, as far as I was concerned. The elation I’d felt after how well my part of the show had gone over yesterday had long since worn off, and now all the dread was back.

Instead of dropping me off and going off to do whatever brotherly thing they might have done today, they parked and followed me inside. It was a good thing, too. The dressing rooms were already a zoo. The second I walked into the backstage area, Tanya grabbed my arm and pulled me into my private dressing room. Keith and Shane followed us inside and closed the door.

“It’s a madhouse back here. I swear, so many of them are just divas. My zipper broke. I can’t find my other shoe. She stole my stockings. This shit never ends.”

“Where do you want me to start?” I asked.

“Your makeup and hair person will be here any minute, so that’s where you’re starting. In this chair.” She pushed me—unceremoniously, I might add—down into it. “That’s why I pulled you in here, because at least with you, I know you’ll do what you’re told and be where you’re supposed to be.”

Shane cleared his throat. “Point me in the direction of the broken zipper.”

“You can sew a zipper?” Keith asked.

Shane shrugged. “I learned a lot of useful skills back when Garrett was dancing.”

“I can sew zippers and buttons and things like that while they’re dealing with me,” I put in.

Tanya gave me a look that plainly said I was to stay put and do what she’d told me to do. “Come on,” she said to Shane, taking him by the arm. “And you, too,” she added, looking back at Keith. “Your brother can teach you. I’m sure this isn’t the last wardrobe disaster we’ll have today, and I need all hands on deck.”

They both went out with her. I debated whether I should go ahead and get into my costume, but we still had hours to go before that was going to be necessary. The last thing I needed to do was burst my own zipper, so I decided against it. I did strip down to my undergarments and put on a robe, though, and I’d barely finished doing that when my makeup artist came in.

For the next several hours, I was primped and primed, poked and prodded, while they tried to make me presentable. Every now and then, some dancer or another would race in with some new problem, or Tanya would come to gripe about how Stacey was handling things, or Keith and Shane would carry some random piece of costume in to ask me how best to go about fixing whatever problem it had. The zoo apparently extended into my dressing room.

Right around the time my stomach was loudly protesting everything, a caterer wheeled in a cart of food and pushed it against one of the walls. “I’ll be back to clear things away in about an hour,” he said. “Enjoy!”

Ignoring my hair stylist’s protests, I jumped down from my chair and piled food high on a plate before going back. “You’d better do the same, if you have any sense,” I said to her. “It’ll be hours before you get another chance, otherwise.”

Grudgingly, she went over and picked at a few things before continuing her torture on my hair.

Right around the time the caterer came back to remove the cart, Devin poked his head in. “Everything all right in here?”

Tanya whisked past him and flopped onto the chair next to mine. “She’s managing like a champ. I, however, am ready to throttle Gina Martin. Do you know what that—”

Devin cut her off with a sharp look, and then he pointedly looked at me and then back.

Tanya pressed her lips together into a thin, white line.

“What?” I demanded.

Neither said a word.

“I swear, one of you two had better tell me whatever it is.” The name was somewhat familiar, but I honestly wouldn’t know Gina Martin even if she was standing right in front of me.

“It isn’t important,” Devin said, which only confirmed my suspicions that whatever it was, it was important enough for them to think they needed to keep it from me.

Keith pushed into the room with Shane on his tail, just as my stylists finally cleared out. He closed the door and met my eyes. “She’s trying to put it off that you’re behaving like some high-and-mighty star, like you think you’re better than the rest of them and bossing everyone around.”

Devin glared at Keith. “Which is my fault, if anything. I’m the one who put you in charge of things back here. I’m the one who gave you the private dressing room. But you are the star of this show, and if Gina has a problem with that—”

“I’m not the star,” I cut in. “You are.”

“That’s why Stacey and I kept you in here all day, anyway,” Tanya cut in, giving Devin the evil eye. I’d never seen her look at him with anything less than googly eyes, so I knew she was hot about it. She met my gaze dead-on. “We wanted to keep you busy so they wouldn’t talk like that, but it seems to have had the opposite effect than we’d hoped for. And now Gina is calling—”

“She doesn’t need to know the specifics,” Keith cut in.

“Now, Gina’s calling you a fat bitch and saying you have no business being involved anyway,” Tanya finished, raising her voice so she would be heard. She turned her eyes on Keith, flashing fire. “This is a catty business, and Brie deserves to know the whole truth about what they’re saying behind her back.”

