by Cindi Madsen
“I told you. It’s open all night, too.”
“It’s good to know there’s a place I can go during the nights sleep won’t come and I need to get out.” Number four on my list was discovering all the best places in Boston, and a sense of accomplishment rose—tonight had been a great head start on several of my Fresh Start Checklist items. “Back home, everything closed at, like, ten at the latest.”
“Where’s home?”
“Somewhere I’d rather forget.” I blew on the steaming coffee as I lifted it toward my lips. “That makes it sound like I’ve got some deep dark secret. I just meant—”
“I get it,” he said, holding up a hand. “Forgetting for a while sounds good.”
That officially moved him into “getting me” territory, didn’t it? Dane had a lot of potential, on top of being crazy hot. But if I wanted to keep our connection going, I should probably offer a bit of personal information. “It’s just…high school for me was like Pretty Little Liars, only everyone was A.”
His forehead creased. “I have no idea what that means.”
“What? You don’t sit around watching Pretty Little Liars?” I sipped at the coffee, sucking in air to cool my tongue when it was still scalding hot. “Color me shocked.”
“How pretty are they? Maybe I’ll have to start.” He reached across the table and covered my hand, and every cell in my body stood at attention, his touch bringing much more clarity than the coffee. His fingers were slightly callused, his hand warm. “So what does that mean?”
For a second, I had no idea, then I realized he was talking about my abstract reference. “It means that everyone knew way too much about my life, and everything my family and I had ever done wrong, and they used it against me constantly.”
“That’s rough.” He shuttered his features, and I worried I’d told him too much—that he’d think I was some crazy girl with issues. To be fair, I probably had a few too many. Ugh, why didn’t I simply say a suburb of Concord, New Hampshire and leave it at that?
But then he shifted forward in his seat and put on a serious expression that hinted at being not so serious. “I’m thinking of making an embarrassing confession, but I’m going to need you to swear an oath of secrecy first.”
I set down my coffee and raised my hand to a square. “I solemnly swear that I’m up to no good—er, that I won’t spill your secret.”
“Which is it? As I remember, those ginger twins weren’t very good at secrets.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I fought the urge to ask him to marry me—it’d be a joke, but I knew better than to think guys took commitment jokes as, well, jokes. “Tell me and I swear my lips will remain sealed.”
His gaze moved to my lips, and then he swallowed, and the temperature in the diner rose several degrees. Maybe my lips should be…not sealed.
“I was once addicted to Gilmore Girls.” He covered his face with his hand and then peeked through his fingers. “You’re looking at me differently, I can tell.”
I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help the smile that broke free. “That’s not even embarrassing.”
“It is when you’re a dude. The word girl is literally in the title. And my friends would never let me live it down if they found out. It started with my sisters. I tried to fight for control of the remote, but there are four of them, and they played dirty.”
“Four sisters? Wow.”
“Wow is an understatement.”
At the same time, it also sounded awesome. Beckett and I had been really close growing up, adopting an us-against-the-world attitude. But then he’d moved away for college, and it’d just been me. Well, me and parents who were rarely home. Until their plane wreck, and when I needed family most, all I’d had was Aunt Tessa, who made it clear she’d rather be alone. Whereas I constantly wished I had another sibling.
Later, I found out I did have one, thanks to my dad’s scandalous affair, but my little sister was quite a bit younger, and the situation was complicated enough that I decided to keep my mention of my family on the brief, vague end of things. “I have one brother—he’s about three years older—and one half sister who’s eight.”
Our food came, and while I’d originally come along because it meant more time with Dane, my stomach growled as soon as the scent of the steaming waffles hit my nose.
After we finished our food and Larry had cleared our plates and poured us more coffee, Dane picked up one of the sweeteners in the ceramic sugar caddy. “Wanna see how I spend the rest of my night here after the food is gone?”
I leaned forward, cheek propped on my fist. “Of course.”
“Normally I use a couple of napkin dispensers, but since you’re here… Hold your fingers up like so…” He made two Ls and connected them so they looked like the uprights on a football field.
I did as instructed and he smashed the pink sweetener packet to the table, one finger on top, and flicked it with the pointer finger of his other hand. It soared through my fingers.
“Three points,” I said. “Nice.”
“Yeah, but that was way to the right. I can do better.” Dane squinted one eye, lining up his…kick? Or whatever the finger flick version of a kick was. The packet sailed through the air, right through the center, and hit me square in the chest before sliding down and disappearing into my cleavage.
I stared down for a second before looking up at Dane, who had a grimace on his face. Once a laugh slipped out of my mouth, the worry in his features eased.
“That definitely earns me more than three points,” Dane said.
“Oh, you think so, do you?”
He nodded, and I shook my head. Then I went diving for the packet, trying to be as demure about it as possible, although how does one demurely dig a sweetener packet out from between one’s boobs? Answer: you don’t. You just grab it and toss it out as quickly as you can.
“Okay, my turn.” I picked up the packet that’d have a story to tell his buddies, and Dane formed the uprights with his fingers as I lined up my shot. The packet skidded across the table and fell off the other side.
