“Well, what better way to cut all the awkwardness than to just go for it?”
That’s one way of putting it.
Bexley holds out her glass, and I clink my glass to hers and take a fortifying sip.
Damn, that feels good. The burn of it sliding down my throat. It helps to calm the anxious nerves that I’m feeling.
“Is it okay to say that I’m weirded out by this?” I confess.
She smiles, leaning across the counter.
I do everything I can not to ogle the gentle slope of her neck, the way it gives way toward her chest.
Fuck, Bexley really is a stunning woman.
“I’d be more weirded out if you weren’t weirded out,” she agrees. “We’re in this together. I need help, you need help. We can make it work.”
“We can make it work,” I parrot back to her.
“Okay, back to this whole ‘your dad got you drinking bourbon on your twenty-first birthday’ thing.”
I smile. Talking about my family is easy. This I can do.
“I’ve never been much of a drinker, but when the situation calls for it, he wanted me to have something to go to, and bourbon was always his drink of choice. I think it was his way of wanting to bond with me.”
“Are you not close with him?” Bexley asks.
“I am, but I’m more like my pops. Quiet and shy.”
Bexley studies me, and I do what I can not to squirm under her stare. Her eyes are forceful as she takes me in.
“It’s interesting because you’re not that way on the ice.”
“Really?”
She shakes her head. “You’re confident. Like you own that six feet of space between the posts on the ice, and no one is going to get in it but you.”
Damn. Bexley sure knows how to make a guy feel good.
“It’s easier on the ice for me. I can block everything out and focus on the game. It’s the outside noise that gets me.”
“C’mon.”
Grabbing my hand—while I do my best to ignore the rumble of heat that blazes through me—Bexley leads me to her living room and pulls me down onto the couch next to her.
“Sorry, it’s better if we talk in here,” she tells me. “You know, I never saw your dad play, but it sounds like you take after him too.”
I swirl the liquid in my drink before taking another sip. “Even though football and hockey are so different, he taught me a lot of how to carry myself when I play.”
“It’s what makes you a GM’s dream.” Bexley swirls her finger around the rim of her glass and it’s intoxicating—watching the way it moves.
I wish she was doing it on certain parts of me, to be honest.
Fuck. That’s not what this is, Nick. Stop thinking with your lower brain and use your actual brain.
“I’m glad you think so. I never want to get caught up in the lifestyle that seems to suck in a lot of guys. One of the best lessons Dad taught me.”
Bexley drops her elbow onto the back of the couch and rests her cheek on her fist there.
