Settle down—you’re living together for at least another month. That’s all it means.

  “We should,” I say, keeping my voice even so I don’t read something that isn’t there at all in the let’s do it for a month idea. “And a dog rescue feels right. For both of us,” I say, trying to ignore the flutters in my chest. Then I notice the sticker curling at the edges of his shirt. “Did you wear this sticker, too, to stake a claim on me?”

  He nods, proud and certain. “I did.”

  Funny—there’s something I want to stake a claim on. Something I’ve been imagining since I moved in with him.

  Maybe it’s something I can do after the game. And just like that, I have a plan for tonight—what to do during the game, and what to do after.

  34

  THE GLEAM AND THE GLOW

  Josie

  As I get ready for the game, I can hear Greta’s voice loud and clear. There’s only one thing to do with a baggy shirt. Belt it, baby.

  I tighten a peach crocheted belt around my waist as I peer in the mirror. Yep, it’s a shirt dress now, and this belt’s shade looks good with the royal blue of the Sea Dogs jersey that lands right above my knees. I’m wearing dark gray leggings under the jersey.

  Seriously, why don’t hockey teams make jerseys for regular-size people? Fine, they don’t have regular-size people playing the sport. And this is one of Wes’s actual jerseys, not simply the kind I could pick up in the team shop. But Christian will never know that. Since, well, the team shop sells all sorts of sizes. Christian also won’t know for another reason. My brother doesn’t pay close attention to my clothes—nor should he when he’s playing hockey.

  Still, my nerves rattle around as I look in the mirror, checking out the outfit. I look like a hockey girl. It’ll be obvious to everyone I am. Including my brother. And I feel weird not telling him, given the way he’s helped me out.

  As I’m tugging open a drawer to find something else to wear, the doorbell chimes. That’d be Maeve, since she’s meeting me here. I race to the front door and let her in.

  “Hello, tiger,” she says approvingly, eyeing me up and down.

  Yeah, that’s bad. “The whole outfit screams I’m fucking the forward, doesn’t it?”

  “No. It’s not the outfit that says that,” she says, blunt and direct.

  My stomach pitches like a pirate ship at an amusement park. “Then what gives the secret sex life of this librarian away?”

  She smiles wickedly. “Your eyes. They have that well-fucked look.”

  “Eyes do not get a well-fucked look.”

  She parks her hands on my shoulders and spins me around so I’m facing the mirror by the front door. “They do. See?”

  I peer more closely but come up empty. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s a gleam. The gleam of getting some,” she says knowingly, staring back at me in the glass. “And damn, I am jealous. You got the glow on your skin and the gleam in your eyes.”

  I laugh, and my worry slinks away for now. Maeve just has that carefree effect on people. I’m not going to stress about my clothes or my brother. “We all deserve a glow and a gleam, don’t we?”

  “That should be the name of a new skin-care line.”

  “And you should do the artwork for it,” I say.

  “God, your brain is hot,” she says.

  I grab a jacket and my bag, and because sometimes I like to take a little extra piece of Greta with me, and tonight feels like the start of something new, I grab the book charm necklace she gave me way back when and slip the jewelry on so it hangs under the jersey—a little symbol of me next to a little piece of Wes. We head to the rink.

  Fable’s meeting us there. So is Everly since she offered to give us a behind-the-scenes tour beforehand. When we hop off the bus and head up the steps to the arena, Fable’s outside the media entrance wearing a Renegades sweatshirt with the team’s logo in rhinestones. “Gotta represent the football team,” she says.

  “More like represent your own awesome design,” I add since she made this fun sweatshirt.

  “Thanks, babe,” she says, proud of her creation and rightfully so.

  Everly’s with her, and she waves a hello at Maeve and me. She’s dressed in black wide-leg slacks and a dark gray blouse that looks satin-y. Her blonde hair is shiny and slicked back in a high ponytail. “Hey, you,” she says, her eyes straying up and down me. “Don’t you look adorable in your sassy little Sea Dogs dress.”

