“Nothing major. Just the fact that I’m falling in love with Dixie.”
It takes a minute for him to react. It’s like someone presses pause on his face—it’s frozen in a curious, patient expression like he’s still waiting for me to tell him something. Then his reaction is like an explosion. He sits up straighter, leans forward, mouth falling open and eyes widening almost comically.
“I’m sorry, what? Dixie? Braddock?”
I nod.
“The blond girl with the smart mouth and smarter brain who is—”
“Fucking beautiful and sexy and brilliant?” I finish his sentence with my own adjectives. “And the fellow employee of the San Francisco Thunder. Yes. Her.”
“In love?” He looks as skeptical as he would if I told him I had had an anal probe by aliens.
“Falling. Hard and fast,” I admit, and it feels fantastic to finally say it.
He leans back and then leans forward again. His brows pinch together then pull apart, then pinch together again. It’s like watching some weird eyebrow foxtrot. “But how? I mean, do you guys even talk outside of work?”
“We’ve been talking and texting since that charity auction before I joined the team. Actually we kissed last year when I was in town to play that preseason game.”
“You kissed her? Way back then? Why?”
“Because we were stuck in an elevator.” I shrug and sink back into the armchair. “Anyway, we knew that when I started on the team we’d have to cut it out, so we decided to have sex to really work it out of our systems,” I explain. I tip my head back so I’m looking at the ceiling instead of Levi as I finish my confession. “And that didn’t really work because I still want to have sex with her again. Indefinitely. And we have kind of been slipping up. She helped distract me.”
“From?” Levi demands.
“From my problems on the ice. But I made her feel like this isn’t a big deal, that she was nothing but a distraction, and she’s more than that.” I sigh heavily. “She’s just this…amazing force, you know? From her career to harassing her brother to telling me off, she does it all with this bold, fearless energy. And she’s the only thing that got me through this PTSD shit from the accident by forcing me to face it.”
“I wanted you to face it,” Levi says earnestly. I look over at him and can see the hurt on his face.
“Don’t get all pouty, big brother, you fucking diva muffin.” I grin at him. “You know I wouldn’t listen to you if you were the last man on earth.”
“Because you’re a fucking tool,” Levi replies.
“No. Because you’re a pod person sometimes,” I retort with love. “You try to be perfect and emotionless all the time, like Mom and Dad. This was an emotional problem.”
“So you admit you’re an emotional train wreck?”
I lean forward and very slowly, very carefully flip him the bird. He lets out a hearty laugh.
“Back to the important stuff,” Levi says, and I glance at him. I don’t think I have ever seen him look more befuddled. “Does she know how you feel?”
“No. I told you, I fucked it up. But I want this to continue, regardless of all this shit it’ll cause.” I sigh and lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “And that makes me a selfish asshole, because if we get caught, she’s the one who loses her job and ruins her career, not me.”
“Yeah…” Levi agrees and then bites back a smile. “But you’ll end up with two black eyes, at minimum, because Jude will attempt to kill you, so she’s not the only one who’ll suffer, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t,” I reply in a clipped tone.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to make light of this.” Levi pulls himself off the bed and stands, arms crossed as he ponders my shitastic situation. “How does she feel about you?”
“The same. At least she did. But she’s just fighting it,” I explain. “Her co-worker got fired for messing around with Eddie.”
“Yeah, I heard they let someone go.” Levi nods. “It’s not the first time it’s happened, and it won’t be the last, I’m sure.”
Our eyes lock, and he instantly looks flustered. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean Dixie.”
“But it will happen to her if they find out.” I swear under my breath, a long, low stream of expletives. It doesn’t make me feel better. I stand up. “Look, I’m going to go down to the pool and do some laps, burn off some stress, before I have to go to this dinner thing with the fan and Dixie and that tool reporter.”
Levi laughs. “Tom’s a great guy.”
