Page 60

“No. I think wherever you’re most comfortable is where you’re grounded.” My voice quakes, and I shiver. Wow, this place is colder than I expected; I should’ve worn more layers.

Pulling his black Scorpions beanie from his head, he keeps one arm looped around my waist as he tugs the hat onto my head, almost covering my eyes in the process. “Is that better?”

“Yeah, thank you.” Just as the final word leaves my mouth, my right leg slips to the side. In slow motion, but with exactly zero grace, I tumble to the ice.

Zach wraps a strong arm around my waist and breaks my fall before I hit the surface. “Soft knees, remember.” We come to a stop right in the middle of the rink. His arm is still looped around me, and my body is pressed against his. “You look cute in my hat.”

All I can smell is him. He wraps around me like a hot summer night. It’s hard to remain upright when I’m this overwhelmed. “Yeah? Black is my new color.”

“Black? You’ve never worn anything black before.”

I smile cheekily. “Well, Saturday night I will be.”

Zach’s hand tightens slightly around my waist. “That’s the color of your dress?”

I nod slowly. “Kate picked it out.”

Biting down on his lip, he holds my gaze for a moment too long. Too long for me to resist, and automatically I swipe my tongue across my bottom lip.

His eyes immediately fall to my mouth, a look of pure need in them. “If I kiss you, will you pull back?”

My heart thunders against my ribcage. “I should.”

“Should is different from want.”

“What we want and what we should do are two very different things, Zach.”

He drops his forehead to mine as both his hands come to rest on my hips. “After you fly home on Sunday, when will I get to see you again?”

School starts the next day, and then his hockey season starts in October. “Not for a while.”

He blows out a long breath. “Let me kiss you.”

“For what reason? So we can head back to your place and sleep together again, only for me to leave two days later? I can’t be friends with benefits.”

He balks at my terminology. “You’d never be just that to me.”

“By definition, that’s exactly what we’d be. We need to move on from this summer.”

His face contorts, still resting against mine. “I don’t know if I can, Rocket.”

“What choice do we have? You have your life here in Seattle, and I have mine across the country.”

Our lips are centimeters apart, and I feel the warmth of his breath against my cheeks. “Will you date other people?”

I want the ice to melt from underneath my feet and swallow me whole. “Do you want the honest answer or the one I think you want to hear?”

He reaches up and brushes a calloused thumb over my cheek, looking me straight in the eye. “I always want your honesty, and you’ll always have mine.”

I swallow hard in a desperate attempt to push down the lump forming in my throat. “Right now, I can’t see past what we shared. But one day, maybe. What about you?” I ask the question, but I really don’t want to hear the answer.

Like a lead balloon, I watch the column of his throat work hard to digest my response. “I can’t see past you and what we have. I know I made a lot of promises to myself three months ago. But if you were here in Seattle, and if you thought thehockey lifestyle was something you wanted, then I’d be standing here asking you to be my girlfriend.”

My legs almost give out from underneath me, but this time, it has nothing to do with my balance on the ice. “Y-you want me to be your girlfriend?”

He moves his hand to the nape of my neck, and I tip my head up to look him in the eyes. “If the stars were aligned, then yes. I feel a lot of things for you. Things that scare the shit out of me, but I can’t keep ignoring them. They’re here to stay, and I’m tired of pushing them down.”

“I don’t know what to say.”