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Caleb was generous and kind. Talented and irresistibly attractive.

Like a sexy knight in shining hockey gear, he’d ridden into town, all perfect and noble, seeming determined to wear down Aaron’s resolve. Aaron was no swooning damsel in distress, though if he were honest with himself, being swept up in Caleb’s muscular embrace held a certain appeal.

“You don’t look pleased.” Pam held her coffee cup in two hands and looked over the top of it at Aaron. “What’s going on?”

“What’re you talking about?” There was no way she hadn’t heard the defensiveness in his tone. Was there?

Pam gave him the look she gave to students who were sent to her office for doing something wrong. The one that said she could wait it out until he spilled the beans.

“That won’t work on me.” He looked at her, willing himself to not succumb.

After a minute or so of the staring contest, she relented. “No fair. You’ve been around me too much.”

“Ha!”

“Seriously, though. What’s up?”

“Please don’t get mad, but I really need someone to talk to.”

“Oh my God. Are you in trouble? Did someone die?”

“No. No.” He shook his head as he laughed nervously. He took a deep breath before blurting out “I think I might like your brother.”

There. He’d said it. He’d gotten it out.

“Of course you do,” Pam said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’ve known him forever. You’ve been—” She stopped cold. She was never at a loss for words, so Aaron expected the worst. “Oh, wait. You like like him. That’s fantastic!” A huge smile spread across her face.

Aaron examined his coffee, trying to hide from anyone who might be looking their direction since Pam was rather loud in her proclamation.

She put her hand over her mouth as she realized it too. “Sorry,” she said, restraining her voice. “Why on earth would you be worried telling me that?”

“I’ve seen some of the reactions you’ve had to his boyfriends.”

“Totally different. This is you.”

Again, his heart betrayed him. He shouldn’t have said anything, and yet he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Can I tell you something else, then, as my friend and maybe not as his sister?”

“Um. Okay.” She sounded as dubious as Aaron felt.

“First, we’re not dating or anything, but I think I want to even though I’m not sure if….” He drifted off. There were some things he wasn’t comfortable telling Pam. “I can’t tell if he wants a real date. He might be flirting, or maybe I just want to believe he is. I don’t know if it’s right to even ask him. I live here. He’s in New York. He’s a major hockey star, and I’m just a schoolteacher who can barely stand up on skates sometimes. There’s no reason to think it could last. But—”

“He makes your heart do somersaults in your chest,” Pam interrupted.

“Exactly.” He couldn’t lie about that.

“Let me tell you about my brother. You know the guys he’s dated over the past few years? The ones I’ve mocked as not being right for him? You know, sometimes those are a setup, right?”

Aaron nodded. “Yeah. He told me that over dinner.”

“Oh, okay. He usually keeps that under pretty tight wraps.”

“He also said he wasn’t doing that anymore.”

Pam’s eyes widened. “Good for him. Anyway, even guys he’s actually dating haven’t made him happy. They either don’t know what it means to date someone who travels like he does, or they expect it to be a lot more glamorous than it is. I honestly don’t even know the last time he was on a date.”

Aaron wondered if maybe dinner had been more of a date than either of them had realized. “I don’t know how I’d do in a relationship with someone who lived somewhere else. Travel’s one thing, but he doesn’t even live here.”

“Have you two talked about that?”