“She knocked. I folded.”
Nate should’ve known something was up the moment he woke up and didn’t immediately feel angry. That was usually his baseline. Rage like an old bruise. Muscle memory. The familiar grind of consequences. But this morning there was only the soft gray light leaking through the curtains and the ache of last night still humming under his skin like a secret. The kind that lived in the warm hollow of his chest where hope kept doing dangerous things. He lay there for a minute longer than he meant to, staring at the ceiling like it might explain what the hell was happening to him.
He’d tried to distract himself the way he always did when his feelings got too loud. Shower. Cold water. Push-ups until his arms shook. Anything to burn off the restless energy that came from wanting something he wasn’t sure he deserved. But it didn’t work. He’d ended up shirtless, damp-haired, pacing his room barefoot like a caged animal in a luxury prison, phone in his hand, thumb hovering over her name like it might bite him. He wanted to text her. Didn’t. Wanted to call. Definitelydidn’t.
Nate knew better than to push her.
So he settled for staring at the mirror while he pulled on one of his Hammerhead practice hoodies and pushed up the sleeves, watching the familiar shape of himself look back. Broad shoulders. Ink winding up his arms like old stories. Face like a storm cloud. A body built for impact, but a heart apparently built forher. He’d just started pulling on his shoes when there was a knock at the door.
Holly was standing in the hallway, one hundred percent mischief in leggings and a fitted jacket. Her smirk when he blinked at her said she’d woken up this morning and decided to ruin him on purpose. “Get dressed,” she said the second he opened the door. “Comfortable, warm. No questions.”
Nate was caught off guard by how much relief hit his body at the sight of her. How fast his chest loosened. How quickly his mouth forgot how to be cool. “Is this a kidnapping?”
“Only if you struggle,” she said with a grin that was pure sin. “Now come on. We’ve got an appointment.”
So he let her drive.
Baseball cap on backwards and one hand curled around her thigh, sneaking sideways glances at her like she might dissolve if he didn’t keep checking she was still there. The morning light streamed in through the windshield, golden and lazy, catching the soft curve of her cheekbones and the way her hair was pulled high in a ponytail that made her look far too smug for someone who’d just ambushed a huge-ass hockey defenseman with vague instructions and zero explanation. She looked ridiculous, radiant, anddangerousall at once.
He should’ve asked where they were going. But instead he just sat there letting warmth bloom in his chest, slow and foreign and delicious, because he’d never done this. Never had a woman take the wheel and smile at him like she hadplanshe actually wanted to be part of. They rolled past strip malls and boarded-up storefronts and empty parking lots, places you’d only see at dawn in the outskirts of LA.
And then she turned onto a cracked access road and pulled up beside a building Nate didn’t recognize at first. The faded logo above the sliding glass doors was peeling like it had been tattooed on in the 90s, the paint chipped, the place leaning into its own grunge with a stubborn pride. And then he clocked the half-rusted sign that readPRIVATE ICE RENTALS,and a single set of bleachers sat off to the side of the parking lot, like someone had stacked it there just in case anyone ever cared to watch.
“What… is this?”
She cut the engine, turned in her seat, eyes bright and lips absolutely fucking kissable.
“It’s ice time,” she said simply. No teasing, justfacts.
It hit him like a punch. She’d rented it. A whole rink.Just for them.
She’d emptied the world of witnesses, and carved out a space that spoke his language without asking him to translate himself. No one hadeverdone that for him. Not without wanting something back. He was used to earning his place with bruises and blood, with being useful only when he was dangerous. But this was care. Thoughtfulness. The kind that assumed he was worth the trouble.
His chest tightened, something ugly and tender tangling together, because he didn’t know how to deserve a woman who saw him so clearly and chose him anyway. Standing there, ice waiting like an offering, Nate felt absolutely, irreversibly humbled by the fact that someone like Holly had just loved him gently on purpose.
“You—” His voice caught in his throat, too full of something he wasn’t ready to name. He cleared it, tried again, quieter this time. “I can’t believe you did this.”
She gave a little shrug, casual in the way people are when they’re hiding how much they care. “You’ve stepped into my world every day for weeks. Figured it was time I tried on yours.” A beat passed before that wicked smirk of hers came into play. “I’ve even lined you up a pair of rental skates in your gargantuan size.”
Nate groaned. “Rentals?That’s like asking a thoroughbred to give pony rides, Martinez.”
“Them’s the breaks,” she grinned, slipping out of the car. “Consider it a handicap. I’m not great at skating.”
He laughed, too breathless for it to be anything but real, and tried to cover it with a smirk. “Ready to fall on your ass, then?”
Her grin turned wicked. “You offering to catch me, Eriksson?”
And he nearly saidyes. Nearly saidalways. Nearly saidyou have no idea what this means to me, Holly. But the words got caught somewhere behind his ribs, thick with feeling and too sharp to touch, and for a moment he just looked at her. Completely undone that she’d thought of this, arranged it, brought him here like she wanted to see the parts of him no one else ever bothered to know.
He could feel it rising, dangerous and too real, so he swallowed hard and wrestled the emotion back down where it wouldn’t choke him. Then, mercifully, his mouth remembered what to do. He cleared his throat and tilted his head, letting the grin slide back into place like armor.
“I mean, if you fall,” he said, voice low and full of heat, “I’ll catch you. Might get handsy. Might cop a feel. Totally depends on the angle.”
Holly didn’t miss a beat. “Cop a feel and I’m making you do a heel swivel in skates,” she said sweetly, striding past him with a sway in her hips that said she knewexactlywhat she was doing. “Hope those hockey hammies are up for it, big guy.”
Nate let out a startled laugh, loud and honest, the kind that cracked straight through the wall he’d spent years building. Jesus. This woman was going to kill him, and he was going to say thank you. Still grinning like an idiot, he trailed after her toward the benches, his heart thudding like it was lacing up right along with him.
37
