“Three?”
His unexpected smile drew her in. And it shouldn’t. Tor was good-looking, but so were most guys in her line of work. After all, she spent her days in the company of professional athletes.
So what was it about this particular man that quickened her pulse?
But while her mind might stage a freak-out, her face never would. “What’s the problem?” She kept her features a mirror to his own, one of cool, calculated amusement. “That’s better than fifty percent.”
He paused.
They might be enemies, but together they won at awkward pauses.
“I should have known,” he said at last.
She was physically incapable of allowing this man to make a vague statement her without pushback. “Explain.”
“I should have known you were NeverL8. Your name was right there, not to mention those avatar angel wings.”
“Can’t say you earned a Scooby snack for your sleuthing skills, Shaggy.” She winked.
His surprised bark of laughter hit her belly like a shot, swirling through her veins with intoxicating force. She’d heard his laugh before of course, in the locker room over the years, always while talking to one of his guys. But never ather. She liked it, she realized, crossing her arms tight across her chest. A lot.
Too much.
“Excuse me. I have to pay a visit the little girls’ room,” she announced, almost tipping her untouched drink in her hurry to stand. Had someone turned up the heat? The room felt overwarm and too damn crowded. Breathing space. What she needed was breathing space.
Better yet, thinking space.
Pushing through the crowd, she thought Tor called out her name, but she didn’t want to check only to discover that it had been wishful thinking.
She stormed ahead, chin down, arms swinging. Wishful thinking had bitten her in the butt enough in the past hour. The delicious Ewan McGregor fantasy of her Bywaysdreams had turned out to be a nightmare—worse, a guy who hated her guts.
A guy she hated right back, of course.
This was all a lot to take in. Too much to process.
She was a simple girl. Maybe her life had been stuck in a rut, but so what? Ruts provided protection from the elements, gave shelter—a cozy hiding place. If she stayed in a rut, she would never have to do anything uncomfortable, like put herself out there.
No bathroom line, thank God. She pushed into the single-stall unisex space, the door banging a cinder-block wall riddled by graffiti art and old concert posters. After turning the lock, she marched to the sink, flicked on the tap and splashed cold water onto her face.
One of the benefits of never wearing makeup was having no mascara to ruin. She splashed and splashed again, her nerves going off like a Fourth of July fireworks show.
“You are experiencing a normal physiological reaction,” she reassured the panicked expression staring back in the mirror while registering the fact that her face wasn’t the only thing wet. “It’s time to take Breezy’s advice and invest in a battery-operated boyfriend.”
She had always felt silly when perusing sex toys online, as if she was an imposter with no business owning clitoris-fluttering rings or body-warming lube. On the rare occasion when she’d attempted to explore the thousands of ways to get off in the world, she would always end up back at eighteen years old, hearing the words of a rival coach after she failed to qualify for the national figure-skating championships.
“Neve Angel?” She’d overheard him scoffing to one of his skaters while she curled behind a row of folding chairs, bawling her eyes out. He’d glanced in her direction with a sneer, as if sensing her presence. “With the jaw and bushy brows?” he’d said a little louder. “That skinny little bitch isn’t prime-time, and the judges instinctively sensed it tonight. Trust me, she’s no threat. She’s nothing at all.”
After they had walked away, she’d scrubbed her mouth clean of lipstick with the back of her hand. Hard.
She’d goodbye to the world of glitz and glamor, hung up her skates and never looked back. Her sister had often complimented her looks, and seemed like she meant it, but when Neve was alone with the bathroom mirror, all she could ever think wasThatjaw... thosebrows... skinny little bitch. Finally, Neve had avoided her reflection altogether. Instead, she put her head down and worked.
Forget flirting.
Forget fun.
She’d doubled down on being serious. And if she wasn’t sexy enough to tempt men like Tor Gunnar, welp, so be it. She was used to it. It’s just how she rolled.
Sometimes people mentioned her “bold brows” or “strong features” as if they were good things. And she didn’t want to be a self-loathing woman nitpicking her faults. The last thing she wanted to do was admit that in a perfect world she’d love to possess the pixie face and effortless grace of Audrey Hepburn inFunny Face.
