“Does that guy intimidate anyone else?” Tommy asked in a low voice, his eyes on the door. I turned to see Andrew entering the room, decked out in a custom fitted suit that probably cost more than my folks made in a month, his normal intense expression on his face.
If the other guys agreed with Tommy, I didn’t hear it. I was too busy staring at the woman who’d come in with Andrew.
“Shit,” Enzo muttered. “That’s the hottie he had with him the first day. Please tell me she works here. Iloveredheads.”
“Stay the fuck away from her,” I growled, never taking my eyes off Grace. My attention was so single-minded it took me a minute to realize her two friends from the bar were with them, too. Andrew was talking to the girls, waving his hands around, while they nodded. It looked like he was giving her friends a tour of the new facility.
“Captain is a little protective of that one,” Jay said, and I could hear the amusement in his voice. I flipped him off. Then Grace caught sight of me and her eyes widened, just a bit, before she gave me a shy smile and a wave.
Shit, that smile did things to me.
The universe sure did have an interesting sense of humor, making Gracie Knight my kid’s teacher. Knowing that I was going to interact with her for the next ten months, that I now had a built-in excuse to see her, probably shouldn’t make me as happy as it did. I had plenty of shit to focus on right now—the new team, trying to get Josie through the move. Mooning after my daughter’s teacher probably wasn’t the best use of my limited brain space.
But when I had ever been able to resist Gracie Knight?
I had been playing with fire the other night, asking her to show us around the school. But the fact was, I wanted to spend more time with her. Ialwayswanted to spend more timewith her. And watching how she interacted with my daughter, hearing the two of them gush about books like they were long lost friends—that did things to me, too. When Grace moved the sleeve of her shirt to show Josie her tattoo, my brain had shut down completely. Just the reveal of that tiny swath of smooth, perfect skin and I was a goner.
I probably shouldn’t have mentioned ice skating. But fuck, when her eyes darkened like that, I knew she was thinking about our kiss. It was probably pathetic that after so many years, I could still remember every single detail of that day. Kissing Grace had felt right in a way nothing else ever had.
And I really, really wanted to do it again.
“You have something going on with her?” Karlsson asked as Grace and her friends followed Andy over to the GM’s table. I watched as he introduced her to Olsen and a few of the suits, her cheery smile as she shook hands the opposite of her twin’s signature flat expression.
“Earth to O’Conner,” Jay said, snapping his finger by my face, and I finally tore my gaze away from Grace and Andrew to see that everyone at the table was staring at me. Great.
“I just knew her a long time ago,” I mumbled, gathering up my trash. If I stayed in this room, I wasn’t going to be able to stop from staring at her, and I didn’t need the rookies to see what a pussy I was when it came to our owner’s sister. So I stood up, empty plate in hand, and said my goodbyes.
Unfortunately, Jay followed right behind me.
“Man,” he said. “I’ve never seen you all moony-eyed over a woman before.”
That struck me as really sad, since Jay had been best man at mywedding. But then, it hadn’t really been much of a secret that Chloe and I didn’t have a fairytale relationship. We’d found our she was pregnant senior year and gotten married two months after graduating.
Our relationship hadn’t always been bad—at least at the beginning, I really did believe that I loved her. Or maybe I just really wanted to. We both had parents whose relationships were the real deal, and that’s what I saw for my own life—a long-lasting marriage and a house filled with love and laughter. But it didn’t take very long for me to realize that Chloe and I were not at all on the same page. Apparently, in her mind, a happy marriage included sleeping with whoever else she wanted and running up huge bills on my credit cards.
“I’m not moony-eyed,” I told Jay as we made our way down the hallway toward the player lot. “Just haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Dude, you just practically bit Enzo’s head off for saying she’s hot?—”
“He shouldn’t talk about her that way.”
“Why not?” Jay pressed. “He wasn’t being overly crude. And she’s available, right?”
I clenched my hands at my side, wanting to punch him, maybe, and tell him that she most definitely was not available. But I knew he was trying to goad me into that exact reaction. “She’s the boss’s twin sister,” I snapped instead. “And he’s very protective of her.”
We exited the building, waving goodbye to Jed at the door before Jay continued. “So you’re going to stay away from her too, right?”
I stopped just outside the exit, leaning against the brick exterior wall, and shut my eyes to block out the bright sun directly overhead. We were quiet for a moment before I cleared my throat. “She’s Josie’s teacher.”
“Holy shit,” Jay said, sounding gleeful. “Your old crush, the sister of your arch-nemesis, is now your daughter’s teacher? This is better than a soap opera.”
I opened one eye to study him. “You watch a lot of soap operas, buddy?”
He shrugged. “What can I say—I love the drama.”
I laughed. “You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?”
“I’m not the one drooling over some chick in a room full of my teammates.”
