Page 18 of Miami Ice (Miami Sports #2)

I read his last reply over and over. Which doesn’t take long because, you know, it’s one word.

MINE.

But damn it, Beckham doesn’t text anything else, so I don’t know if he’s teasing and about to say “Ha-ha, kidding!” or if this is part of his script or a BookTok thing, as Ella would say.

Or does he mean it? Would he go feral if he saw me wearing another player’s jersey?

FERAL?

My God, I’ve been listening to Ella way too much if that has become a thought for me.

Okay. I can be brave and roll the dice on flirting. If he acts weird, I can claim I was practicing for our hard launch or something.

I text him back:

Well, that’s rather hard to accomplish, being that I don’t have anything with your name on it. I am getting my bedazzled tube top from Megan before the game, but it’s still not a jersey. A Darby jersey could fill that void in my closet. Perhaps that can be part of my Black Friday shopping plan.

I hold my breath as I wait for him to reply. Then it finally comes through:

You’re getting my jersey, Cupcake. I can’t have you wearing anything but my name.

I want to be excited by this response, but I can’t. Because it can go either way.

I’m about to text him back when I see he’s typing again. Then another response pops up:

Georgie, would you legit wear my jersey if I got you one?

I exhale in surprise. I know you can’t read tone from a text, but why do I feel as if I can?

I quickly text him back before I chicken out from telling him the truth:

I’d be honored to, Beckham.

Beckham Bailey is typing …

I’ll make that happen. Warning, the jersey has a manatee on it and not maniacal nutcrackers.

I can’t contain the smile that is spreading across my face. I’m about to text him back when another text comes in:

I would kill for a piece of pizza right now.

I grin at the abrupt change in subject and text him back:

You can make that happen, you know. I know of a great NY-style pizza place that’s open late. They even serve the pizza on PAPER PLATES, and if you don’t think that is amazing, I have to question your pizza code of ethics.

Beckham Bailey is typing …

Pizza has a code of ethics? How does that work?

Crap. That sounded witty when I wrote it, and now I don’t know if I can explain it. I’m thinking on it when another text from Beckham comes through:

Would you be up for a late-night snack, Cupcake?

Ooh!

I can pick you up sometime after midnight if you care to show me where this magical pizza place is and explain to me the pizza code of ethics.

I try to ignore how my heart is dancing inside my chest as I reply:

Pizza sounds good. I’ll be ready.

Beckham Bailey is typing …

Great. I’ll text you when I land. Be prepared to not only explain a pizza code of ethics, but to back up your qualifications for a good pizza. Also, we need to dive deeper on this. Like do you eat the crust?

I grin and message him back:

Why would I waste a perfectly good crust by not eating it?

Beckham Bailey is typing …

Glad to see you take the crust like a GOOD GIRL, Cupcake.

Oh my God. I dissolve into hysterical laughter.

And I have a feeling, in an arena in Orlando, Beckham might be laughing, too.

* * *

“All right. I’ve been dying to know. What is the pizza code of ethics?” Beckham asks as soon as he slides behind the wheel of his Bronco.

I had hours to come up with this code of ethics since he asked me to grab a slice with him, and I think I’ve done an acceptable job of compiling a witty answer.

Which I totally had memorized until I opened the door to find Beckham standing before me in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a backward Miami Manatees baseball hat.

Oh, and the drawstrings? FREAKING UNTIED.

Apparently when the Manatees are coming home from a road trip, they don’t have to wear their suits on the flight home. And I have to say, casual Becks is just as hot as suit Becks.

“Georgie?”

I blink. “Oh yes, my pizza code of ethics,” I say, willing myself to focus on that rather than the scent of his cologne. I easily detect that familiar citrus and spice scent lingering on his skin, and God help me, that sensual scent alone is enough to make me forget how to speak, let alone recite my carefully constructed pizza code of ethics.

“Yes. I’ve been dying to know what that even means,” Becks says, grinning as he starts his SUV. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Miami Beach. I’ll pull up the address for you, hold please.”

I get the address in Google and give it to Beckham, who puts it into his navigation system. As he eases into traffic, I go back to his question.

“You see, I think there should be a code of ethics for pizza. Principles that will provide a pizza with integrity.”

“But is that really a principle? And how does a pizza have integrity? That would mean the pizza has morals. What’s a pizza moral?”

He’s being so genuine and I’m being so ridiculous, all I can do is laugh.

“What?” he asks, a playful smile curving up at the corners of his mouth.

“I said the pizza-ethics thing when I was texting because it sounded cool, but now I see it makes absolutely no freaking sense.”

Beckham grins, and my pulse quickens in response.

“I think what you want to tell me are your touchstones of a good pizza experience,” he says as he turns left onto another street.

“How did you come up with that?” I ask, impressed.

He shoots me a grumpy look. “Believe me, I’ve heard a lot of word salad like that in team meetings. Words like ‘touchstone,’ and ‘pillars,’ blah blah blah.”

“Yes, but unlike me, you used it in proper context,” I say.

“I try to implement my college education on occasion,” he teases.

“Well. We can still use a pizza code of ethics,” I say, not ready to give this up just yet. “We say maniacal nutcrackers, and that’s not a thing that can exist either.”

“Oh no, Cupcake, you absolutely have maniacal nutcrackers on that pink sweater.”