“Wait. Redo.” I grabbed another pink packet. The smack of my fingers hitting the paper sounded solid, and the little packet flew—a bit high.
And hit Dane right in the eye.
“Oh, shoot!” I rounded the table to his side of the booth. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
He kept the eye I’d injured squinted, and blinked the other. “It’s fine. I’m impressed at your power, actually.”
“Here, let me see.” I placed my hand on the side of his face and gently turned it toward me, and he slowly opened his eye. It was a bit red and watery, but thankfully intact—not that I thought it wouldn’t be, but well, seeing an intact eyeball was always a bit comforting compared to the other option. I gently dragged my thumb under it, hoping it was soothing. “I think you’ll live.”
“What a relief,” he said, lifting his hand and placing it over mine. “But for the record, I think you should stick with darts.”
“I hit you in the eye, and you’re still willing to hand me a dart? Now that’s trust.”
He laughed. “Let me rephrase. I think you should stick with darts, while I stand behind you, far out of range of anything you might toss, flick, or kick.” He folded my hand into his as he lowered them both to his lap.
My heart took off on a high-speed race, and my skin hummed under his touch. From this close, I could see the different shades of brown in his irises, that he had a freckle on his right cheek, and I had a great view of the whiskers that lined his jaw and hinted at an almost goatee.
And when one side of his mouth lifted, he got a sexy crease in his cheek. His woodsy cologne invaded my senses, and when he brushed his thumb over my hand, my pulse scattered, racing and beating and leaving me dizzy in the best possible way.
“Thanks for keeping me company tonight,” he said. “It’s been way more interesting than most of my nights here in this diner.”
“Right back at you. Well, no
t the diner part, because this is my first trip here, but you get what I mean…good night. Not like as in bye, but like it was a good night. Is one. Yeah.” Sometimes I wished there was an emergency brake on my mouth, one that I could yank before I said the wrong thing, although the unspoken words would probably pile together like train cars and make a mess anyway.
Dane’s grin widened, then he brushed my bangs from my eye and cupped my cheek.
For a moment, I was so sure he’d lean in and kiss me, and anticipation danced along my nerve endings, every inch of me longing for the press of his lips to mine. Instead, he asked, “You tired?”
“Not really. You?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more awake,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. I’d heard of intense connections, but I’d never experienced one before. There was no other word for what was happening between us right now—anyway, I hoped he felt it as strongly as I did. It seemed as if we’d known each other for a long time, not a mere couple of hours. A muscle in his jaw flexed and he slowly lowered his hand. “I should get home, though.”
Disappointment mixed in with the longing coursing through me, putting a dent in my hope. “Yeah, me, too. I’ve got to figure out the campus tomorrow. Map out all my classes, so I know where to go on Tuesday.”
“This is your first semester?”
Crap. On one hand, yay for not exuding the freshman vibe so strongly that he seemed surprised by the fact that I was one, but he also sounded a bit apprehensive. Still, I didn’t want to lie to him. If I expected honesty in a potential boyfriend—and obviously I was hoping Dane and I might be headed in that direction—I had to be honest, too. “Yeah.”
A crinkle formed between his dark eyebrows. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” And have been for all of two whole weeks.
“Wow. You’re so young.”
“And you’re so old?”
“Feels like it sometimes,” he said.
“That’s probably because not sleeping makes it feel like you live two days for everyone else’s one. That’s what it makes me feel like, anyway.”
He nodded. “True. If I feel like this at twenty-one, how am I going to feel at forty?”
“Yeah, that’s depressing. Let’s not end on that note.”
He cracked a smile and tightened his hold on my hand, which reinflated my hope. “You’re right. Since you can’t be trusted around eyes, and I can’t be trusted around cleavage…” His gaze dipped to the scooped neckline of my shirt, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He reached up, taking his hat off and raking his fingers through his hair before setting it back on his head. “Best out of five through the salt and pepper uprights gets to walk the other person home?”
“Deal.”
Chapter Four
Dane
As we neared the entrance of the dorm, I slowed my pace, wanting to drag out every second of my night with Megan.
During the past few hours, my mind had been cleared of all my worries, the real world so far away, but knowing the night was about to end made the things I’d pushed away rise up and whisper they’d be waiting.
The whole goal to become a better person started about halfway through last semester, after an ugly confrontation that ended with a sweet girl in tears and me feeling like a giant dick. There’d also been a stupid bet that I’d made with my best friend, Hudson, in the mix, and between those incidents, as well as things that were going on back home because of a decision I’d made, it all added up and forced me to take a hard look at myself and who I’d become.
So I’d made that no more drama goal, sworn off girls in general for a while, and decided to attempt a fresh start. One focused on school and the harder classes I’d added to this semester’s schedule, upping my hockey game, and becoming a better person—it wasn’t something I did lightly, just like it wasn’t an easy thing for me. But I refused to make selfish decisions that’d hurt other people.
One glance at Megan made me want to forget all that—to be the selfish guy I’d been before and not think about the consequences. My fingers itched to reach out and take hold of her hand…to make a move. If I could be a relationship-type guy, it’d be different, but I couldn’t. Especially not during hockey season. I’d tried it before and the crash and burn wasn’t one I wanted to repeat.
