Page 12 of In the Crease

We walked back at midnight, the group strung out along the sidewalk. Ryan walked at the back. I was aware of it the way I’d been tracking where he was all evening. A low hum running without my permission since the truck.

Griffin unlocked the apartment and went directly to his room to grab what he needed to sleep on the couch. I changed in his room and lay in the dark in his bed, which he had insisted I sleep in.

I thought about the drive from the airport. The forty minutes. The bar. The way his forearms looked when he rolled his sleeves, and the way something had crossed his face across from Petey, quick and contained, and the way he kept an eye on everyone—including me—like he was responsible for them all.

He was Griffin’s best friend. He was going to the NHL in four months. There was exactly one day of this weekend left. It was time to enjoy it. But…

You are going to be sensible about this.

I sighed heavily and attempted to go to sleep.

It took a while.

Chapter Five

Ryan

I was up at six, which was habit. Kitchen by six fifteen. Coffee. The apartment quiet and the parking lot doing its Saturday morning thing.

I heard movement from Griffin’s room at six twenty. Lighter footsteps.

She came out in layers and socks, hair up, carrying nothing. She stopped in her tracks when she saw me.

“You’re already up.”

“Always.”

She took in the kitchen and then me, and I made myself drink my coffee and look normal about it because I definitely wasn’t checking her out. “Can I make breakfast?”

“It’s Griffin’s kitchen too.”

“You seem like the one who actually runs this kitchen. Do you mind?”

"Go ahead."

I moved out of her way and leaned against the counter with my coffee and when she bent to check the lower cabinets, dark jeans pulled tight across her hips, I gave myself exactly one second to be a twenty-two-year-old with a pulse before I turned to the window and took a very long sip and thought about literally anything else.

She came back up with the cast iron pan and set it on the burner like she'd known exactly where it was.

She skirted past me to get to the refrigerator, close enough I caught the scent of whatever she’d used in the shower, warm and clean, completely distracting—and opened it like she already knew what she was making. Griffin Callahan’s little sister was making breakfast in my kitchen at six thirty on a Saturday morning.

I was fine with this. Perfectly normal. Standing in my kitchen at six thirty on a Saturday morning, completely at home in a space that wasn't hers, making eggs nobody asked her to make. Who was I kidding? It was fucking hot.

“You don’t have to⁠—”

“I know.” She already had eggs and cheese and a pepper from the crisper. “How do you like your eggs?”

“However you’re making them.” Dream girl. That’s what she was. I was going to leave that thought exactly where it was.

She glanced at me over her shoulder with the expression she’d been deploying since the truck, the one implying she had more to say. But instead, she blushed. “Good answer,” she said as she turned back toward the stove.

I pulled down two plates and stood with my coffee and watched her. She knew where things were after one pass. The girl could chop. She hummed something low under her breath, just in it—completely unaware I was watching or not caring either way.

The morning light came in at an angle and caught the curve of her neck just below her ear, soft skin and the small dark strand of hair that had escaped her bun, and I wanted to put my mouth there so badly I had to turn back to my coffee. I was going to keep looking at it and nothing else.

I got out the third plate.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said without turning around.