Especially because I knew what he looked like when he was feeling flirty. The long eye contact. Those grins that somehow bordered on both shy and wicked. The way he’d looked at me across the club and across the narrow space between us while we’d danced.
He hadn’t been looking at me that way today.
Had he?
No, of course not. I’d have noticed. I wasn’t stupid.
Though I had to admit there’d been other occasions when friends had pointed out that someone was flirting with me while I’d been Captain Oblivious. Like at that waterpark in Vegas when a guy had been talking to me in line for food. He’d laughed, smiled, held my gaze, asked what we planned to do after lunch—and it was only after he’d walked away that my teammate, Ethan Bernier, had given me a look.
“You let him go?” he asked. “He seemed nice. And cute.”
“Well, yeah.” I’d shrugged as I arranged my food containers on the table. “He was nice.”
“Right. And?”
I’d blinked. “And, what?”
Berns had eyed me. “Did you not notice he was flirting with you?” he’d demanded.
“What?” I’d laughed, shaking my head. “No, he wasn’t.”
“Bruh.” Norquist had eyed me over his ice cream cone. “I’m straight as the day is long, and even I could tell he was flirting with you.”
“He—wait.” I’d looked from one teammate to the next. “Are you guys fucking with me?”
“No,” Berns had deadpanned, “andhewon’t be fucking with you either because you’re a dumbass.”
I’d sat there slack-jawed for a moment, replaying the conversation with the cute guy in line.
And now, here I was, somewhere between Calgary and Edmonton, gobsmacked by the idea that someone had been flirting with me without me realizing. Especially when that someone was Vasily Abashev.
No. No way. Hoskins was just imagining things, because there was absolutely no way Vasily Abashev was?—
Right then, the alleged object of my flirtation stepped onto the bus, a huge iced coffee in hand. His gaze landed right on me, and?—
Oh. Hell.
The instant our eyes met, he smiled. A little lopsided and shy. A little wicked.
And he came right down the aisle and dropped into the seat he’d been occupying for the past couple of hours. His smile held.
I glanced at his cup and cleared my throat. “You like iced coffee in the dead of winter, too, huh?”
He shrugged. “It’s only cold out there.” He tipped the cup toward the window. “In here…” Another shrug, and then he took a drink.
I just chuckled, and yeah, it was warm in here. Really warm in here. Warm enough that maybe I should’ve gotten an iced coffee myself.
What if… What if hehadbeen flirting with me earlier?
What if he was flirting with me now?
And what if webothfigured out that we werebothflirting?
Vasily’s eyes met mine again, but then darted away. His cheeks were still a little flushed from the cold outside, but I swore I could see a blush creeping in anyway.
Just like I could feel heat creeping into my own face that had nothing to do with my hot coffee or the warmth on the bus.
Oh God.
