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CHAPTER ELEVEN

MIA

W aking up to Jessie Callaghan asleep on my bedroom floor was not how I imagined my Sunday morning playing out.

The heating in this place is crap at best. In the end, I managed to dig out my robe for him to use as a makeshift blanket.

When Tara had gotten home, I hadn’t known what to say. It was like our conversation and the questions I asked him had faded into the background, and like a switch flicked in his head, he closed off, and I didn’t dare push further for fear of him shutting down completely.

I know he’s there, on my floor. I can hear the soft sound of his exhales in the silent room. Part of me wants to climb down from my bed and join him. Part of me wants to snuggle under the robe with him.

I consider what he would do if I did. Would he snuggle back or race out of the room?

“Mia?” he whispers. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

I lean down to see him, and his eyes have regained their sharpness.

“What time is it?” he asks on a yawn.

I reach across for my phone and light up the screen.

Christ. “It’s only six a.m. Do you have practice this morning?”

He shakes his head, staring up at my ceiling. “Nope. Day off today.” When he turns to face me, a sweet smile pulls at his lips. “Cheat day.”

I know what cheat day is; the players talked about it all the time when I was working for my dad. Twenty-four hours where they could ignore their nutritional schedule and indulge. “Pancakes?”

He tucks his clasped hands under his head on the one pillow I could find, turning to face me. Even though we’re lying separately, my body heats like we’re right next to each other, and I can’t help it as I fantasize about what it would be like to spend a night with Jessie Callaghan.

I wonder how many women have had that pleasure.

“Pancakes sound perfect,” he coos.

We lie, staring at each other, perhaps for a beat too long.

Is he thinking about lying next to me?

I break from my own thoughts as I sit up, and Jessie does the same, the tension between us mirrored.

“How was your sleep?” I ask casually.

“Actually, not too bad.” He runs a hand through his messy hair.

And that’s when I see them.

From this angle, I can see down the neck of his T-shirt, and the black tattoos covering his chest are unmissable. I wonder how I never noticed them before. How long has he had them?

“I-I didn’t know you had tattoos. They’re beautiful.”

His discomfort at my statement is obvious as he stands and walks across to grab his button-down dress shirt, no doubt to cover himself properly.

I never expected my observation to cause such a visceral reaction, but it’s clear his tattoos are significant, and I want to know more.

I have zero idea what we are to each other, but he’s the one who came to me last night, and that has to count for something.

“Yeah, had them done a while back.” He shrugs on his shirt and begins hastily buttoning, working his way from the top down.

“What do they mean, Jessie?” I ask, my knees automatically coming up under my chin as I continue to watch him dress.

“You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“And you sure know how to avoid giving answers,” I counter, grabbing a tie from my nightstand and throwing my hair into a messy bun. “I thought it was an innocent thing to ask.”

Once finished buttoning, he drops his hands to his sides and makes his way over to me, where I’m sitting up in bed.

His eyes drift down my top half until he stops on the print of Darth Vader on the front of my shirt, and he flattens his lips together, clearly trying to hold back laughter.

“Don’t deflect with Darth,” I scold.

He slept in his pants, which are now wrinkled, but somehow still hug his thick hockey thighs perfectly. Grabbing his socks from the side of my bed, he sits next to me and begins pulling them on.

I don’t speak. I want him to be the next one to say something. To offer me something about his past that I know is connected to the artwork that covers his chest. But I know this isn’t going to be easy since he’s now sober and fighting me with everything he has.

“You know when someone tells you not to push the red button?” he asks, still focused on his socks.

I pinch my eyebrows together in confusion, even though he isn’t looking at me.

He must take my silence as acknowledgment since he continues, “Well, this is me telling you not to push it. Don’t try to deep-dive into something you know nothing about, because believe me, there’s nothing good for you there.”

“What do you mean?”

When he turns to face me, his expression is a warning. Not in a bad or angry way, but a concerned warning for me to stay away. “Why do you think I never invited you to my parents’ place when we were seeing each other back in Dallas, Mia?”

“Because we were a secret?” I reply quickly.

He edges closer to me, and I lean toward him until we’re only inches apart.

“Yeah, we were. But I told you, judgment from your dad was an issue, but not the real one.”

“Your parents. It has to do with them, doesn’t it? Are they bad to you?”

He reaches out and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear, his sharp eyes searching mine while his hand pauses on my cheek. His touch causes me to hold my breath.

“It has to do with my entire life, Sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

I remember the last time I heard that name leave his lips. It was right before my dad stormed into my room and kicked Jessie out on his heels.

“Nobody’s life is perfect,” I whisper. “Look at mine. My mom was killed by a drunk driver, and my overbearing dad tries to run my life for me.”

“I know.” He blows out a breath. “And trust me, that’s why you don’t need me around you. You’ve been through more than the average twenty-two-year-old, and I’m not about to invite you into my nightmare.”

His hand hasn’t moved from the side of my face, and I reach up, placing my palm over his. He dwarfs me in size.

“You can’t hide away forever, Jessie. Human beings aren’t meant to be solitary.”

“No, you’re right; they’re not. But nothing about my past or present is humane.” He shifts closer, his breath tickling my lips. “I’m still working on my future.”

“Let me help you. Let me be your friend,” I plead quietly. “Don’t shut me out, Jessie.”

He wets his lips and then casts his eyes to my mouth. “You want to be my friend?”

“Always. Why do you think I came to Whistler that day? I care about you.”

When he squeezes his eyes shut, I know he’s fighting something.

“You smell insanely good.”

“I do?”

He nods his head. “Just like I remember.”

I pluck at my shirt and inhale the strawberry fabric softener. “I started using a new brand.”

“No. You, your smell. The way it makes me feel so many things. I can’t describe it, but it’s just … you.”

“What emotions, Jessie?”

His tongue peeks out and runs across his bottom lip. “Safe. But also out of control, and that scares the shit out of me because I know how easy it would be for me to take what I want and say to hell with the consequences.”

My heart thunders in my chest.

So much of me wants to kiss him, but the teenage Mia screams from the back of my mind to stop. Too many sleepless nights and unanswered texts should have been proof enough that Jessie is no good for me, for my heart.

But I so want him to kiss me. To take us back to the time we once shared.

My uncertainty must have found its way to my expression as he drops his hand from my face and pulls back slightly.

“We should head out for those pancakes before your roommate wakes up.”

He goes to stand from the bed, but I grab his hand at the final second.

“When you said working on your future , do you mean you’re trying to get better?”

I’m not an idiot. I know his drinking is more of a self-medication for the pain he must be feeling. He pretty much admitted that last night.

He closes his eyes. “Yeah, I’m working on it. Just a lot going on in my head, Mia.”

I nod. I know he isn’t bullshitting me. Jessie might’ve withheld a lot of details from me, but this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten. Still, I feel like if we hadn’t been interrupted last night, he might’ve told me more about his past.

“I’m not the fragile flower you think I am, you know? You can talk to me about even your darkest parts.”

I want to tell him after my mom died, I went through a cycle of depression, and I want to tell him when he left, I went right back there.

But that’s not what he needs to hear. Jessie needs to hear that he’s a good person—because he is. He rains enough judgment down on himself.

“I know, Mia, and I’m not treating you like one. But sometimes, you have to put your trust in someone one hundred percent, and right now, I’m asking you to do that with me. It’s my duty to protect you from your dad’s wrath, but mainly from me.”