Page 111 of Forbidden Hockey

“I can understand why.” She analyzes me. “He’s pretty young.”

My stomach swoops again, but this time it’s a bottoming out, a rock falling forever into nothing. She was a hard read. Her actions earlier could have gone either way, but man, was I hoping she found us amusing, maybe even cute. It’s gonna be bad enough hearing what Hunter has to say to me.

“But I’ve worked with Dirk a while, too. The crease between his eyes is gone.”

Huh?I perk up. Now that I think about it, he does smile a helluva lot more, even the past couple of weeks, being mildly pissed at me.

“He told me to have a nice day recently—that man’s as quiet as a rock, and for the first few weeks he worked here, I thought he was non-verbal. The most he’s ever said to me before was a grunt that I’m pretty sure meant ‘sure, Penny’.”

Dirk is the strong, silent type, but only until you get to know him. Then he has lots to say. I want to tell her that. I want to fucking gush about him like he’s my first crush while lying on my bed, kicking my damn feet.

“And you. Fancy facials, new haircuts, that goofy-ass look on your face twenty-four seven—I’ve never seen you work that hard to impress someone, I’ve never seen you this happy, Trav. Every time you take a breath, it’s lighter. Every time he smiles at you, a little bit more of your soul relaxes.”

There’s some kind of weird wetness in the corner of my eye. I wipe it away quickly. “Yeah. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, Penny.” Now, I’m extra confused. Is she okay with us? Or not?

She waits with a hand on her hip. Waits and waits some more. Am I the dumbest man alive? What’s she waiting for me to get?

Finally, she sighs. “I don’t know how your son doesn’t know, he must suspect something.”

Oh.

Oh.

It hits me. All her looks. They weren’t judgments, they were warnings. Okay, maybe some judgment over how totally bad we are at hiding how in love we are, but she was trying to tell me without telling me—probably because I’m her boss—that we’re not fooling anyone.

We can’t.

We’ve already been changed. Whoever we were before has been wiped clean. The longer we’re together, the brighter it shines.

“I respect why you’d want to keep it quiet, but if you’re gonna do that, you’ve got to learn to keep your hands off him for five seconds.”

I’m a grown man who wants to whine that he doesn’t want to. I want my hands all over him. Whenever I want. All the seconds.

How do I make that happen?

“I’ll try.”

“Sure,” she says without an ounce of faith. She slings her work bag over her shoulder. “But you should know, there’s a kitchen bet going on.”

I scowl. “So, everyone knows?”

“Bad. So bad at it, Travis.”

“Yeah, okay, fine. We suck.” But it’s something I don’t mind sucking at—so long as Hunter and Dash don’t know until we tell them.

“If you could make it publicly official before the end of August, that would really help my vacation fund.”

“Alright, alright. Time for you to go, Miss.”

She laughs all the way out the door.

“Kitchen bet,” I mutter. Assholes. All of them. But the sun’s shining inside of me. They either know or heavily suspect something’s up, and they’re not outside my apartment with torches and pitchforks. The rest of the world might not get on board, but our corner of the world’s already on the ship waiting for us.

Chapter

Twenty

Dirk