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“Yet here you are, begging me to stay.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how that conversation went.”
“That’s how I’ll remember it.”
He laughs under his breath and turns his attention back to the television.
I do the same, trying not to think about the way he looked at me when he acknowledged that I’m not a baby anymore. Or his fingers making my skin tingle. Or even the way he was in the car today.
The flirting wasn’t all in my head, right?
I wish I didn’t like the little happy dance my heart did when he took my hand in his and refused to let go. And don’t even get me started on finding him standing shirtless in the kitchen, his stupid Ken “V” on full display, before I’d even had my morning coffee.
The list of all the reasons why staying here is a terrible idea keeps growing.
I’ve read this book before. I know how it ends.
Girl needs somewhere to live. Brother’s best friend has a spare room. Throw in one ridiculously attractive hockey player, unresolved childhood feelings, and enough forced proximity… eventually someone forgets the rules.
Except this isn’t one of my books.
And Hayes Bishop isn’t some fictional hero I can rewrite when he breaks my heart.
I’ve already learned that lesson once. I won’t make that same mistake twice.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DELANEY
My mother could comment on about seventeen things when she walks into Bishop’s apartment Saturday morning.
The floor-to-ceiling windows. The ridiculous view.
The kitchen that’s bigger than the entire apartment I toured Monday.
The fact that her daughter is temporarily living with a twenty-seven-year-old professional hockey player who happens to be her son’s best friend and also the first boy ever to break her heart.
She chooses the refrigerator.
“You need groceries.”
I close my eyes.
“Good morning to you too, Mom.”
“I brought food.”
“Of course you did.”
Dad walks in behind her carrying a cooler big enough to transport a human organ.
“Where do you want this?”
I point toward the kitchen. “Please tell me that’s not all for me.”
“Some of it’s for Hayes.”
Of course it is.
