Page 6 of Miami Ice (Miami Sports #2)

“What’s the meaning behind your tattoos?”

Beckham furrows his brow. The server has just walked away after taking our orders for dinner, and it was, oh, about three seconds before I asked my first question.

“Why?”

“You really don’t know how to date, do you?”

His eyes take on a wicked gleam. “I’ve never had to know how. Dates are completely unnecessary.”

I bet they are in your world , I think wryly.

“And this is a business meeting, Cupcake,” he says, his mouth drawing upward in a triumphant smile. “Not a date.”

Now I’m the one frowning, because he’s right. Sofia might have called it a date, but it’s a business meeting.

“Okay, yes, I’ll give you that one b—”

“How gracious of you.”

“You’re going to make this impossible, aren’t you?”

“Are you annoyed?”

“No, why would I be annoyed?”

Beckham leans back in his chair, studying me with an intense gaze. “Forget Christmas Sparkle. You’re Christmas Sunshine, aren’t you?”

“Beckham! Do you realize how many tropes we’re hitting?!” I say as an idea goes through my head. I begin to tick things off on my fingers. “We’re fake dating—of course, nobody will know that. But we’re grumpy/sunshine and the athlete trope. People are going to eat up our romance! And it’s a Christmas romance, too. When I melt your heart—”

“With a pink Christmas tree,” he adds, rolling along with my script.

“Yes!” I say, grinning. “When I melt your heart with a pink Christmas tree and cookies with sprinkles and tours of light displays in Miami, social media is going to be all about our romance.”

The Swiftie playlist in my head switches. “You need to listen to Taylor Swift’s ‘End Game,’” I blurt out, as I often talk in my stream of conscious. “That can be our song.”

“How did we go from a pink Christmas tree to a Taylor Swift song?”

“Would you keep up?” I tease. “We have to have a song.”

“A song? For a month of fake dating?”

“Well, yes, for our Connectivity Story Share videos. We can use that as our music. We should pick a Christmas song, too. I could go with ‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’”

“Jesus Christ,” Beckham groans, rubbing his hands over his face. “What is happening right now?”

I laugh. Loudly. His response is so dramatic, it’s the only thing I can do when I see it.

“I’m going to spend more time on this than freaking playing hockey,” he grumbles.

“No, you are not. Hockey is the whole reason we’re doing this. If it weren’t important to you, there’s no way you’d be sitting here with me.”

He drops his hands from his face. “I wouldn’t?”

Now I’m confused. “No. I’m not exactly your type.”

His dark eyes flick over me, and I can’t help but feel a little shiver race through my body.

Ooh, this man is freaking hot.

Speaking in completely factual terms, of course.

“Fair enough. Most of my hookups don’t wear gift tags around their necks,” Beckham says.

My hands instinctively fly to the pearl-and-bow necklace I have on. “ Gift tag ?” I sputter. “This is not a gift tag! This is a very nice necklace!”

Beckham tilts his head to the side, as if he’s reconsidering. Then he brings his head back straight and grins. “Nah. That looks like a gift tag.”

DOES IT?

Oh my God. If Ella has been letting me walk around with a necklace that looks like a gift tag and didn’t tell me, I’m going to kill her.

“Necklaces that do not look like gift tags aside,” I say, which causes Beckham’s face to light up in an amused smile, “why did you not take hockey seriously in Denver?”

The smile and light disappear from his eyes in an instant, as if I’ve taken a switch and turned everything off.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he says, folding his arms across his chest.

I’ve hit a nerve. I have two choices here. I can either back off and start lobbing some simple getting-to-know-you questions at him, or I can challenge him to be honest.

“You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” I say gently. “But it will help me understand you better and help us do the best possible job of cleaning up your image. If you don’t, I’ll google when I get home. I might not find the true answers I need, but at least it will give me something to work with.”

“The media is full of shit,” he says, his voice taking on a defensive edge.

“Tell me how.”

