Page 26 of Slapshot Bride

Our fingers brush when I hand it to her. Barely. The lightest possible contact but I feel it.

I don’t think she notices.

“Thanks.” She plugs it in. Settles back. “I think I’m going to be here for a while, so…”

“That’s fine. I’m just here to lock up, then I need to get some sleep. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Easton.” She gives me that breathtaking smile again.

“Night, Riley.”

I go upstairs, and close the bedroom door behind me. I lie on top of the covers in the dark with my hands behind my head and I don't sleep.

Three hours. Three hours of staring at the ceiling and listening to the house settle and thinking about every promise I just made to myself in that shower and about the woman down the hall, who has no idea what I look like in the dark.

Three hours of arguing with myself about whether I'm the version of me she thinks I am, or the version of me my reputation says I am, or some third version I've not figured out yet, and three hours of not landing on an answer.

I sleep, eventually. Lightly, for about four hours.

I'm up before five.

I shower again, briefly and without incident this time, and I go downstairs because I'm awake and there is no point pretending otherwise.

She's in the kitchen already.

She's in my t-shirt, again, and the same shorts as the morning before, her hair is up in a different lazy knot than yesterday’s, and the espresso machine is hissing.

There is already a cup waiting on the counter that I know, without checking, is for me.

She turns when she hears me on the stairs.

“Good morning, roommate.”

Her smile is sleepy and warm, and the part of my chest that I spent three hours last night trying to drown in cold tile goes warm in one beat, and I know, in that moment, that I'm in serious trouble.

“Good morning.”

I take the coffee. Our fingers don't brush this time, and I notice it more than I should. I don't know what to do with that either.

“Sleep well?”

“Great, actually. As soon as I could drop that book.” She chuckles and tilts her head, and my eyes follow to see the book I hadn’t noticed on the kitchen island. “You?”

“As best as I could.”

I drink the coffee.

My phone buzzes on the counter.

I glance down. It’s from Coach.

Coach Brennan:

Hey son. Quick question for you. Who is the Sinclair bride?

I stare at the screen.

Fuck.