“It could have waited until after the show,” he came back.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, it couldn’t have.”

“It’s just jealousy, Brie,” Devin said. “They’re envious because you’re the one closing the show. You’re the one dancing with me. That’s all.”

The crazy thing was, I knew he was right. I didn’t simply hope he was right or wish he could be right. That was absolutely the truth of it. Gina Martin, whoever she was, wished she could be in my shoes, and she was acting out in the only way she knew how—by attacking my physical appearance in the hope that it would change the way people saw me.

The brilliant part of it was that it didn’t do a darn thing to alter how I saw myself. I met Keith’s eyes—his were dark with concern—and I gave him a wink and smiled. “I guess I’ll just have to go out there and show her why Devin asked me to do it instead of her.”

He lifted his brows in question.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Really.”

“You’re sure? Because I wouldn’t mind going out there and teaching her a thing or two about how she ought to treat other people.”

“You can’t drop your gloves with a woman,” Shane said, laughing. “And you aren’t even wearing any.”

Now that they were reassured that I would be all right, they gradually made their way out of my dressing room. Devin headed across the hall to his own so he could get ready. Tanya went back out to solve yet another last-minute costuming disaster, dragging Shane with her. Then Keith and I were finally alone.

“You’re not upset?” he asked, trailing a finger along my cheek, his eyes boring into mine as though searching for a deeper truth.

I shook my head. “I don’t care how Gina Martin sees me. I don’t even know who she is, so why does it matter? The only thing I care about is how you see me and I how I see myself.”

“And how do you see yourself?”

“Not as a fat bitch, I can tell you that.” I laughed, but his expression remained serious. “No, I see myself as a lucky bitch. Because I’m the one you love, and I’m the one who gets to love you.”

His lips curled up in a seductive grin. “I can agree with the lucky part, but don’t you dare call the woman I love a bitch.”

“Deal. As long as you’re willing to do something for me later tonight,” I added on second thought.

He cocked up a brow. “And that would be…?”

“I think Allison and Jacob might need to make a return appearance.”

“A little role playing? I like how you think.”

“Does Jacob own handcuffs? Allison has a few fantasies that he might be able to help her out with.”

Keith groaned. Then he kissed me, the kind of kiss that would have lifted me off my feet if I’d been standing. And I realized he had lifted me right up out of my makeup chair and into his arms. He held me to his chest, never breaking the kiss, and I sighed.

I wasn’t worried about breaking his back; I was only worried about how soon he would put me down again. I didn’t want this feeling to ever end.

MY DRESSING ROOM was filled to bursting with people, everyone holding flowers and offering me their congratulations and generally stroking my ego. I only had eyes for one of them, though—Keith.

He held the biggest bouquet of them all, two dozen red roses, and he had a sinful look in his eyes that I would have jumped on if we weren’t surrounded by a crowd approximately the size of an army battalion.

“You were amazing,” he whispered in my ear, dropping a kiss on my cheek. Well, not just a kiss. His tongue flicked out and licked my earlobe, sending a series of shivers skittering up my spine. “Tell me, does Allison have any fantasies involving blindfolds?”

A few more people pushed through to gush over me, and I shot Keith a warning glare. He winked and backed away, making sure I knew we had unfinished business.

Nearly half an hour had passed before the crowd in my dressing room cleared out enough that I could actually change into my street clothes. I was exhausted, but it was the good sort of exhaustion, the kind that meant I’d worked hard at something that mattered to me. When I opened the door and went out into the hall, it was to find Keith in the middle of a stare-down with Val, of all people. What the hell was he doing here? Tanya, Shane, and Devin were all standing nearby, passing tense glances between them.

I stepped fully into the hall, placing myself squarely between Keith and Val. Waves of heated anger were radiating off Keith, blasting into me with a force like a car crash. “What’s going on?” I asked slowly, reaching down with one hand to take Keith’s, using my touch to reassure him, to calm him.

Val lifted a perfectly sculptured eyebrow, a derisive expression I remembered well, and he shrugged. “I just come to tell you congratulation,” he said. Once, I’d found his Russian accent insanely sexy; now it just reminded me of times I would rather forget.

“What I heard you saying a minute ago was nothing even close to congratulations,” Keith grumbled.