He blinks.

“I want to hear your side of the story. And I know you think I look like a cupcake liner and am wearing a gift tag around my neck, so you might not take me seriously, but I am being serious, Beckham. You didn’t get traded for showing up late once and normal dude partying. Tell me the real story.”

“How do I know if I can trust you?” he flings back at me.

He’s been burned before.

I know I have no way of truly knowing that—I’ve just met the man, after all—but when I look into those deep brown eyes I see one thing right now.

Hurt.

“You don’t,” I say softly. “But I’m here because I’m desperate to save my business. I would not sabotage this opportunity to spread some gossip. I’ve been honest about who I’ve told about this meeting. Besides, think of what you know about me. I love Pinkmas and holiday cheer. Do I sound like someone who is going to take something you said, make a Connectivity Story Share out of it, and throw it up for the masses? No. Besides, that would totally ruin the algorithm for Georgie’s Jars, and I would never jeopardize that!”

He studies me for a moment, contemplating my words. Then he unfolds his arms and leans forward in his chair. “Fine. I’ll talk. But only if I get to ask you a deep question in return.”

“Of course. Now tell me what happened in Denver.”

“I was an asshole.”

I can’t help but smile at that. “You’re going to need to give me a bit more than that.”

He rakes a hand through his thick brown locks.

His hair is rather hot, too.

Just noting another factual thing about him, of course.

“When I was at college in Vermont,” Beckham begins, picking at the cocktail napkin underneath his glass, “I was always the best on the team. I’m not saying that because I’m a self-absorbed ass—it’s the truth. I could have gone into the minor leagues as soon as I was drafted my sophomore year, but my parents and I had a long talk about the pros and cons of that, and I opted to have a college experience. Get a degree. Which I did. Finance, thank you very much.”

I begin to see Beckham a bit differently as he reveals his story to me. It sounds like he has a good relationship with his parents—or at least values and listens to their opinions. And he didn’t have to earn a degree with the NHL drafting him, so I have to say, I’m impressed by that.

“Anyway, I was all about hockey growing up, from the time I was like three. Hockey, hockey, hockey. If I wasn’t at the rink, I was practicing goal shooting in the basement with a net my dad had set up,” he says, his gaze still cast downward on the napkin he’s pulling at. “I was playing at a club level early on. Jumped up to the varsity team as a freshman. I didn’t do anything but play the game and keep up my grades so I could, well, play hockey.”

I remain silent, letting him tell his story without interruptions.

“So I get to Waleston University—one of the best collegiate hockey programs in the country—and there was all kinds of pressure from the other players on the team to conform. Meaning party hard off the ice.”

“Social pressure,” I say, validating what he’s saying.

“Yeah. Well, I felt like I had to fit in, so I did what they did. I partied. It turns out I was good at it. Well, that and hooking up with girls. I turned out to be pretty good at that, too,” he says.

This time, the smile isn’t flirty. Or knowing, or teasing, like the other ones I’ve seen tonight.

It’s almost … shy? My heart flutters.

Wait. Is that what happened? I had this weird, flutter-like movement inside my chest. I’ve never had that before. How odd. Maybe I’m dehydrated.

I take a sip of my Diet Coke and refocus on what Beckham is saying instead.

“I was able to party with my teammates and fit in. I was able to have sex when I wanted, and my game continued to evolve on the ice,” Beckham continues. “It was like a light bulb went off. I didn’t have to be about hockey all the time. In fact, my arrogance grew, and I thought I could manage it all. And I did. Until I hit the NHL.”

I wait to see if this is where Beckham decides he’s told me enough. Because it’s a lot to confess to a complete stranger, and I get the feeling he never does this. But to my surprise, he keeps talking.

“My arrogance carried over to Denver,” he says, his voice going very quiet. “I was going to live what I thought was the life of a professional hockey player. Basically, do what I did before, without the worry of keeping up grades. Throw in a lot of money—money like I’ve never seen in my life—and yeah, it’s been a disaster. I won’t lie—I had fun. I thought if I performed on the ice, nobody would give a shit if I was five minutes late. Or if I was snapped at a club the night before showing up late.”

