Page 5 of Breaking the Ice (Denver Stampede #6)

DANI

B elinda poked her head into my office Wednesday morning. She’d had to stay home with her sick son for the last two days, and it was her first day back in the office.

“Hey, you’re back. How’s Jasper?”

“Much better and at school, thank god,” she said, taking the seat across from my desk. “When’s your first client?”

“Not for another forty minutes.”

“Same, so catch me up. How was your weekend? And make it fun because I spent most of mine holding a puke bucket and watching way too many YouTube videos about playing Roblox. Why do kids like watching other kids play video games so much?”

I chuckled. “No clue. And it was fine.” I took a long sip of my nutmeg-spiced iced coffee. Sugar on Top made the best coffee in town. I’d grabbed an iced snickerdoodle cookie for later, too.

“Bor-ring. Nothing happened after I left you at Reilly’s?”

Not unless you count kissing a total stranger to piss off my ex. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss, even dreamed about it more than once.

“Girl, spill.” Her demand pulled me out of my head.

“What?”

She waved her finger in a circle. “Something happened. You have this glowy look going on.”

“I do not. Nothing happened.”

Then my phone buzzed.

“That better not be the douche,” she said.

“No, I blocked him.” It’d been five days since I blocked Roger, and the silence had been beautiful. No texts. No messages. Amazing.

“About damn time.”

I glanced down at my phone, surprised to see Gabe’s name.

Gabe: Hey, Dani. It’s Gabe. Gabriel Tucker from the other night. The goalie.

Gabe: Good morning. I hope you had a nice weekend. And start to the week.

Gabe: Did Jensen bother you at all?

Gabe: Do you have a minute? To talk? You’re probably busy. Let me know when you’re available.

Gabe: It’s about Jensen.

Gabe: Okay, that sounds ominous. Just shoot me a text back or something when you have a chance.

“What’s going on?” Belinda asked. “Who is Gabe?”

My head jerked up, almost colliding with her shoulder since she was leaning over me and reading my messages. How the hell had she moved next to me so quickly?

“What the hell, nosey?”

She managed to look chagrined. “Sorry, but what did Roger do, and who’s Gabe? I hope he’s young and hot and studly. He sounds sweet.”

“Fucking hell. Ugh, I need to make a call.”

Her tone turned hard. “What did he do?”

“It’s okay. I’ll fill you in, but I need to make a call first.”

Her expression softened. “You’re okay though, right? Roger didn’t hurt you, did he?”

I sighed. “Just my pride for being such an idiot and dating him in the first place.” I glanced at my schedule. “My break’s at 11:30 today.”

“I have one then too, so let’s plan on it.” She glanced at my phone. “You’re not calling him now, are you?”

“Roger? No. Definitely not.”

“Ooh, so the mysterious Gabe, then. 11:30 can’t come fast enough, and I’m not just saying that because it’s Monday. Well, it’s my Monday.”

I snorted. “Go away, Belinda.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

After she shut my door behind her, I tapped on Gabe’s message.

Dani: Does now work? I have some time before my first client.

Gabe: Sure.

Gabe: Hey, I never asked what you did for work. I know you said you had a hard day on Friday, but I hope it’s usually enjoyable. That’s so important.

Gabe: Sorry. Calling now.

How was he both endearing and a touch annoying at the same time? Just pick up the damn phone and call.

My cell rang and his name flashed on my screen.

“Hi. So what’s going on?”

“Hi, it’s Gabe from the other night. Um, yeah, you know that already. So, sorry for this, but I wanted to call you before Jenzy did. He’s still blocked, right?”

“Uh, yeah? Maybe take a breath, Gabe.” That last sounded snarkier than I’d intended.

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

I sighed. “Sorry. It’s just been five days, and now you’re calling me about Roger, so I’m thinking it’s probably not a good thing.”

“Uh, so we played his team last night. Did you watch?”

“Umm. No, sorry. Not a big fan of hockey.”

“Okay. Right. Anyway. Jenzy was running his mouth off during warm-ups.”

“O-kaaay.”

“Sorry if this makes it worse for you, but he was an asshole. Pretty sure you’re aware of that already. Anyway, he got in my face about stealing you from him while we were on the ice, even shoved me.”

“I’m not his damn property, for godsakes. Stealing me? What the fuck is wrong with him?”

“He’s an asshole, as we’ve determined. He asked why you weren’t at the game since we were dating, so I might’ve goaded him a bit.” He paused.

It was a long pause.

“Gabe?”

An audible breath on his end suggested this was not going to be good.

“What did you say?”

“That you were doing your own thing for the night, but that we were a couple.”

“Okay, that’s not bad. I mean, it’s kind of what we’d agreed on, after all.”

“And then I said how much I loved waking up next to you every morning.”

“Seriously?” I exclaimed. “Dammit. Why the fuck would you do that?”