  I give a little curtsy. “Apparently I’m known for makeshift couture.”

  Maeve nods. “She sure is. Did you know she was wearing one the night she met—” Maeve slaps her hand to her mouth.

  Everly laughs, dropping a hand on Maeve’s shoulder as we walk past the early arriving crowds. “You mean Wesley, right?” she asks in a low voice, just for us.

  Shaking her head, Maeve mimes zipping her lips as we reach security. After we all pass through the security checkpoint, Everly says to me, “It’s okay. I always had a feeling you and Wesley had known each other before I introduced you. And honestly, I thought you liked each other.”

  It doesn’t even occur to me to lie to her. Nor do I want to. “We met the night I arrived in town. We had no idea who the other was, had a great time together, and then it turned out…he was my new roomie. Just don’t tell my brother.”

  Everly gives me a genuine smile. “I would never. And listen, don’t you feel like you have to tell him either. Only tell him when it’s right for you and Wesley. Take your time if you need to, okay?”

  That’s the best advice I’ve heard on this topic ever.

  Fable points toward Everly. “I like her,” Fable says.

  “I can be wise,” Everly says.

  “I think you’re right. And I needed to hear that,” I say. It’s a weight and a worry off my shoulders.

  Everly shows us around the arena, stopping at a long wall of foliage outside a range of fancy concession stands. “Since sports teams have such a high carbon footprint and we want to offset it as much as we can with foliage.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Maeve remarks, admiring the emerald leaves growing along the wall.

  “So gorgeous,” a deep, playful voice calls out from behind us.

  It’s a voice I don’t recognize, but when I spin around, a tall, broad man with golden-streaked brown hair and a toothpaste smile is striding toward us. He’s wearing a well-tailored sky-blue suit, the kind athletes wear on game night.

  Wait. I know who that is. But so does Maeve, evidently.

  She gives a little wave to Asher Callahan. “So glad you enjoy the gorgeous foliage too, Ash,” she says, then makes a shooing gesture. “Also, hello? Don’t you need to, I dunno, suit up for the game?”

  He smacks his forehead. “My bad. I almost forgot I have to score some goals to impress…” His sharp eyes linger on Maeve for a long beat before he adds, “my friend.”

  “Go, go, go,” she says, still sending him away.

  When he heads off to the locker room presumably, we’re all staring at Maeve—who’s watching Asher walk off. And is there something sparking in her hazel eyes? Dare I say it? “Maeve, do you have a gleam and a glow?”

  Whipping her gaze to me, Maeve crinkles her brow like that’s crazy. “Please. We’ve been friends forever. And he’s besties with my brother.”

  Fable purses her lips. “Asher’s your friend, and your brother’s best friend? That’s like a double dose of gleam and glow.”

  “I’d say,” Everly puts in.

  “Excuse me! We were talking about your G&G,” Maeve says, pointing to me and maybe, possibly, deflecting from the talk of Asher.

  “Actually we were talking about foliage before someone called you gorgeous,” I correct, because facts matter.

  But Maeve just scoffs. “Show us the rest of the arena, please,” she says to Everly in the most businesslike voice ever.

  “As you wish,” Everly says, and while we walk, I glance down at Everly’s footwear—heels.

  I flash back to the night we went grocery shopping and her comment about pole dancing. Then to my whole reason for having a list in the first place—to get out of my comfort zone. No reason I shouldn’t offer my friends as tributes too. “Hey, Ev, what if we all took that pole-dancing class with you?”

  Everly’s eyes brighten. “You’d all want to?”

  Yes, I just threw Maeve and Fable into the fire without asking. But I know my girls. Maeve is already nodding a big yes, please and Fable shrugs happily then says she’s in.

  “I guess we have our next girls’ night out,” I say, as warmth spreads in my chest. But it’s bittersweet, too, since these girls’ nights out will end in the new year if I can’t find a grant or a job.