“But you were wrong,” I finish for him.

He rubs his hand over his jawline. I notice he does this when he’s frustrated or uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he says. “See, the thing is, Georgie? This is who I’ve been for six years. I don’t know who I am outside of this persona I began to fill out in college. Is this who I was always meant to be? Am I doing this because I don’t know any better? Or am I this because I lost who I am?”

Before I can stop myself, I reach out and place my hand over his, which is resting on the linen-draped table. I hear Beckham suck in a breath of surprise, and I speak quickly in case he decides to shut down on me.

“Do you realize what an opportunity you have now?” I ask quietly. “You have a clean slate to discover who you really are. You can explore and figure out the man you want to be, Beckham. What a gift you have been given.”

He stares at me as if I’ve gone mad. “A gift? You think being traded for being a screwup is a gift? ”

I nod. “First of all, you’re not a screwup. You made mistakes. That’s called being human. But yes, this is a gift. In this case, yes. You went to another professional team, not the lower-level team. What is that called? When you go to the one below? I forget.”

A soft smile lights up his face. “The affiliate.”

“Okay, the affiliate. You weren’t sent down. You landed here, in Miami. You know you pushed limits, and you know what those are. You have a chance to do it right this time. You’re young. You don’t have to know who you are as a man today. Tomorrow. Or even six months from now. You can figure that out. You do know, however, that you have to rededicate yourself to being the player you want to be on the ice. And I believe you can do it.”

“Why?” Beckham asks, his hand still underneath mine. “Why do you think that, Georgie?”

“You care. You wouldn’t be sitting here if you didn’t. You would have blown off Sofia’s idea. You wouldn’t have gone to her for help. And you wouldn’t be sitting across the table from some strange girl prying into your private life with no endgame for it.”

He stares at me, a crease forming in his brow.

“Who knows, maybe this month you’ll start figuring out who Beckham Bailey is meant to be, too,” I add, smiling encouragingly at him. “Like if you’re a white light or a multicolored light person. Do you know what you are on that front?”

“What?” he asks, chuckling. “What are you talking about?”

I grin. I like that I made him chuckle.

“What lights appeal to you for a Christmas tree. People fall into one of two camps: white lights or multicolored lights. What are you?”

“Georgie, who are you?”

“I can see you haven’t given this serious contemplation. I’ll add it to the list of things we can work on this month.”

I begin to remove my hand, but to my surprise, Beckham holds it in place, then puts his large hand on top of mine, squeezing it.

My heart does that weird, stupid flutter thing again.

“Thank you for not judging me,” Beckham says. “Believe me, nobody has judged me harder than I have myself. It was … nice to just talk without that.”

Then he releases my hand, and I draw it back, placing it in my lap. “You’re welcome,” I say.

At that moment, the door to the room opens and a different server walks in with my consommé and Beckham’s shrimp cocktail.

Just as I pick up my soup spoon, Beckham speaks. “Multicolor,” he says simply.

I don’t move.

“I can tell that question is important to you, so I wanted to give you an answer,” he explains, picking up one of the biggest shrimp I have ever seen and dipping it into cocktail sauce. “What are you?”

I put my spoon down. “You really want to know?”

His gaze meets mine, and something inside of me shifts. Like I feel … different. I don’t know how else to explain it.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I like multicolor, too,” I say.

Our gazes remain locked.

“Ah, so we pair up with the lights,” he says, taking a bite of his shrimp.

I swallow nervously.

Yes, we do, I think.

The playlist in my head abruptly stops playing “End Game” and begins playing “I Knew You Were Trouble” instead.

Because I have a feeling that’s exactly where I’m headed if this conversation continues the way it is right now.

And I feel as if I’m powerless to stop it.