Page 32 of On Thin Ice (Calgary Mounties #1)
Chapter Thirty
ARE YOU A PUCK BUNNY?
Adele
My first day back at work after our little getaway is a struggle.
Spending every waking moment with Lincoln has just made it harder to remember that this is all meant to be fake.
There was absolutely nothing fake about the countless orgasms he’s pulled from me, and I’m pretty sure my body is now going through withdrawals from him.
He’d dropped me at my apartment late last night but hadn’t stayed the night.
Which, while completely expected, felt weird, and I’d woken several times with my hand stretched out to where he should have been lying beside me.
As much as I’m a hockey fan, I’m currently cursing the team for having a game that meant he had to get up early this morning.
“How was New York?” Kylie asks when she comes into the office to collect the tour pack for her day trip.
We’ve both got local groups today, which is a nice change after several longer trips. Unfortunately, the game will already have started before we finish, so neither of us will be able to go along to cheer the boys on.
“Great,” I reply, flushing slightly while I think of all the things we did in that suite.
I don’t think there was a single surface we didn’t get down and dirty on, and I can feel myself getting hot and bothered just thinking about it.
Kylie smirks, holding the door open for me to follow her outside. “I see you guys have progressed to fucking like rabbits, then?”
“Kylie!” I gasp, never quite prepared for her blunt delivery.
“You just turned a very bright shade of red at the mere mention of the weekend. You one hundred percent spent the weekend getting fucked to death by a certain blond hockey player.”
If I wasn’t red before, I definitely am now, and she just laughs, shaking her head.
Clearing my throat, I straighten my back, attempting to bring the conversation to less confusing talk. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that we’d crossed a line over the weekend, and now real feelings are involved.
“We did some sight-seeing, and we went to a game while we were there. Was fun to watch one with him next to me rather than him being on the ice.”
The memory of Lincoln’s enthusiastic commentary while we watched New York destroy Washington makes me smile, and Kylie cocks her head to the side, studying me closely.
“So, you guys are dating for real now?” I shake my head, and she sighs. “Addie, you guys went on a holiday together. Fuck buddies don’t do that.”
I shrug. “Well, these ones do. He was just taking me away to thank me for agreeing to this whole fake dating thing. I’m sure once the video is finally no longer a problem, things will go right back to how they used to be between us, and we’ll be bickering like old ladies while we sit on your couch. ”
I try not to think too hard about how shitty that image makes me feel.
I refuse to admit to myself how much I don’t want things to go back to how they were with Lincoln.
It had been hard enough pretending Tahiti hadn’t happened.
Now that I’ve spent four days getting thoroughly banged by him, I’m not sure I’m capable of going back to that life.
And I don’t think he wants to, either. The lines have become so blurred that I have to keep reminding myself of the agreement not to fall in love with each other.
“I think you guys are playing with fire, but whatever. You’re both grown-ups.”
That’s one of the great things about Kylie. She’ll tell you straight up how she feels and give advice, but if you don’t take it on board, she just steps back and lets you work it out on your own.
“We’ll be fine. But I appreciate your concern.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out, sighing when I see Ben’s name.
Ben
Hey. Drinks at Buck’s tonight?
In all the excitement of the weekend, I’d completely forgotten I’d agreed to meet him while he’s in town this week.
Deciding to just get it over with, I shoot off a reply, agreeing to meet him later, before pocketing my phone again while I tell Kylie about it.
“Are you going to tell Lincoln you’re seeing Ben?”
I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t see why I should. It’s not like he and I are dating, and it’s just a drink with the ex that I’m definitely over.”
She shrugs. “Okay. But if it was me, I’d tell him. They are friends, so in the very least, it would be a good idea to give him the heads up in case Ben says something to him.”
What she says makes sense, but I can’t shake the feeling that it would give Lincoln the impression that I think there’s more between us than what we agreed .
In typical Kylie fashion, she reads my facial expression and shakes her head. “Lincoln isn’t going to think you’ve fallen in love with him just because you tell him you’re seeing Ben. Even though you definitely have fallen in love with him,” she can’t resist adding, flashing me a cheeky grin.
I roll my eyes. “I’m not in love with him.” I glance down at my watch before looking back down the road, praying for Simon to hurry up and collect me, saving me from this conversation.
“You say that, but we both know you’ve got the flutters going on, lady.
And who can blame you? Lincoln is awesome.
If he’s ever going to finally settle down with someone, why wouldn’t it be you?
In the four years I’ve known him, I’ve only ever seen him look at one person with hearts in his eyes, and that’s you. ”
Thankfully, the bus finally appears, rumbling along the street and pulling up in front of us. Kylie’s driver, Shane, pulls up behind Simon, and I say a quick goodbye to Kylie before climbing on board.
After a brief chat with Simon, I sit back down in the front seat and pull my phone out of my pocket again, staring down at it while Kylie’s words run through my head.
Deciding to think about it more before I just shoot off a text that could potentially cause me more problems than it’s worth, I put the phone away for a final time and force myself to focus on the day ahead.
I’ve got a group of senior citizens from a retirement home today and am taking them to a few places around town for their monthly outing. We’ve partnered with the home for years and I know a lot of them well, so it’s usually a fun day joking around with them.
“What’s this I see about you and that spunky Lincoln O’Malley from the Mounties?” Dorothy asks as soon as she’s settled in the seat across from me after lunch.
“Eh? Are you a puck bunny, miss Adele?” Her special friend, Robert, raises an eyebrow beside her.
“No Robert, I’m not a puck bunny. But yes, I am dating Lincoln O’Malley. How did you know that, Dorothy?”
She tsks. “I’ve seen it online. I know how to use social media, you know, missy.” She wags a finger at me while I grin.
“My apologies. I didn’t realize things were being said about us on social media.”
“Well, I follow the page for his dog and see all the videos with the two of you being all cute.”
I’d queued up a month’s worth of content a few weeks ago and then haven’t looked at the account since, leaving it with Sarah to manage from there until it was time to post more.
I hadn’t thought about how often we appeared in the videos together, but I guess this is also how Ben has seen us together.
Probably should have edited them better to be just Milo.
Or Milo and Lincoln. But they’d all been so cute that I hadn’t bothered. Rookie error on my behalf.
“Well, Milo is the real star of those videos,” I tell Dorothy, before moving on down the aisle to chat to a few of the others and hoping that’s the last I have to talk about my fake boyfriend for the rest of the day.
The group knows Kylie as well, so it’s not like seeing one of us with a Mounties player is a novelty, but I’d still rather not lie to them all if I don’t have to.
It’s starting to weigh on me how many people we’ve let believe we’re together. But we’re in this so deep now that all I can do is divert conversations and hope people just think I’m trying to keep my relationship private.