“I am amaze the bitch dance so good,” Devin put in, waving one arm through the air and copying Val’s accent and mannerisms like he’d been studying to play the part. “How she can still move all that fat?”

Keith’s hand tensed in mine, and out of the corner of my eye I could see him flexing the other into a fist. I squeezed the one I held to keep him from doing anything.

“I’m sure it does amaze you,” I said as calmly as I could. “Anything that doesn’t easily fit into your tiny head tends to be more than you can grasp.”

“Oh snap!” Tanya said, whipping her hand in a Z pattern and snapping her fingers.

I had to fight not to laugh out loud. This wasn’t a time for laughter, though. It was time to put Val permanently in the spot he belonged in my life—the past.

Or better yet, out of my life completely.

“Brianna,” Val said in the same sickeningly placating tone he had always use with me right before telling me the reason I couldn’t have the things I wanted was because I was fat, or because I wasn’t trying hard enough, or one of a thousand other reasons. It was never because he was an ass, though. At least according to him.

“Don’t start with me, Val.”

“Baby, you know you need—”

Keith let out a menacing growl behind me, and I pinched his arm to let him know I had this under control. “I know I don’t need anything more to do with you,” I said. “I know my life is so much better without you in it. And don’t call me baby. I’m not your baby.”

Val took a step toward me, a cocky smile pasted on his face. “Right. You too fat to be my baby. I need a sexy girl on my arm. You stay with him,” he added with a sneer in Keith’s direction. “He’s ugly, like you.”

Keith tried to push me to the side. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he wanted to bash my former partner’s face in. I couldn’t let him do that, however much I might like to see it. I elbowed Keith in the ribs, probably harder than was necessary, but I wasn’t finished there. I closed the distance between myself and Val, pulled back my arm, and punched him square in the nose hard enough that I drew blood.

Val pulled both hands up to cover his face. “You bitch!”

“Yeah.” I grinned. “I’m a very lucky bitch to be rid of you.” With that, I took Keith’s hand and led him out to the parking lot, and I put everything to do with Val behind me.

WITH THE SHOW in the past, I was able to get back to life as usual—or at least my new version of life as usual.

Devin and I started working on choreography for The End of All Things almost immediately. Both of us had busy schedules, so we ended up working together at some crazy times, but we managed it. We were due to film it at the end of January, so there wasn’t any time to waste.

Devin’s show had been a resounding success, with people talking about it throughout the dance community. He decided to make it an annual event—and a charity event, to boot. After getting to know a few of the Storm’s players through me and Keith, he’d thought it would be great to donate the money raised to the Light the Lamp Foundation. That meant he and Liam Kallen were going to partner together in the venture in future years, maybe making it into a week of performances and drawing more people to it through the hockey community.

Classes started back up at Rose City now that the holidays had passed us by, and so much of my time was spent teaching various ballroom dances to my students. Cole kept coming when he could—I had to bump him up to the next level of classes, though, because he was learning too fast—and every now and then Keith came, as well. Shane probably would have, but he had to go back home to his life in Nova Scotia.

I went to Keith’s games whenever they were in town and I wasn’t scheduled to teach classes. I was pretty sure that Tanya was going behind my back and arranging my schedule so that I’d have most of those nights off, but I wasn’t going to complain about that sort of interference. Actually, I really appreciated it. I would never ask for that sort of preferential treatment, but I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The more time I spent at his games, the better I was starting to understand hockey. That wasn’t saying a whole lot, still, but it gradually made more sense. I was at one of those games in mid-January, against the Columbus Blue Jackets, sitting in the owner’s box with Dana and some of the other players’ wives and girlfriends, when my heart pretty much stopped beating. One of the Blue Jackets had hit Vladimir Berezin hard from behind.

“Blatant boarding,” Dana muttered to me. Then, before I knew what was happening, Keith had tossed his stick and gloves in the air and was pummeling the guy like his life depended on it.

I’d seen a few fights in the games I’d come to but never one as intense as this. The Columbus player was bigger than Keith and he clearly knew what he was doing when it came to fighting; he gave back as good as he got. By the time the linesmen broke them apart, both their jerseys were peppered with blood, and it was still trickling down from a cut over Keith’s eye. They escorted him off the ice and down the tunnel, with all of his teammates banging their sticks over the boards in support. Babs slapped Keith’s butt as he passed by and one of the coaches did the same to Keith’s shoulder.

