He shrugs, his gaze dropping from mine to the beer in his hands. “Better than living with Eden and having love shoved in your face, right?”
“Right,” I say. Tonight has been . . . a lot. It might be time for me to quit while I’m ahead. “I think it’s time for me to call it a night.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
Downstairs, with Alex on my heels, I nearly walk smack into Holt, who deftly lifts his drink over my head and mercifully doesn’t spill a drop.
“Sorry.”
“You’re good.” Holt chuckles, offering me a small smile before his eyes narrow on my escort.
“Congratulations on the engagement,” Alex says a little stiffly. “It’s gonna be a big year.”
“Thanks. I know Eden appreciates you coming,” Holt says with a polite nod.
A muscle jumps in Alex’s jaw, and I can’t help but wonder if he still has feelings for our boss.
“I’m going home,” I say to Holt. So weird saying home when I should really be saying your fancy place that you’re letting me squat in, thank you. “Send my love to Eden, okay?”
“Will do. You have your key?”
“Yep. ’Bye, Holt.”
Outside, the club music is a distant echo. I close my eyes, letting the breeze cool my warm skin. But my ankle buckles when I step into a pothole, my arms flailing wide to regain my balance. Alex catches my wrist before I tumble, steadying me without breaking his stride.
“Thanks,” I mutter with a strangled sigh.
I’m really setting quite a reputation for myself tonight, aren’t I? The executive assistant who cries in corners and can’t be trusted to walk without falling on her face. But Alex doesn’t give me any grief, and for that I’m grateful.
“Do you need a ride?” he asks, nodding toward a row of shiny sports cars.
I won’t even try to guess which one is his. They all look like they cost ten times my annual salary.
“That’s okay. I’ll call an Uber,” I say, reaching into my purse.
Alex places his hand over mine and thumbs open the app on his phone before handing it to me. “I’ve got it. Just type in the address.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. It’s the least I can do.”
“No, really,” I say, trying again. “Thanks for looking out for me tonight.”
He pauses. “It was mutual.”
My heart twinges a bit, even as I smile. “Are you gonna be okay?”
He scoffs, running a hand over the dark stubble on his face and glancing back at the club with a cynical expression. “Are you?”
I drop my gaze to the concrete, the familiar ache settling back in. “I don’t know.”
Alex steps closer so I’m standing in his shadow again. “Would a hug help?”
I didn’t take him for the hugging type, but I find myself nodding all the same. “It couldn’t hurt.”
His big arms wrap tightly around me as he bows his head and rests his temple against my hair. I surprise myself, bringing my arms around him and clinging.
Relaxing, I release a slow sigh. What is it about the kindness of strangers? But I guess Alex isn’t really a stranger anymore. I guess I used to think of him as more of the enemy. The guy who hurt my boss and my friend.
I breathe in against his shirt. I don’t know how long we stand there like that, hugging as though we each understand how it feels to be alone, but then I hear the nearing crunch of tires, and I pull back.
“That’s my ride.” I sigh, lifting my face and bringing one arm between us to return his phone. “Here’s your phone, before I f—”
My words are hushed by Alex Braun’s full lips pressing against mine and his big hand cradling my cheek. My brain fires off useless information like, warm, wet, and good. So, so good. Thoughts that do nothing to clear my confusion.
Instead, I grab a fistful of his shirt, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss, because that’s what this is, right? A mind-blowing, entirely forbidden kiss, that’s obviously only to make us both forget the heartache.
When the driver honks, Alex chuckles against my mouth, the sound filling me up like a warm cup of coffee. Our lips pull apart with a mutual sigh. I blink up at him, lifting his phone to his chest and pressing it against his pecs—his very well-defined pecs—and over his heart.
“Before I forget,” I say belatedly, finishing my sentence breathlessly.
“Thanks.” He laughs, low and easy. We’re still pressed against each other when he says, “I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
“In Canada.”
“In Canada,” he says with a boyish grin.
It’s not until I’m tucked into the back seat of an Uber driver’s car that reality thunders down.
What the hell did I just get myself into?
3
* * *
ALEX
“Oh, look who it is,” my sister, Nelle, says excitedly through the phone. “My long-lost little brother.”
“I texted you the other day,” I say, putting the call on speaker, then sniff a sweatshirt I found in the back of my closet. Deciding it’s clean, I shove it into my duffel bag with the other items I’m busy packing.
“Yeah, but that was only because you needed the recipe for my brioche French toast.”
“These are facts—but I did contact you.” I chuckle, tossing a few pairs of boxer briefs in the bag.
I overhear her say something to Jaxon in the background.
My six-year-old nephew is a handful. Actually, he’s a lot like I was as a kid. And considering how I turned out . . . maybe that’s not a bad thing? I had a ton of energy, to the point that my parents opted to have me medicated just to get me to focus in school. But once I found hockey, everything seemed to fall into place. Then I had somewhere to direct my energy, and as they say, the rest is history.
“So, the off-season, huh? Are you going to keep your junk in your pants and your ugly mug off the hockey gossip sites this summer?”
“Hello to you too, sis.” I roll my eyes.
The sad news is there’s a lot of truth to her question. I had a weird season. For the first time since college, I was single, and I might have overindulged . . . a bit. The media outlets loved to play that up, constantly comparing my lackluster performance on the ice to the prevalence of my extracurricular activities. The two weren’t correlated. Last year was challenging for me on a personal level, so it was only natural that some of it spilled over into my professional world.
After my breakup with Eden, my sister started spouting something about my abandonment issues. For obvious reasons, I shut that conversation down quickly.
Do I have issues? Sure, doesn’t everybody? But abandonment? That made my head hurt—and not in the good, I just ate a whole bunch of ice cream, kind of way. I guess I did feel somewhat let down by my family. But could there be a kernel of truth to Nelle’s words about me pushing Eden away because we got too close? Fuck, I don’t know.
“Kidding. Kidding. You know I love you,” Nelle says when I don’t respond, defusing the situation.
My sister is the only person in my family I get along with, so she’s allowed to give me shit. The rest of them tend to treat me like a walking ATM. I only hear from my parents when they need something. Same goes for my other relatives. Whether it’s them wanting me to invest in some wacky, new business idea, or just to score them tickets to a hockey game—it feels very transactional. I hate that part of being a professional athlete.