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He sighed. “We all have flaws, but we aren’t defined by them.”
I grinned. “I happen to appreciate your flaws.” Especially when he went shirtless and barefoot. Oh, my damn!
He huffed. “I just want you to see yourself as the intelligent, beautiful woman I see.”
I felt my nose wrinkling. “Let’s not fight. I only have a few more minutes to chat and then I have to write this damn article on scarves. It’s due in a couple hours and I hate it. Your turn to talk. How are things at your company, Piercing Tides? And how is it that you can play professional hockey and run your own company anyway?”
He grumbled. “My company is fine. I have people I trust to run it. The day-to-day stuff isn’t mine to worry about. It’s almost Thanksgiving. Come see my new place in Taylor Ridge. Stay as long as you like to get your mojo back.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Stay with you? In Minnesota?” Then I felt the piggy snorts before I heard them. “Wait a minute. Did you just say ‘mojo’?”
He huffed. “Laugh it up.”
As my laughter died down, I felt my face scrunch up. “Minnesota?”
He growled. “Don’t be a snob. There’s nothing wrong with the Midwest.”
I set the phone down so I could get some coffee and still see him. “But the story I want to write is here.”
He pushed his hand through his dark, long hair flipping it to the side. “You can write anywhere. Being there is killing your spirit.”
I picked up the phone and rolled my eyes dramatically. “Killing my spirit?”
Ransom gave me an intense look.
I was teasing him, but the sincerity in his eyes made my stomach flip. “Okay, once I get this damn thing turned in, I’ll come for a bit.”
A hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “One of the perks of being the CEO means the company plane is at my disposal. I’ll send it for you tomorrow. How long are you staying?”
I shrugged. “Couple weeks.”
He growled with a menacing look in his eye.
I snorted. “I have things to do here. I can’t just move to Minnesota.”
He grunted something unintelligible.
Then I understood. I gave him a shy smile. “I miss you too, Chief.”
He cleared his throat. “Can’t wait to see you. I miss your pretty face.”
It felt like all the air got sucked out of the room. “Okay, bye!” I hung up wondering what just happened.
Had Ransom just called me beautiful and pretty in the same conversation? No, surely, I was mistaken.
Ours was a friendship forged by shared trauma. He lost both of his parents in a car wreck when he was ten, so his Aunt Lori stepped in to raise him and his brother. I lost my mom to an aneurysm, then was raised by a sadistic grandmother when my father fell into a bottle and never resurfaced. Since junior high school, I practically lived with Ransom, Dominic, and his aunt. They became my true family, but they couldn’t shield me from my grandmother who pointed out my every perceived flaw every chance she had.
Over time, Ransom helped ease my anxiety, building me up at every opportunity and cheering me on louder than anyone else. And I made sure he had human contact at least a few times a day. We were always there for each other.
Even in my younger years, I never saw Ransom as a brother. Never ever. He was always gorgeous and completely out of my league. Despite my fantasies and daydreams since high school, we were nothing more than friends. I wanted more. I thought about it all the time. But there was no way someone who looked as spectacular as him would ever want someone like me as more than a friend. The sports world was clear on the type of girlfriend or wife a hockey player should have. Ransom needed a perfectly toned woman to be his arm candy. Someone who took perfect photos with him at events and looked stylish sitting at the rink wearing his swag.
Sighing, I set the phone aside and with it the weight of my disappointment. Ransom wasn’t just handsome. He was aggressively protective and caring of those in his inner circle. He was delightfully quirky in his distaste for words, preferring to grunt. And he was miles away until I finished this stupid article.
Shaking my head, I set it all aside and focused on writing. Today was just another day in Manhattan where I worked in my five-hundred-square-foot apartment. Here I sniffed out stories and put pieces together to make a really great article. As I glanced down at the blinking cursor on my blank computer screen where words were supposed to come together about how to wear this season’s scarves, I couldn’t stop thinking about the thread I’d been pulling on lately on a different story. My gut told me it was important and it was rarely wrong.
I pressed a finger to my temple while I chomped on my pen cap. Young, newly successful models in New York City were dying. The police called them suicides. But I didn’t believe that for a second. Lately, I found other sources of the same mind.
Hopping onto an oft-frequented fashion blog, I looked to see what Starry Skies was up to today. She wrote under a pseudonym but trusted me enough to know she was a makeup artist who often helped with major photoshoots all around New York City. After reading my story exposing a man in the industry who was sexually harassing models, she saw I was a rare ethical journalist in a New York sea of cutthroat soft news piranhas who just wanted to make a buck. Opening up the messaging app, I shot her a quick text.
