“Give us a minute,” Stanley murmurs, already moving.
He turns me toward the front door and doesn’t look at one other person on the way.
When we step out, I get my first full breath since Gavin appeared, and it’s only then that I realize I’d stopped taking them.
I walk down the cold concrete driveway and turn to face Stanley.
He looks down at me, not grinning or making a joke out of this. He looks…mad.
“Did Gavin do something to you?” he asks.
I shiver at his tone. “What?”
“I will lay him out, Aspen.” He steps forward. “I’ll do it right now. Answer me.”
I should be insulted, or amused, or anything other than what I am, which is steadied because nobody has offered to lay anybody out for me in my entire life.
I shake my head. “No. God, no. We used to date. My dad said a man like him isn’t someone I’d want to settle down with, and he was right.” I blink, trying to reach for the nearest thing and explain why I would put us on the same side of the fence. “I ended it. And tonight, he wouldn’t stop smiling at me. I panicked. I saw you come through the door, and I improvised.”
Something in him lets go. He runs a hand through his hair and exhales. The cold drops out of him by degrees.
I watch him closely. He’s still on edge. The Stanley Ermington I know isn’t fully back yet. He takes a step back and wipes his palms down the front of his jacket like he’s drying them. Then he rubs his mouth, thinking to himself.
“Are you okay?” I ask, feeling like he might be freaking out.
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’re Coach Linwood’s daughter, so I will—”
I scoff before I can stop it. “Is that all I am to you?”
He looks at me, and the grin tilts back into place. “I’m sorry, your highness. You’re also the girl sleeping next to my hockey stick.”
I growl at him. Actually growl. “Did you stalk me again?”
He laughs, so I step forward. “That is so fucking creepy, Ermington. Fine. Forget any of this happened.” And I turn to storm off, because storming off is the only move I have left.
His hand closes around mine and pulls me back.
“Wait, wait. I’m sorry.” He’s still smirking. “I didn’t mean to poke the bear.” The smile fades out of his face. “Your dad really said Gavin wasn’t good for you?”
“Really.”
He goes still, and I can see him thinking about something. I have no idea what, but then he looks at me and comes back.
“Huh,” he says. “Okay.” He shifts his weight. “So, do you know what you did in there?” He points at the house.
I nod. “I needed an exit. I’m sorry, I’ll fix it —”
“You can’t fix it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you grabbed me in front of forty hockey people, Linwood. You called me babe. In front of my captain. In front of Blue. In front of Gavin — who plays for the team that drafted me, and who is going to text his entire roster about this.” He spreads his hands. “Hockey is the smallest pond on earth. By breakfast, the league knows. And everybody knows who your dad is, and everybody knows who my father is, so by lunch, your dad knows, and by dinner, my dad knows.”
I feel it land somewhere under my ribs.Shit, he’s right.“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nods. “That’s why they say to think before you act.”
I turn away from him and place my hands on my hips and breathe through my nose. I try to run the angles, find the exit, solve the problem, and for the first time in a very long time, there isn’t one. The numbers don’t resolve. I turn back around.