Which left me…I didn’t know exactly where. What I should’ve done was stop myself from approaching Megan at the drink table, before I ever heard her amazing laugh or held her hand, or experienced the feeling that we could spend the entire night talking and I’d enjoy every second. If I could go back in time, I told myself I’d make the smarter decision and do the right thing. My lungs deflated at the thought of missing out on this night with her, though.
She turned around near the front door, and the overhead light lit up her hair, her big blue eyes, and the shimmery purple eye shadow on her lids. I was definitely a fan of the cat eye effect she had going on, too.
Thanks to my sisters I knew way too much about makeup. Thanks to my teammates mocking me for it, I also knew better than to mention it.
Regardless of the outcome of our sugar packet field goal competition, I would’ve walked her home, because it was the gentlemanly thing to do, and I genuinely wanted her to arrive safely back at her place. Which was why I’d thrown my last two shots, and I was pretty sure she knew it.
Man, she looked cute in my hoodie, too—I offered it to her when we stepped out of the diner and she immediately shivered, and even though it covered up her curves and was way too big, it still looked better on her than it did on me.
I searched for the right way to say good night to this funny, beautiful girl who’d thrown a dart at my head and made me wish I were in a different place in my life. I should give her the speech about how I’d had fun, but that I didn’t really do relationships. She’d get a slightly different version than I usually gave, because fun didn’t quite accurately describe my night with Megan. Any other words I tried to find to describe it sounded girlie as shit, so I’d keep them locked inside my brain vault, unlike my Gilmore Girls confession.
Or the confession about how I struggled with sleep. I’d never met anyone else who fully understood it the way Megan did.
All that aside, the parting statement about not doing relationships would be the same.
How did you say good-bye to someone when you knew it should be more final than you wanted it to be?
Everything that went through my mind sounded like a lame excuse, and I didn’t want to make excuses with her, even though I barely knew her. Maybe…
Maybe what? You could pretend you can balance it all even though you know better, and see if you can’t ruin her life, too, the way you did your ex-girlfriend’s?
My trip home made it clearer than ever that my choices had been more destructive than I’d imagined. Add everything going on with my family, and I needed to make sure a career in the NHL worked out—there was also a fallback option in place, but I’d rather not have to use it.
Maybe after the season I’d have time for a girl like Megan. Time to connect and laugh and make a relationship work. I knew it was a long shot she’d still be single by then, but—
“Dane?”
I glanced down at her. She fiddled with her giant earring, and attraction heated my veins.
“Just making sure you didn’t fall asleep.”
I blinked, and my eyelids did take a bit longer to open than usual. “Not yet. Maybe I’ll manage a couple of hours once I get home, though. I’m actually feeling tired.”
She took off my hoodie and handed it to me. “Good luck on the sleeping thing. On everything.”
The way she said it made me think maybe she felt it, too—that this was one of those passing awesome moments, one too perfect to hold on to forever. I wish I would’ve kissed her at the diner, instead of chickening out.
I’d been trying to be chivalrous, since I’d already gotten in too deep, passing the acceptable time when it could just be about kissing
. Only I wasn’t doing that anymore, and after all the talking and laughing in the diner… If I kissed her now and didn’t call, this would be hurt feelings territory for sure, and the thought of that made a tight band form around my chest.
“Good night, Megan.”
A hint of sadness edged her smile. She turned to open the door, and panic flooded me.
Oh, fuck it. I took a large stride forward, grabbed her arm and spun her around, and crashed my lips into hers.
She curled her hands into my shirt, tugging me closer, and I happily complied. I dug my fingers into her silky-soft hair, cupping the back of her head so I could deepen the kiss. She parted her lips, and I pressed her flat to the door as my tongue met hers. When she sucked my bottom lip into her mouth, I groaned, my blood firing hotter and hotter through my veins, and my hard-on straining against the zipper of my jeans.
She gasped as I ground my hips into hers, and then everything in my life narrowed down to her body under mine, the taste of her tongue, and the way her rapid breaths made her chest rise and fall, rise and fall.
A banging sound near my head brought me back to my body and the fact that I was outside the girls’ dorm. And one of those girls was apparently trying to get out of the building.
I pulled Megan off to the side, keeping my arms wrapped around her, both to try to protect her identity and to keep her warm, and Angry Girl muttered, “Jeez, get a room,” as she stormed past.
“I have one, thanks,” Megan cheerily replied. “But if you’re not using yours…”
I laughed even more when the annoyed expression aimed our way made it clear how unappreciated the joke was, but then my mind snagged on the idea of taking Megan into a bedroom—hers, or Angry Girl’s, or hell, any room—and desire flooded my system, undoing the bit of deflating I’d managed. It’d been months since I’d had sex, and now that my body got the idea that the night might be headed that way, it wasn’t easy to convince it that we really shouldn’t go there.
No matter how badly we wanted to. And apparently I’ve turned into Gollum, talking in terms of we, which means I’m really losing my grip on reality.