“He’ll be all right,” Dana reassured me. “They’ll take him back, and Doc will stitch him up, and he’ll probably be back in the game in the third period.”

“Trust me,” Rachel added. “Brenden gets hurt all the time. He’s a skating disaster out there, but he’s always all right in the end. It probably hurts us to see it more than it hurts them.”

They were right, it seemed. He came back out in the third, acting as though nothing was wrong, even though I could see a long line of stitches and the ugly bruising over his eye whenever the Jumbotron gave us a close-up of his face. I cringed every time I saw it, not because of his appearance, but because of the pain I knew had to be associated with it. Almost subconsciously, I clenched my right hand into a fist and released it, remembering the pain I’d had for a couple of days after punching Val in the nose.

The fight seemed to have sparked the Storm’s bench, though. They turned up their attack, really pushing the pace for the rest of the game. In the end, they beat the Blue Jackets by a score of five to two.

The moment that Keith stepped into the owner’s box a little while later, I was on my feet to see the damage firsthand. I reached up to gingerly touch the red, swollen flesh.

“Not a big deal,” Keith said, a grin turning up the corners of his mouth. “I’ve had worse.”

“But not while I was around to see it.”

“No, not while you were around. I’ll still be fine, though.”

I nodded, trying to convince myself that he was telling me the truth over this. He hadn’t flinched when I’d touched him. That was a good sign, at least. “Why did you do it?” I asked.

“Because no one messes with my teammates and gets away with it. Any of the guys would have done it, but I was closest. We take care of our own around here.” He took my hand to lead me out of the arena, and I waved good-bye to the other women. “I’d do the same for you, too, you know. Well, if you’d let me. No one messes with my girl.”

I laughed at that. Keith and I’d had a long argument over the fact that I’d prevented him from beating Val to a bloody pulp, choosing to do it myself. “You’d better not start a fight with anyone over me,” I said.

“Like you’d let me.” He let out a long, beleaguered sigh. “They’d better not give me a reason to.”

“You’d do it for Shane, too, wouldn’t you?”

“In a heartbeat. He’s my brother.”

And I thought that maybe now, Keith realized that was mutual. It was a two-way street. He knew that Shane loved him, that he didn’t hold anything from the past against him.

We didn’t talk much the rest of the way down to the parking garage. A few fans stopped us in the concourse and begged Keith for autographs, congratulating him on the fight. When we got in his car and he started the engine, Keith turned to me.

“Your place or mine, tonight?”

“How about your place…every night?”

He’d been trying to convince me to move in with him ever since Shane had gone home, but I’d been resisting. For some crazy reason, I was still trying to take things slowly with him. There wasn’t much point to that anymore, though. Nothing about our relationship had ever been slow or normal. I didn’t know why I was trying to make it that way now.

“Yeah?” A slow smile crept over his lips, and he took my hand after he’d put the car into gear. “You mean it?”

“As long as we can make sure Richie is comfortable.” I wasn’t really worried about Richie, though. We’d already had a trial run at Christmas, and he’d come out of it just fine.

“I’ve got a few ideas on that,” Keith said, launching into his plans of converting a few of the rooms downstairs into a cat sanctuary, complete with multiple hidey-holes and paths up high that the cats could use to travel from room to room. He talked for several minutes, outlining detail after detail, and it seemed as though he was going to keep going until we got to his house.

“Keith,” I finally interrupted, laughing again.

“Yeah?” His voice almost squeaked, as though he was nervous about what I was going to say.

“You’re unreal, you know that?”

He grinned. “Does that mean you’re moving in?”

“Hmm, I don’t know...” I teased. “That whole cat-pathway thing seems like you’re trying too hard.”

“Oh, really?” He exited the highway and turned at the light. “I thought it sounded like fun. And a great way to torment Pepper, since she wouldn’t be able to reach the cats if they were up there. Maybe I’ll just have to build it anyway and adopt a cat or two of my own.”

“I suppose Richie and BC could give it a test run, if you’re dead set on it.”

“I am.”

“All right.” I let out a dramatic sigh. “Good thing I love you, since you’re so inclined to destroy your house for a cat run.”

“I’d do just about anything if it meant getting you to come live with me.”