“Ooh, speaking of nutcrackers, I was scrolling on Connectivity Story Share while I was waiting for you, and have you heard of Home Joy? The home-decorating store?”

“Let me think on this for a moment. No .”

“I’m ignoring you. It’s a shop that has home-decorating deals, and someone on Connectivity Story Share did a video showing that they had five-foot-tall pink nutcrackers! I’m going to get one tomorrow.”

“ Why? ”

“Why? It’s a nutcracker. It will be perfect in my living room, that’s why.”

“That’s not perfect. That’s creepy.”

“It is not creepy. You’re being a grump.”

“Wait, how did we segue from a pizza code of ethics to shopping for creepy, life-sized maniacal nutcrackers?”

“That’s how our conversations go, Beckham. They start off in a line but quickly become all squiggled.”

Beckham is quiet for a moment.

“I like our squiggle conversations,” he says softly.

My heart slams into my ribs. He keeps saying these little things that make me think he might truly be interested.

“I do, too,” I say.

He shoots me a side-eye. “I bet you have squiggle conversations with all the guys, Cupcake.”

“No, I don’t.”

A silence falls between us, and my pulse ratchets up another notch.

He clears his throat. “I’m going to give you your incorrectly named pizza code of ethics. Go forth and tell me the principles of it, which are really touchstones or pillars, but I’ll ignore that fact. Go.”

Beckham takes another turn, and I don’t even try to fight the excited, eager feeling that’s sweeping through me from head to toe.

“It has to be New York-style because that is the best crust ever.”

“Go on.”

“It needs to be served on a white paper plate, and it has to overlap the edges. A pizza slice as big as your head is perfect.”

“Interesting. Have you personally measured that touchstone?”

“No. Moving on. The pizza has to be crisp but foldable.”

“Wait. Don’t tell me you fold your pizza when eating it.”

“Of course I do. Don’t you?”

“No. That’s wrong.”

“Beckham, it’s the right way to eat the pizza.”

“Wrong.”

“It’s not wrong.”

“It is. But go on with your crazy way of eating a slice.”

“The cheese has to have nice pull on it,” I continue. “You have to agree with the cheese pull.”

“Pizza with no cheese pull is crap. What else?”

“Minimal flop on the crust.”

“I’ve never thought about the flop ratio.”

I begin to laugh. “Beckham, this has to be the weirdest conversation you’ve ever had.”

“Obviously.”

Now we both crack up.

“But Georgie? I like these conversations. I don’t talk to anyone else the way I talk to you.”

I decide to be bold with my next question. “What did you talk about with girls you hung out with?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait, you had to talk about something,” I insist.

“No, Georgie, we didn’t. Remember, I hooked up with women. I didn’t date them. I would say what I knew girls liked to hear—and yes, I fully own that makes me an ass, but I did. I didn’t want to know about them. I didn’t care if they folded their pizza, let alone what they wanted for the future. But in a lot of ways, it was a mutual exchange. A lot of women I previously went out with wanted to go out with a hockey player. I was interchangeable with any other guy on the team. Or some of them were convinced they knew me from social media. How can anyone KNOW someone from looking at their Connectivity Story Share? They wanted Becks Bailey, the guy they watched in fan-compiled videos. If you take a deep dive on Connectivity or TikTok, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Women comment how I look happy in photos or frustrated, and I’m like, how do would you even know? You’re dissecting a video. ”

I take a moment to digest this. Beckham is opening up again.

“What makes me different?” I ask softly.

Beckham is quiet as he nears the pizza restaurant.

“Well, I knew you were brought in to date me, and my sister had to convince you, so you weren’t coming in with an agenda. That was different. Then it’s who you are.”

He loops around the block, his eyes peeled for a parking space.

But my eyes have never left his profile, and my heart is banging against my ribs as I take in his words.

“You’re different because you care. Not about Becks Bailey, the hockey player who needs to clean up his act. You didn’t care at all that I played hockey for a living. You found different parts of me that you liked. The me that exists off the ice. You asked about things nobody else ever cared to know. And I didn’t know any of it mattered until I met you.”

Beckham spots a group of people walking to a car and pulls up and puts on his blinker as we wait for them to get in and leave.

But all I can think about is his last sentence. And I didn’t know any of it mattered until I met you.

Beckham is shifting things between us. I can feel it.

“You make me feel seen in a way that is brand new,” I say softly.

Now his eyes land firmly on my face.

“You were so encouraging about my art, which isn’t something I’ve ever received from my parents. You accept that I’m quirky. You listen to what I say. You think I’m funny and smart, and I have fun when I’m with you. Thank you for making me feel this way. Because I never knew I could.”

Suddenly the sound of a horn blaring behind us jolts us out of our conversation. The car Beckham had been waiting for has left, and we were so wrapped up in our conversation, we didn’t notice.

He clears his throat and shifts his attention to driving. He eases into the parking spot on the street. I feel dizzy from where our conversation was headed. My heart hasn’t stopped hammering inside my chest, and my stomach has tipped upside down with excitement.

He turns off the engine but doesn’t move.

Neither do I. I swear I can hear my heart beating now.

“Georgie?”

I look at him.

Beckham’s dark brown eyes laser in on mine. “Do you believe in our hard launch on Thanksgiving?”

I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”

“I think I’d rather soft launch. With you. Tonight.”