  Before the puck drops, a loud, ominous voice booms through the rink, telling a tale of the Sea Dogs rising from the depths of the ocean, while electric blue and iridescent orange light displays of the logo and mascot play on the ice. Videos of the athletes fly by on the jumbotron.

  When the announcer warbles the starting lineup at the end of the light show, I cheer for the goalie and the five other guys as they rush out of the tunnel and hit the ice, including the one whose last name I share—Christian Winters. But it’s not till Number Sixteen jumps over the boards a few minutes into the game that I cheer the loudest.

  It’s a sound ripped from the depths of my heart—loud, exhilarating, ravenous. I’m not sure I can cheer any other way for Wesley.

  Especially when he looks my way with a very public, private smile.

  The game is raucous, with players jostling for the puck in the corners then slamming against each other as they fight even harder for it. Wes plays fast and aggressive but never dirty. Just sneaky, finding the puck and stripping it from his opponents.

  But even so, neither team scores during the first period.

  During the second period, the coach must have mixed up the lines, since Wes is out there with Christian a couple times, and they pass the puck back and forth as they fly up and down the ice.

  “C’mon,” I shout, like my sheer will can force a goal. Then, the noise amps up to an electric level as Wes slings it back to my brother, who smacks it right past the goalie’s outstretched glove.

  “Yes!” I shout, jumping to my feet and hugging my friends, like we all did it.

  When we let go, I catch sight of us on the jumbotron, embracing each other to celebrate a goal scored by my brother and my secret boyfriend.

  I like this secret. No, I’m falling hard for this secret.

  After a decisive 4-1 win, the three of us meet Everly in the corridor, since she told us to come here post-game. She’s ushering the players out of the media room, and I tense briefly.

  Will it be obvious after all? Will my brother figure us out before we figure us out?

  When Christian emerges from the pressroom, sweaty and elated, he beams my way. “You’re here, Jay-bird! Bryant told me you were coming,” he says, then wraps me in a gross hug.

  “Eww. You smell.”

  “Like victory,” he says, then Wes comes out next, looking insanely hot in his sweat in a way my brother does not.

  His brown eyes are practically burning off my clothes. I feel singed from the heat of his stare.

  Christian looks down at my outfit quizzically. “You’re wearing a Bryant jersey,” he says, but it’s toneless—an observation.

  My pulse quickens.

  I could say he’s my roomie. I could say he’s my friend. Instead, I lift my chin and say, “Yes, I am.”

  That’s all. I don’t need to explain anything more tonight, no matter how Wes looks at me.

  Everly pipes up, “Christian, can we get a picture of you two for social? It’d be great to have our captain and his sister. Hockey’s a family-friendly sport, after all.”

  “Course,” he says, then drapes an arm around me.

  As she shoots, Wesley watches, a knowing smirk on his handsome face. When Everly lowers the camera, she says to both players, “Thanks again. I’ve got everything.”

  After the guys head into the locker room, my phone pings with a text.

  Wesley: Wait for me by the players’ entrance. I want to take you home and show you how much I appreciate the way you cheered so fucking hard for me.

  I shiver as I read it. I look up, turning to Everly, grateful for her deflection. “You’re a savvy PR woman.”

  “That is true,” she says, then takes off while Fable and Maeve read the room, hugging me goodbye.

  “You’re going to get gleamed so good tonight,” Maeve whispers.

  Yes. I am.

  Since I have a plan.

  35

  YOU LIKE TO WATCH

  Josie

  I’m waiting at the foot of the staircase, wearing only his jersey and a pair of white cotton panties. Music beats low from upstairs, something sultry with a lot of bass.

  The lights are dim in the home, setting the mood.

  The scene is set, but before I take the first step upstairs, I bring a hand to my chest. My heart is beating so fast. I try to catch my breath. I’ve imagined this so many times.

  He’s taunted me with this scenario since the first night we were together when he said in the hotel: “Bet you’d watch me if you saw me jerking it to you.”

  Yes, I would.

  Tonight, I will.

