Page 18

Chapter 18

Blake

Golden light drifts in through the window, outlining Alexis’s sleeping form like an angel.

She’s wearing my clothes, bundled up against the cold, sleeping soundly in my arms. Alone in my room with nothing to prove and no one to convince, she chose to stay.

She trusted me enough to stay.

My brave, gorgeous ray of sunshine.

Mine.

She stirs, those gorgeous silver-blue eyes fluttering open to meet mine. I can’t help but smile.

“What are you grinning at, weirdo?”

I know that I shouldn’t push my luck, and that just having her here with me is a miracle I could only have prayed for. But right now, at this moment, I give up all pretense.

“I just can’t believe I’m lucky enough to wake up next to you,” I murmur. “How are you feeling?”

Alexis scrunches her nose. “Sore.”

“Did you have fun while I slept, Sunshine?”

Alexis rolls her eyes, and the sight fuels me more than coffee ever could. “No, I’ll leave that task to you. You’re decent enough at it.”

My thoughts must show on my face as she starts to laugh, bringing out the smallest dimple in her cheek. I prop myself up on one arm, running my thumb along her lower lip. “That sounds awfully tempting. If I didn’t know better I’d think it a proposition.”

“Well, I am in your bed.” Alexis’s soft fingers run along the stubble on my jaw, her eyes mapping out every inch of my face. My breath catches and I freeze at her touch as if the slightest movement will scare her off. But this tiny bit of contact is enough to set me alight, and I lose my fear to her fire.

“That you are.” I press a kiss to her palm before it travels down my throat, settling right over my heart. I hope she can feel it skip a beat at her smile.

I’d told her she would set the pace, but shit if that choice isn’t haunting me now. If I hadn’t, I would be closer, so much closer to that pretty mouth until my tongue is fully?—

My thoughts wash away as her lips crash into mine, soft and warm and steady. Her slender fingers snake around my neck to pull me into her, keeping me nice and close. As if I’d ever break away willingly.

Kissing Alexis Moore is a fucking dream. Even half-awake and with morning breath galore, this is the best kiss I’ve ever had. For the first time in my life, I don’t have a great flood of thoughts—or thoughts at all. She has quieted the demons in my mind and managed the impossible: she got me to focus.

Sure, my focus is on her. How she tastes and feels. How I can make it so she never stops kissing me. But still, it must be some sort of progress.

“You should tell me to stop,” she manages between kisses. I laugh.

“Never.”

When we finally break apart, all I can do is stare at her. This wonderful, quiet, angelic wrecking ball of a woman who laughed her way into my life and refused to ease her grip on my heart. It’s strange how one person can change your sense of self. I never believed love to be real. I mean, if my own mother couldn’t be bothered to love me, why would anyone else? But when I’m with Alexis…I think it might be.

“Why are you sore?” I ask. “Talk to me.”

Her gaze falls and she shakes her head like she’s about to blow me off. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

There you go.

“I have a chronic illness called Fibromyalgia, which basically means my body is nuking itself for no reason, and the cold is making it flare up—or making it worse, as healthy people might say. In short, it gives me full-body pain, completely drains me of energy, and a myriad of other things I won’t bore you with.”

“You never bore me. You couldn’t.” I run my thumb along her cheekbone. “If you don’t feel like talking about it, that’s fine too. But maybe you can send me a link so I can read up on it?”

She pauses for a moment, her eyes wide with surprise as she nods. A small smile plays her lips as she settles back into her pillow, looking almost relieved. I wasn’t wrong, then, when I figured she expected me to blow her off. How many people have done that to her? Ignored her struggles like they don’t matter, made no effort to understand what it’s like being in her shoes?

She’s looking at me, expecting me to say something. But there is nothing I can say to right that wrong. “I’ll whip us up some breakfast. You stay put and look pretty.”

“Well, if you insist, ” Alexis says, burying herself deeper in the pile of blankets. I have no sooner left the bed when Lucky crawls up to take my place, curling up against her chest with his snout pressed against her nose, begging for cuddles. I linger in the doorway for a moment, drinking in the moment before it’s gone.

The house is quiet, so I curse under my breath when I see my teammates lounging in the kitchen. Guess my secret sleepover is about to become public. I should not be surprised they have gathered here; Levi is very strict about us not going out during the game season, so there are no hangovers to keep them rotting in bed.

“There he is! Finally ended that dry spell, huh, Taylor?” Eric smirks. Dick.

I push past him to get to the fridge. Hopefully these pigs left some food for the rest of us. “You’re the only one who has those. Must be your dazzling personality.”

“Didn’t I hear Alexis’s voice last night? Where is she? I want to thank her for making me a birthday cake.” Raf says from his perch on the island. He glances past a scowling Levi into the hallway, trying to catch a glimpse of my girl. Not that he will.

I’m hoping I can convince her to stay up there and relax for as long as possible, maybe even blow off that cooking class the contest is forcing on us. I reckon we can have a lot more fun right here.

Raf’s words do give me a pause, though. Between Alexis and the contest and all the added hockey practices I completely forgot about his birthday coming up. Idiot! I need to find something to give him, something that shows I care about him even if I’m forgetful. I just have to figure out what.

Would he accept it if I bought him a car? It certainly would make going home easier for him, letting him skip the bus and train rides I know he hates. I don’t think it would go over well, though. What about a city trip? He could take Nico to Paris, maybe. I’ll have to think about it some more later.