I kissed Keith’s cheek. “A hidey-hole or two would be more than enough, you know.”

“I know.” He threaded our fingers together. “But I love you, too, and I want you and your cats to feel like it’s our home, not just my home.”

“I’ll feel at home as long as I’m with you.”

“Good.” He made a turn, bringing us closer to the house. “Otherwise I was going to have to handcuff Allison to the bed and force her to stay, and that seemed slightly illegal or something.”

“Or something,” I agreed, laughing. “You don’t need to handcuff me to get me to stay.” I waited a beat, for emphasis. “But you can for fun.”

I’D NEVER SEEN a pregnant woman who looked closer to popping in my life.

Dana had both hands on the small of her back, pacing back and forth in the owner’s box, while the rest of the players’ wives and girlfriends and I looked on. It was the first intermission in a game against the Edmonton Oilers in late February, and the score was tied at one. None of us were overly focused on the game, though. We kept turning our attention to Dana.

“You think it’s going to happen tonight?” Rachel quietly asked Laura.

Laura nodded, her eyes never leaving Dana. “She was due almost a week ago. It has to happen soon.”

“What are we going to do if her water breaks in the middle of the game?” Sara Thomas asked.

“Jim knows that could happen,” Rachel said calmly. “I’ll let him know as soon as it does, he’ll send us down to the ambulance that’s on site, and he’ll get Zee out of the game and in the ambulance with her.”

“He’d leave the game?” I asked, somewhat surprised. I hadn’t been around hockey players very long, but in what little I’d seen, they got some pretty gruesome injuries and then went right back out on the ice for their next shift. I thought back to the night that Keith had fought the Columbus player, and I couldn’t imagine that any of them would leave willingly. They’d have to be pried off, kicking and screaming.

“There are eighty-two hockey games in a season, and Zee will probably play for close to two decades,” Laura said matter-of-factly. “His first child is only born once. He’ll leave the game.”

Dana looked a little unsteady on her feet, and Noelle Payne, Kally’s girlfriend, suddenly jumped up from her seat and crossed over to Dana, putting one arm around her back. I hadn’t spent a ton of time around these women yet, but Noelle always seemed to be in tune with people. She seemed to instinctively know who needed comforting, and she was the first to go to them every time.

“There’s no point in worrying,” Laura said. “Women have babies all the time. If it happens, it happens.”

“Right,” Sara said. “No worrying. I’ll be damned if I know how to make it stop, though.”

My cell phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was a text message from Devin.

It’s done. Our video goes live to the world tomorrow. Kellan sent me the link and said I could send it to you. TOP SECRET.

A link was pasted below his message.

Sara was leaning over my shoulder. “That’s the video? Top secret means you have to share with us, chickee.”

I took a look around, making sure none of the others were close enough to see or hear. Then I nodded. “All right. Come closer.”

Once Sara, Laura, Dana, Rachel, and Noelle had all gathered around me, I clicked on the link. The video opened up on my screen and the music started to play. And there we were, Devin and I, floating in and out of images of The End of All Things playing the song.

The music was rich and sensual and evocative, our movements even more so. I was in awe of the way the videographer had filmed it—the lighting, the mood, the camera angles—and the way that Devin and I looked. You couldn’t exactly tell who we were. Our faces were almost never in the shot. It was all about our bodies moving together, the lines we hit, the way we touched.

It was amazing.

When the video ended, I shut down my phone.

Sara whistled. “That was hot.”

I had to agree. Instead of being worried about seeing my body on film, which is supposed to add fifteen pounds, I was just entranced.

“You’re going to be getting all sorts of work soon,” Laura said.

“Burnzie’s going to die when he sees that,” Rachel added. “He’ll want a private performance.”

Talk like that continued for a couple of minutes until most of the girls went back to their seats. Dana and Noelle kept walking, though, and the teams came back out to the ice.

The official dropped the puck. The game was back underway. And Dana cursed under her breath.

“You guys?”

We all turned around to look at her.

Her eyes were huge and round. “It’s time. My water just broke.”

The game all but forgotten, everyone sprang into motion. Rachel was on her phone, Laura was ordering people around like a drill sergeant, and Noelle was right by Dana’s side, holding her hand and saying calm, soothing things to her.

Sara sidled up alongside me. “Get used to this,” she said, waving her arm to indicate the ordered commotion going on all around us. “These girls never change.”