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have pushed it. But he was being such a motherfucker, and I wanted to make sure he knew you were not available and very much not single. I mean, I know you’re single, but I didn’t want him to know that. I mean,” he said, sounding contrite, “I was trying to help.”

“Shit.” I glanced up at the ceiling and took in a deep breath.

“It’s okay. I mean, it’ll be fine.”

“It won’t be fine. You’ve dug us deeper. You antagonized him, and he’s a prick. There’s no way this just goes away,” I fired back.

“Look, I’m sorry. And I didn’t mean to make this worse for you.”

“But you did.”

“Hey, remember, you asked me to kiss you and pretend we were together first. I guess we were just that convincing.”

Did he sound smug at the end of that? Fuck, I did not want to think about that very bone-melting kiss.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Or maybe it wasn’t that clear since he acted like he didn’t believe we were dating last night,” I exclaimed, my irritation obvious. I mean, what the fuck with both of them.

Okay, to be fair, Gabe hadn’t started this. But he’d run his mouth when he should have just shut the fuck up. Fucking Roger.

I sighed.

“Ouch, but okay. Maybe he needs more convincing,” he said.

“This is a disaster.” Ugh. This was so not my life.

“I think we should fake date.”

I sputtered. “What?”

“We talked about it, remember? Just for a little while. I know you hate hockey—well, hockey players.”

“I don’t hate hockey or the players, I’m just not a big fan.” Which wasn’t completely true. I only disliked certain players.

“But it’s the best sport ever. And most of us are really nice, promise. There isn’t a single asshole on my team. Okay, not true. Sin’s a pain in the ass, but he’s just a joker.”

“Gabe.”

“And Santa’s grumpy, but not bad when you get to know him,” he continued.

“Gabe.”

“What?”

“Focus.”

“Oh, right. Yes. Sorry. But we are nice.”

It was not charming.

At. All.

“Gabe, I have a client arriving very soon.”

“Okay, so we can fake date. You come to some games. We look cozy for a social media post here and there, and then in a few weeks, maybe a month or so, we fizzle out and Roger has moved on. Oh, what do you do, by the way? I meant to ask.”

“Gabe. One thing at a time.”

“Sorry. I swear I’m laser-focused when it comes to hockey. Well, and everything else, usually. So, what do you think?”

“Is this really necessary?” I sighed again. I was doing that a lot this morning.

“It’s probably the best option to get rid of him.”

“Ugh. As frustrating as this is, you’re probably right.”

“It’ll be fine, easy even.”

“So, what’s in it for you? I’m not actually going to wake up next to you, you do realize that, right?”

“Whoa, I never expected that. This is all for show. You need help and I’m a helpful guy. No ulterior motives, I promise.”

I actually believed him. But then again, I’d believed Roger was a nice guy until he wasn’t, so my track record wasn’t the best lately, especially when it came to goalies.

“Fine, but we need to set actual parameters.” Was I really agreeing to this?

“Sure. What are you thinking? Maybe we could do this in person? You said you had a client coming in soon. What do you do, exactly?”

He’d now asked me about my job three times. He actually listened. That was...refreshing.

“I’m a child and family therapist at a local clinic.”

“Oh, wow. I bet you’re really helping so many kids. Hey, maybe we could do some outreach with the team? I love hanging out with kids.”

“Gabe. Focus.” My tone was slightly frustrated, but dammit, why did he have to be so sweet? Was it even genuine?

“Sorry, getting ahead of myself. Okay, so we could grab coffee or something? We’re in Vegas tomorrow, but I’ll be back tomorrow night since it’s such a quick flight, so I could do Friday. It would be like our first date. Maybe snap a pic for Insta, start a paper trail of our lurrrrve.”

I groaned.

“Sorry. Too much?”

“Okay. Coffee. Parameters.” I glanced at my schedule again. “I can do Friday afternoon at two. Does that work?”

“Sure. I don’t have practice or a game that day.”

“Sugar on Top?”

“Anna’s place?” he asked.

“You know her?”

“She’s dating Santa. The man hates sugar and ended up with a baker.” He chuckled. “Cracks me up every time I think about it.”

“Gabe.” This guy was all over the place. Goalies should have better focus.

“Yes. Two at Sugar on Top on Friday works great. I’ll be there.”

“Wonderful.” I could hear the slight snark in my tone.

“Dani, it’ll be fine. We’ll figure everything out, and Jenzy will be out of your life for good. Okay, I’ll let you get to work. Hope you have a good and successful day.”

“Uh, thanks. You too.” I stared at the phone as he ended the call.

What the fuck had I just agreed to? But I couldn’t think about it because Gloria was pinging me to let me know that Ryder and his mom Claire had just arrived.

I stood up, smoothing out my shirt as I walked toward the door.

“Hi, guys. Ryder, you ready?”

“Yup.” The teenager sounded like he couldn’t be bothered. I knew he’d warm up as soon as the door closed between him and his mother.