  I take the first step. The stair creaks—the soundtrack to desire. I ascend, my pulse spiking with every move. When I reach the top, the music grows louder. That’s Wesley for you—always having a playlist for everything. I turn down the short hallway and pad across the hardwood floor, heading toward the sliver of moonlight refracting through the doorway. An invitation. I step past it, then stop. A sound of pure desire crawls up my throat.

  He’s stretched out on his bed, his big body sprawled in all his naked post-game glory. Bulging biceps, carved abs, thick thighs—and that gorgeous dick. He’s stroking it. But not with too much intention. Not like he’s about to burst. Like he’s just started. Like he’s weighing it.

  His curled palm slides down to the base, then back up. My body clenches. He coasts his fist over the head, pushing out a drop. My mouth waters. I want that drop so badly on my tongue. His eyes are closed. His lips are parted. His chest, rising and falling. He’s pretending he doesn’t know I’m here. I’m pretending we’re not yet together.

  Then I hear a noise that lights me up. A rasp rumbling its way up his chest. It’s the sound of an American muscle car hurtling down a road. With a groan, he grips his cock harder and I stare wantonly, like a voyeur.

  He shuttles his fist along his length, the rhythm picking up, the pace increasing, his grunts growing louder. Then, low and guttural as he murmurs a strangled, “Josie.”

  I gasp. My legs are shaking, and my panties are soaked. I am outrageously wet.

  To watch him get off in front of me is better than any porn I’ve ever seen. The man I want is touching himself while thinking of me.

  Pleasure pools low in my belly, and I could honestly probably come from watching him. Like a dream orgasm, the kind that crashes over you in your sleep.

  On an upstroke, his eyes float open. He blinks, locks his gaze to mine like a sniper. Doesn’t say a word. Takes a long, lazy stroke, pointing his cock my way. Like he’s saying he’s caught me. “You like to watch?”

  I nod, unsure if I can even speak at this moment. My throat is dry with desire.

  He stops his strokes though. I whimper.

  “You want to keep watching?”

  I find words this time, needing them, I sense, for the show to go on. “Yes. Please.”

  Crooking his fingers, he beckons for me to come closer. I cross the room, climb up, and kneel on the foot of the bed.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “So ready.”

  He grips his cock again. I stare hungrily. He jerks harder. “Ever watched me before?” It’s borderline confrontational. A man cross-examining me.

  I shake my head no, then confess, “I’ve only imagined it.”

  “How do you want me to finish? In my hand? On your tits?” The questions are aggressive too, spiking my arousal as he goes on. “In your mouth? On your back?”

  This part wasn’t scripted, but the image of him spilling his release on my body and rubbing it into me with his palm has me gasping and crying out. “My back, please. All over me.”

  “Bet your sweet little pussy is soaked,” he observes, pumping his cock harder as I stare, mesmerized.

  “It is,” I say, desperate for relief.

  “Bet it’s fucking dripping down your thighs.”

  My core throbs. “Feels that way.”

  He tips his chin carelessly at me. “Show me. Take those panties off.”

  I remove them quickly, but before I can drop them on the bed he reaches out a hand, asking for them. I give them to him without a clue what he’s going to do next. He turns them inside out and grips his cock with the damp panel of my cotton panties.

  My mind short-circuits. The sight of him spreading my wetness along his dick has me moaning uncontrollably.

  I didn’t know that was something I desired until this very moment—him pleasuring himself with my wet panties. It’s so dirty, and it turns me on beyond belief.

  “So much better,” he says in a haze, stroking faster with the fabric till he stops abruptly. “You know what would be even better?”

  I’m lost in a sex trance and can only shake my head.

  “If you sat on my face right now.”

  Dropping the panties, he reaches for me, then grabs my hips. Quickly, I take off my glasses before he pulls me down onto his face. He’s not gentle—he’s hungry and horny as he French kisses my pussy. But I’m wearing a long jersey that’s covering the view of his face, so I grab the hem, and loop it through the neck like a halter top tied off, exposing my belly.