They might not, but I sure had. I grinned at her and followed along with the circus in front of me, doing what I was told. I supposed I was part of this group now, and that was all right with me.

We got Dana down to the ambulance and her husband jumped in with her, still in full uniform including skates and helmet. Then we broke off into groups to follow them to the hospital.

They turned the game on for us in the waiting room so we could see how our guys were doing. The Storm won in overtime, with Nicky making some key stops before Soupy knocked in the final goal, winning it for his best friend, brother-in-law, and captain.

Not long later, the guys started to arrive at the hospital. Keith came straight to me and wrapped me up in his arms. “Nothing yet?”

“Nothing yet. Soon, probably. Or maybe not.”

Laura and Rachel had continually reminded us that first babies could be extremely unpredictable in how fast they decided to come into the world.

“I have a secret to show you, though,” I said, pulling out my phone. We sneaked off to a quiet spot so I could play the video for him. He pulled me down onto his lap while he watched over my shoulder, and I could feel him growing hard beneath me as it went on.

“You know I’m going to have to watch that about seven thousand times a day for a while, right?” he said, laughing. He grabbed my phone from my hands and started pushing buttons. I glared at him, but then I realized he was sending the link to his phone.

“Or something like that,” I agreed.

He had just tipped my chin up to kiss me when Zee burst into the waiting room. He’d put on scrubs instead of his hockey uniform, and he had the hugest smile on his face.

“It’s a girl!”

Everyone jumped up to congratulate the new father, and Keith used the pandemonium to sneak in a kiss.

“One of these days,” he murmured against my lips. “That could be us.”

It could be. I hoped it would be. He hadn’t asked me to marry him yet, but we’d talked about it a bit, and we knew we were heading in that direction.

The cats and I had moved into Keith’s house a couple of weeks ago. His parents had come for a visit, too, the first time they’d done that in a long time. Keith and Shane talked on the phone almost constantly these days, growing as close as they should have been all along. We were even planning a visit to Illinois so he could meet my family, working it around his hockey schedule and all the new performances I’d lined up thanks to my collaborations with Devin.

Cole and Shane hadn’t continued their relationship beyond Shane’s visit. I kind of thought that might change sometime, though. They’d been good together…really good.

Kind of similar to how things were between me and Keith.

Everyone in the waiting room went off in groups to see the newest arrival to the Storm family, looking at her through the windows of the nursery as she was getting her first bath.

“She looks kind of… I don’t know, red, I guess,” Keith said when we got to look in and see her.

“Nice, Burnzie,” Babs said. “That’s the best thing you can say about Zee’s daughter?”

Keith cuffed Babs on the back of the head. “I could say she has a bunch of hair. Kind of like you. Maybe you could teach her how to comb her hair…if you ever learned, yourself.”

“Brie, I will go ahead and apologize for him now,” Babs said to me. “Because when you two have a baby, Burnzie’s going to be more concerned about whether the kid has combed his hair than he will about anything else.”

“Some things just aren’t worth worrying about,” Cole said, winking at me and Keith.

He was right. And there were too many other things worth enjoying to let those worries take over our lives.

Catherine Gayle is a USA Today bestselling author of Regency-set historical romance and contemporary hockey romance with a New Adult feel. She’s a transplanted Texan living in North Carolina with two extremely spoiled felines. In her spare time, she watches way too much hockey and reality TV, plans fun things to do for the Nephew Monster’s next visit, and performs experiments in the kitchen which are rarely toxic.

If you enjoyed this book and want to know when more like it will be available, be sure to sign up for Catherine’s mailing list. You can find out more on her website, her blog, at Red Door Reads, at Hockey Romance, at Facebook, on Twitter, and at Goodreads. If you want to see some of her cats’ antics and possibly the occasional video update from Catherine, visit her YouTube account.

IN THE ZONE is the fifth novel in the Portland Storm series. If you enjoyed it, please look for the other books in the series: BREAKAWAY, ON THE FLY, TAKING A SHOT (a novella), LIGHT THE LAMP, DELAY OF GAME, and DOUBLE MAJOR (another novella). The sixth novel, COMEBACK, will release in February, 2015. The seventh novel, DROPPING GLOVES, will release in April, 2015.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Table of Contents

Copyright

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Table of Contents

Copyright

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7