I smiled at the distinct note of pride I detected in her voice. “What number is he?” I asked Bri.
“Forty,” she shouted back just as number fourteen slapped the puck into the net.
The crowd roared and leapt to their feet, including me. But I must have shouted a little too loudly, causing my brain to glitch, because when the camera followed number fourteen across the ice with his hockey stick held high in triumph—Zane’s face filled the screen.
No way was this elite athlete the same man I’d spit a bitter cupcake into aroadside trashcan with earlier that very day.
No. Way.
I blinked, telling myself that I must need my glasses more than I thought I did. I rubbed my eyes for the third time, squinting at a screen that was almost as big as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Blinking, rubbing, and squinting didn’t make my apparition disappear. Zane was there. On the screen. Gliding across the ice in all his sweaty glory.
Regret slapped me in the face harder than he’d smacked that puck. Why hadn’t I given him my number? Maybe Bri’s brother could hook me up? Would that scream desperation? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.
I needed to see him again—and I didn’t mean on the big screen.
The girls gathered for another round of selfies to celebrate the first Bobcat goal of the night. I smiled for the pics, but my focus wason Zane, who had gone back to work, tearing up the iceandhis competition.
About an hour and a half later, the game was over, and the Bobcats had won. Hattie waved her completed scarf over the railing like the victory flag that it was.
“It never fails,” Bri said with a twinkle in her eyes. “It’s the miracle of the scarf.” We all celebrated Hattie as if she’d scored the winning goal, while the arena slowly emptied around us, marking the end of one of the most unforgettable nights of my life.
I made my way over to the cupcake table to snag a Barbie-pink cupcake decorated with sugar pearls before the cleanup crew arrived. My lids fluttered as my teeth sank into the cake. It was nothing like the disaster of a cupcake from earlier that day. I wished I could stick one in my pocket and give it to Zane later.
If only Zane could be a part of mylater. I sighed much more forlornly thananyone with a cheek full of sugary goodness had a right to.
“Back to your old thieving ways?”
The deep voice behind me nearly made me choke. I spun around and came face to face with Zane. I sputtered through the buttercream frosting and managed to swallow my bite with at least a little dignity intact.
I tossed my hair over my shoulder, determined to ignore the racing tempo of my heart. “Nope. I got this one fair and square—just like the last one.” I took another bite in front of him, sounding off with a little moan of delight. “So good,” I said. “Want some?” I batted my lashes at him, holding his gaze, and astonishing even myself at my flirting game.
Something between a chuckle and a growl rumbled around in the back of his throat. He took a step closer to me, invading my space in a way that made my insides jitter. “Is that an invitation?”
“Do you want it to be?” I asked. The air between us sizzled andpopped with an electric charge greater than anything I’d felt all night.
He ran the tip of his tongue across his lower lip, his icy blue eyes roving over every inch of me and tickling the pit of my stomach. “You sure do love your cupcakes, don’t you?”
“Only when they don’t taste like grass.” I flinched inside at the words I’d just said. Here I was, standing within arm’s reach of the most attractive man I’d ever laid my eyes on, and I was talking about grass and cupcakes? Surely, there were better things two people like us could talk about. Things like first dates, second dates, and wedding plans.
Wedding plans?
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head to dislodge those wildly out-of-control thoughts from my brain, promising myself that I’d only been joking.
“I brought this for you,” he said, handing his jersey to me, “for next time.”
“Next time?”
“Yeah, it broke my heart when I saw you weren’t wearing my number.”
“How did you even know I was here?” I unfolded his jersey and ran my tingling fingers over the number fourteen sewn onto the back.
A slow smile spread across his lips. “I have my ways.”
I gave in to a smile of my own. “Well, we can’t have you getting your heart broken, can we?” I said past the butterflies fluttering around inside me.
“Don’t worry about him,” one of the bridesmaids said as she walked by. “Zanedoesn’t get his heart broken;he’sthe heartbreaker.”
“Hey, Megs,” Zane said with a strained smile.