About the gift, that is. Not Raf and Nico in Paris.

There’s some pancake mix left, so I whip up a few waffles with a glass of fresh orange juice and a hot cherry tea on the side. It’s far from flashy, but it’s made with love nonetheless.

“She’s curled up in my bed where she belongs,” I say, and the wince on Levi’s face only spurs me on. “She’s sore from last night—a bit hard to walk.”

“Watch it, Taylor. That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

I can tell by the tone of Levi’s voice that I’m walking a dangerous line, but even he has to see I’m stuck in an impossible situation here. These guys don’t know about our deal, not even Raf. They all think me and Alexis are actually together, which would make it suspicious if I didn’t allude to having sex with her at least once. Especially because riffing Levi is one of my favorite hobbies.

“Has anyone seen the syrup?” I ask. Raf gives a low whistle and punts the bottle straight at my head. “Thanks, man.”

Levi shakes his head as he watches me shove the breakfast onto a makeshift tray. “Alexis doesn’t like syrup on waffles.”

“Oh, I know. The waffles are her breakfast. The syrup is part of mine.” I wink at Raf as a low Oh! goes through the kitchen. Levi looks like he might be sick.

As a hockey player, I have never been graceful, so it takes considerable effort to keep the tray—fine, it’s an old pizza box—straight enough not to spill a thing. Still, I make it a point to stop briefly at Levi’s side. “Might be best not to think about it.”

I hurry up the stairs before he can retaliate.

Despite my best efforts, Alexis insisted we go to the cooking class.

I tried everything short of barricading the door, but if I did she’d probably climb out the window just to prove a point. My girl is stubborn like that.

It’s not all bad, though. Alexis is a skilled baker and I found her a stool to perch on while she watches me knead the pizza dough. She tries to hide it, be discreet, but I catch her staring at my arms enough that it makes me regret hiding them under a sweatshirt. I flex them just the same.

Alexis busies herself with roasting tomatoes for the sauce while I try to copy our instructor’s moves for shaping the dough in the air. I can catch the blob of dough before it has a chance to fly off, though thankfully no one saw it. Aside from the cameras.

The cameraman closest to us—Noah, his name tag says—seems to have taken a liking to Alexis and me. He kept close by at the aquarium, and today he hasn’t been more than a few paces away from us at any time. It seems the crew is unchanging, as they are all familiar faces. Though it seems there are more of them now that there are less of us.

They weren’t kidding when they said they would vote two couples off after every date. With two dates behind us four couples are gone, drastically improving our odds of winning. There’s no time to slow down, of course, but it’s nice to know people believe in us just the same.

“Remind me to find a boarding place for Lucky for next weekend.” I rummage through the mess underneath our workstation to find something to blend our sauce with and set it on the bench before grabbing the rest of our ingredients. Cooking is kind of fun.

“No need. I’ll look after him.”

I raise a brow. “How can you take care of him if you’re in Vermont with me? It’s not like we can sneak him into the hotel. We couldn’t even sneak him into the house without getting caught.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure me coming on your trip is a good idea,” Alexis says quietly. “It’s probably best if I hang back.”

I slide my arms around her waist and pull her close, minimizing the odds of someone—like Noah—overhearing as I say, “You have to go. All the guys’ partners are going. Don’t you think it will look suspicious if you are the only one who isn’t there?”

“Yes, it probably will.” Alexis doesn’t look up from the cutting board, the herbs sliced so thinly it’s impossible to make them out. “But going on trips isn’t that easy when you’re with me. I can’t just do things on the fly; they need to be planned out with structured breaks for resting on bad days. And even then it’s a fifty-fifty shot of my body giving up and me ruining the whole trip.” Alexis draws a shaky breath and instinctively I hold her tighter, letting her know that I’m here. “With this much on the line…I don’t want to be the reason you’re too distracted to win.”

There’s a camera on us now, I just know it. I run my thumb along the length of her cheekbone, cataloging every freckle. “You should know by now that I will be thinking of you whether you are there or not. The only difference is if you’re with me, I’ll get to dedicate every goal to my gorgeous ray of sunshine, and you get to enjoy seeing me fall on my ass.”

“That does sound enticing,” Alexis teases.

“So you’ll come? Pretty please?” I put on my best impression of sad puppy eyes. “I promise I’ll get you anything you need to be comfortable. I just…I want you there with me.”

Alexis stares at me for a moment, her conflict clear in the way she furrows her brows and does that lip-biting thing she knows drives me wild. But I know the answer the moment her expression softens.

“Okay, I’ll come. You got yourself a date.”

“Thank you, Alexis. This really means a lot to me.” I press a long, gentle kiss on her forehead. She’s coming. And she called it a date!

I’ve kissed her, tasted her, and woken up with her in my arms. But we haven’t talked about any of it. What it means, what we want it to mean. At Miller’s party Alexis told me that she would follow my lead; is that what she’s been doing all this time? Pretending for the cameras? My heart twinges at the thought. If she’s been pretending this whole time…

I might just be crushed beyond repair.

No. She can’t be pretending—at least not fully. Alexis is many things, but she is never cruel.

“Oh, it’s not a favor,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s going to cost you. Not sure what yet, but I’ll think of something.”

I slide my hands down her spine, not stopping until they’re only a hair above her ass, her front pressed flush against mine. “You know I’ll make it worth your while, don’t you, Sunshine?”

She raises a brow in challenge. “You will. Now be a good boy and kiss me—we’re on camera.”