Monroe smirks at the second cup in my hand and stands way too close to receive it.
“Thanks,” he says, voice low. His eyes search mine, checking to see if I’m okay, and that makes my chest hurt. “Morning.” He nods to Liz.
“Morning,” she says, raising her cup in greeting.
“I’ll see you at the game, okay?” I tell Liz, then look at Roe. “Want a ride to The Keep? I’m delivering that bench today.”
“Alright.”
I nod to Liz and place my hand in the sexy small of Roe’s back. It’s possessive and screams “he’s mine,” but the gesture is an unconscious one that I’ll sort out later. For now I can’t stop it any more than I can stop the thoughts invading my mind lately, of my hands resting right there, holding him as I slide into his body. A shiver of want races through me. No matter how much I get of Roe, I still want more.
The short drive to The Keep is mostly comfortable silence as we sip our coffee. In the parking lot, Roe steps close to me and I let him, smiling as he approaches me like I might run.
I back him up to the side of my truck, not worried about who might see. It’s not like the town gossip doesn’t already have us together. And in fact, I might like that it does. That it reinforces to him that I’m with him, not Liz or anyone else.
Roe’s eyes go dark and heated, and when our bodies touch, he groans a bit.
“Sending me to work hard will make an impression in the locker room for sure.”
I laugh, then end up resting my forehead against his.
“I’ll see you at the game later, okay?”
I nod.
“Liz is . . .” I start and notice how his eyes get sharper, and it makes me realize that I need to clarify her with him. “She has these phases, like I said last night. Where she gets really into something, like it becomes her whole personality. It’s been yoga, or being a travel blogger, or she was going to write romance novels, or study massage, or—”
Roe’s thumbs rub across my hip bones. “I think I get it, Gabe.”
I look at him, really look, with my eyes bouncing from each of his to his gorgeous face, and I breathe in his grounding spicy scent. “I never thought it would be better—for Jamie or for me—for me and Liz to be together in some way. We were never going to last.”
His arms wrap me up and we share a kiss that warms me to my toes for the rest of the day.
What I don’t say is that Roe already knows me better than she ever did, or will, or cares to. And the same is true for me. I want to know everything about Roe Monroe. I could become obsessed with the man, if I let myself. With Liz, my concern is whether she’s hurting Jamie in some way.
That afternoon, Jamie and I get to the rink early, mostly because I can’t stand being late and Jamie likes to be the first one on the ice. Liz wasn’t at pick-up and hasn’t called, which is fine. I was there anyway, just in case. A good thing.
There was no excuse, no explanation for her not being where she said she would be today. Same old Liz.
I find a spot on the bleachers while Jamie heads to the locker room.
I’m halfway through scanning the program when Marge Calloway settles beside me as if she’s been waiting for the moment all day.
“He’s good for you,” she says, as though we’re in the middle of a conversation and I just missed the first ten minutes.
I glance over. “Excuse me?”
“Monroe,” she says, sipping from a thermos that definitely doesn’t have just cider in it. “You don’t scowl as much anymore.”
I blink. “I wasn’t aware I scowled.”
She hums. “You were the town’s most eligible grim reaper for a while. Now you’ve got a little warmth in you. We would hate to see that derailed by any new arrivals.”
I don’t respond.
She leans in slightly. “You think people haven’t noticed the way you look at him? The way he looks back. We want to see you happy, Thatcher.”
I stare at the ice.
