“Ava, that’s a forty-five minute drive.”
“And yet here I am.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to argue with me, or are you going to come eat your sandwich?”
I wasn’t going to argue. I couldn’t. I was too busy trying to breathe around the thing expanding in my chest—this warm, aching pressure that I didn’t have a name for.
I stepped off the ice and swapped my skates for my sneakers, then climbed the stairs and dropped into the seat beside her. She reached into the bag and handed me a sub, and from the smell alone, I could tell it was Italian meatball, my favorite. She handed me a couple of napkins like this was no big deal while I stared at her, wondering how such a small action could have such a large impact.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said.
“I know.” She took a sip of her drink. “But I wanted to.”
Simple as that.
She wanted to, so she did.
And that simple action had left me reeling.
I was just about to unwrap my sandwich when she handed me another package. I opened it up and stared at the extra pickles. Pickles shouldn’t make a man feel winded, but I was definitely finding it hard to breathe.
It was so stupid to want to lean over and kiss her senseless for remembering I loved extra pickles with my sub, even when I got a meatball sub which didn’t even usually come with pickles.
It was a small gesture but it meant everything.
And I couldn’t find the words or my voice, so instead I gave her a grateful smile and we dove in, eating our respective sandwiches in the silence of the empty rink.
“So tell me about the kids,” Ava said. “Anyone future Lumberjack potential?”
“Elias. He’s seven, has zero fear and absolutely no concept of personal space. He sprayed ice in another kid’s face today and cited your brother as his inspiration.”
Ava laughed. “Drew would be so proud.”
“Unfortunately, yeah. He would. There’s another kid though. Joelle. She’s really good, has great natural instincts, but she’s so quiet and guarded. I partnered up with her today, and I was pretty pumped that by the end she skated into a group on her own.”
“Yeah?” Ava smiled. “Look at you, Coach Farrell.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m serious. These kids are lucky to have you.” She bumped her shoulder against mine and then left it there.
I stared at the ice and didn’t say anything, because the way she’d said it—like it was obvious, or a fact—made it impossible to speak without giving myself away.
Ava saw someone I wanted to be. A man who showed up. Who stayed. Who was steady enough to be trusted with fragile things—kids on the ice, a woman’s heart, or even a future that didn’t have an expiration date.
I wanted to see him too. But every time I looked, all I saw was my father’s shadow, and I couldn’t tell if I was looking at who I was or who I was destined to become.
TWENTY-FOUR
The rules were simple. For the next twelve hours, we couldn’t say no to each other. Any request—as long as it was consensual and didn’t involve getting arrested—was fair game. There were no limits except the ones we’d already agreed on.
When I’d first written down “Yes day” in my notebook, I hadn’t imagined that I’d be doing it with my brother’s best friend, or on a weekend when my parents had driven to Bozeman to visit friends. We’d added additional parameters that meant we still had to be careful about how much we interacted in town.
Now, sitting across from him at a diner booth at nine in the morning with his knee pressed against mine under the table, I realized I might have underestimated what I was getting myself into.
The butterflies in my stomach were out of control, as anticipation wove with wondering what Liam would ask me to do today.
“So.” Liam watched me over the rim of his cup. “You ready for this, Sunshine?”
My stomach flipped. “It was my idea, wasn’t it?”
