Page 7 of Goal Line (Boston Rebels #4)

“Things were falling apart before he came in. Plus, people have shit games,” my dad says.

“It happened to Colt during the second round of the playoffs a few years ago. Sometimes the pressure gets to people. Sometimes they just have a bad day. There are a hundred reasons his game could have been off. The point is, he needs to figure out why it happened, and fix that. ”

It’s good advice, but if Luke knows what happened that day, he hasn’t admitted it to me. “You guys have a team psychologist or something?”

“No, not officially. But Zach has someone he swears by, and I think he’s gotten some of the other guys to talk to her. I’ll see if he can mention it to Luke. ”

I’m about to suggest that maybe the team should invest in having a sports psychologist on staff when Luke’s car takes the turn onto the top level of the garage, the sound of his engine signaling his arrival before I even see the sleek black Mercedes pull up beside us.

Once my bags are packed into the back of his car and we say goodbye to my dad, Luke asks, “You see the text from Amy earlier?”

“Yeah.” Amy was my best girlfriend in high school, and while we’ve kept in touch over the years, we’re not nearly as close now as we were before.

She lives in Boston now, and apparently she’s going out to celebrate her birthday tonight with a group that includes some of our other high school friends.

Since Luke and I are both in town, she invited us to come out.

“Any interest?” he asks, taking turn after turn to reach the exit of the parking garage.

I roll my head back against the padded leather headrest, thinking about how I’m starving, even though I got myself lunch earlier. I’m always starving now, and I’ve never been able to make decisions on an empty stomach. “I don’t know. You?”

“On the one hand, we can stay in with Mr. Darcy and Lizzie, and on the other hand, we can go out with our friends. How could we ever choose ?”

I’d expected that Luke would want to hide out in his condo, licking his wounds out of the public eye. Maybe now that it’s been a week since the playoffs ended, he’s finally ready to reemerge?

Generally, Luke’s always up for going out and making sure everyone has a good time. It’s probably one of the reasons our friendship has worked so well over the years—he keeps me from being too serious, and I keep him from being too wild.

So maybe after a week of being a hermit, a night out is exactly what he needs?

“I can’t make decisions like this when I’m hungry,” I tell him. “Feed me, and then we can decide what we want to do tonight.”

“ S o what’s the game plan?” Luke asks as I enter his living room. When his eyes flick up from his phone and he sees me standing there, he presses his lips together and raises his eyebrows. “You look...nice.”

“I just spent an hour getting ready,” I say, my voice teasing as I think about how long it took me to curl my hair and try on multiple different outfits before settling on this sundress I bought today.

The scoop neck and empire waist keep the focus on my upper body, and the short skirt highlights my muscular legs. “And all I get is nice ?”

He stands and takes two steps toward me, coming so close that I have to lean my head back to look at him. Instantly, I wish I hadn’t. He’s too damn perfect, with his light brown hair falling in effortless waves, bright blue eyes, flawless skin that always looks sun-kissed, and a mischievous smile.

Luke is too cute for his own good, too down to earth when he has every reason to be conceited, and too kind and thoughtful in an otherwise harsh and competitive world .

“Were you looking for a different response, Evie?” His voice is quiet, husky even, as he looks down at me.

He doesn’t sound like my Luke. He sounds like the compulsive flirt I so often see when we’re out in large groups, and I have to remind myself that this is the version of him I’ll also see tonight.

..with other women. It’s a version I’m very familiar with, because Luke has a constant stream of women rotating in and out of his life, or more accurately, his bed.

He claims he doesn’t date during the season, but in truth, he’s just never had a relationship last long enough to bother mentioning it to me.

I swat at his stomach with the back of my hand, pushing him away. “You flatter yourself.”

At this point, that phrase is like a safe word for me. When I get even the smallest inkling that Luke might be flirting with me, it immediately pops out. Self-preservation and all that.

“And ewww.” I roll my eyes for good measure, wondering if it’s the pregnancy hormones that have me wishing—for the first time in a long time—that he actually was flirting with me. “Don’t use that seductive voice you use with other women .”

He lets out a small, sharp laugh. “I don’t know what voice you’re talking about.”

Glancing up at him, I smirk and drop my voice low, letting it flow out like his, thick and smooth. “Were you looking for a different response, Evie?”

His laugh is genuine this time. “You do a terrible impression of me.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you sounded like, so maybe your game with women is just not as good as you think it is?”

“Or maybe,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets, “it was never as good as you thought it was?”

I’m trying to figure out his meaning when he turns and grabs a hat from where it sits on the back of the chair and slips it on, brushing his hair off his face.

His hair is his most notable feature, and when it isn’t falling on either side of his forehead, he looks like a different person—young and carefree without the weight of a Stanley Cup loss on his shoulders.

I’m sure that’s the point. With the hat covering his hair and casting a shadow across his face, he’ll be less recognizable while we’re out tonight.

He steps closer, resting his hand on my lower back as he guides me toward the front door with a gruff, “Let’s go. Don’t want to keep the birthday girl waiting.”

The nighttime air is still warm when we exit his building, and my long hair hangs down my back, tickling my bare shoulder blades. Luke’s fingertips remain on my lower back, guiding me around people who aren’t going at the same fast pace as we walk the few blocks to the bar where we’re meeting Amy.

“So what’s our story for why you aren’t drinking?” he asks.

“I have to practice in the morning.” I glance up at him over my shoulder. “That’s believable, right?”

His jaw tics, but he nods, and I focus back on the sidewalk in front of me.

“You know you’re going to have to tell people eventually, right?” he asks. “Or they’ll start figuring it out.”

“How the hell would they figure it out? I’m not even showing,” I say, and when I look up at him, I can’t help but notice that his gaze is focused on my chest. Which, to be fair, is pretty hard to miss in my scoop-neck black tank dress. It’s not like he’s checking me out or anything.

As his eyes meet mine, he clears his throat. “But you will be soon. How many weeks are you now?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Holy shit, Evie.” The words are whispered. “Over halfway? Already?”

“Well, I didn’t figure it out until I was nineteen weeks along.” Because of my intense exercise and skating regimen and the strict diet I’m on during training, my period has never been regular. It wasn’t until I’d missed it for several months in a row that I got worried and took a pregnancy test.

He slips his hand around to my hip and snuggles me into his side. “I know. Guess I just forgot how far along you are, especially because you’re still not really showing.”

“You’re right, though,” I say as I lean my head to the side, resting it in the space between his chest and shoulder.

“Now that I’m not training, and given how far along I am, it’ll become obvious soon.

I’m already noticing the difference in how my clothes fit.

My belly’s getting hard, and it’s definitely bigger.

That’s why I had to go shopping today..

.to find things that fit but don’t make me look pregnant. ”

“You did good with this dress,” he says, and he’s right. Because it’s tight on my chest and loose below it, the fabric hides my belly. “What else did you get?”

“Tons of stuff. You saw the shopping bags we unloaded from your car, right?” I’d brought them all with me instead of having my dad take them home because I wasn’t sure what I’d want to wear tonight.

His chest shakes with laughter. “I thought those were all gifts for me.”

I reach across my body to poke him in the side. “Sure, you did. Even you’re not that vain.”

“You’d be shocked,” he says, humor in his voice as he drops his arm from my back and reaches forward to pull open the door to the bar.