A shadow moves over my book, blocking the fluorescent light from above, and I jerk my gaze up.
Wilder’s standing over me, jaw tightened as his deep brown eyes glint with disapproval. “Here.” He’s thrusting a gray hoodie toward me. “Put it on.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he shakes his head. “Put the hoodie on, Maisie. You’re shivering.”
He’s offeringhishoodie to me?
I don’t attempt to say anything else, mostly because I am so freaking cold, so I take it from him, setting my book down beside me and dragging it over my head.
God, it’s so warm, and it smells just like him.
I want to burrow into it, to sniff the fabric until I’ve had my fill, but I don’t do any of those things. I just put on a small smile.
“Thank you?”
He nods, eyes steely as they flick down to the hoodie and back to meet mine.
Reaching out, he wraps his fingers around the strings along my chest and pulls them, securing the hood tighter around me. I expect him to drop his hand and move away, but he doesn’t, his fingers lingering as he stares at me. “Next time, wear something warmer to a hockey rink, or you’ll catch a damn cold.”
His words are gritted out, his eyes falling back to me wrapped in his hoodie, something swirling in the depths.
And for a second… I don’t think a cold is what he’s worried about at all.
CHAPTER
NINE
WILDER
It’s not enoughthat I’m back at OU, coaching a bunch of entitled fucks instead of playing professional hockey.
Not enough that I’m back in a city I fucking hate with every fiber of my being. That holds a lifetime of memories that are threatening to pull me under.
Nah.
Life just wants to fuck me with every opportunity presented.
If it didn’t, then I wouldn’t run into Maisie Delacroix in every damn place imaginable.
Like a fool, I thought it would be easy, avoiding her except when absolutely necessary, but everywhere I turn, she’s there.
In the stands during practice, reading on a blanket beneath an oak tree in the quad when I’m walking to the parking lot. Giggling with my players. Sneaking into the damn arena and watching me skate, wearing a tiny little nearly see-through T-shirt and leggings like it isn’t freezing.
Every. Goddamn. Where.
And it’s driving me fucking nuts.
She’s a constant reminder of what I can never have. Of what I shouldn’t want but am struggling to stop wanting.
What’s worse than seeing her everywhere I shouldn’t is the fact that I can’t get her out of my head. Not since that night.
Which makes it impossible to stop thinking about her when I see her every place I turn.
Imagine my surprise when I turned down the canned goods aisle at the grocery store near my apartment after a stressful-as-shit day at the arena, and here she is.
A pair of old wired headphones in her ears, like the ones from ten years ago, humming along to something upbeat, completely oblivious to the world.
She doesn’t even need to turn around for me to know that it’s her. I’ve memorized every curve on her body with all of the secret staring I’ve been doing.
