Page 33

KIND OF

Tyler

I’m nursing my coffee from the un-St.-Bernard-like mug, making small talk with Sabrina about the upcoming schedule as I head out of town for a road trip.

She seems…a little off though. Sure, she’s moving around the kitchen like normal—slathering avocado on a bagel, sprinkling sea salt and pumpkin seeds, checking her canvas bag, the one she carries every day with the words Skate Like No One’s Watching, For Fox Sake on it. But she won’t meet my eyes.

When I mention Luna’s upcoming field trip for a beach cleanup as part of the school’s efforts to raise awareness about climate change and rising ocean levels—a topic Sabrina normally loves to chat about—she looks down and says, “That’s great that the school is doing that.”

She takes a bite of her bagel, studying it like it’s something entirely new to her. And sure, I fucking love a good avocado bagel. But the way she’s eating it—like she’s fixated on it—makes me think something is wrong.

Given what’s gone down with us in the last week or so—nothing—I’m not entirely sure if it’s my place to ask how she’s doing. But I care about her. So I’ll do it anyway.

I lower my mug and clear my throat, maybe forcing her to look up. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” She repeats the question like it’s in a language she doesn’t understand.

“You seem a little off, Sabrina. Is it something with your parents?” I ask gently. Her dad is a world-class prick. Maybe he said something shitty to her yesterday on the phone? Who knows?

“No, not at all,” she says, dismissing that quickly, then taking another bite, like she wants to shut herself up.

Hmm. Maybe she had a rough day at the rink. “Was everything okay with your lessons?”

She nods as she chews, her head bobbing up and down like a puppet’s, then swallows and says, “Yes! I’m great! Everything is great!”

And that feels like a few too many greats.

“Are you sure? You seem a little…not quite yourself,” I say. I don’t want to say distracted —it’s kind of rude—but hopefully, she’ll get the point.

“Oh, so much going on, so much to do. I have videos to make,” she says, and then her eyes slide wide open as she tries to walk it back. “I mean, I don’t have more videos to make. I’m not making videos. Well, yes, I am making videos, like the ones you li?—”

She cuts herself off, rolling her lips together before she finishes the word like . Her face goes pink, the color spreading across her cheeks and down her neck.

And suddenly, I wonder about the videos I like .

“Yeah, I like your videos,” I say stupidly, my voice thick, my tongue barely working.

Then…oh, shit.

I’ve never liked one before. Not on social media. But I must have last night. While I was clutching my phone with one hand and jerking my dick with the other.

Pieces of my bedroom indulgence snap back into place, rearranging into a different story.

The moment I thought I heard something late last night. When I hit pause on her skating video, pulled out an earbud, and listened to the silence before shaking it off and continuing—was she really there in the hallway?

The possibility slams into me like a hit into the boards. My chest burns, heat flooding through me. The kitchen shrinks around me, the air too thick, too charged. My pulse hammers out of control. I grip the counter to steady myself.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” she says, but her voice is still too high, her eyes darting away from mine.

The pieces assemble the rest of the way in my head. The sound I’d thought I heard last night—it was the sound of the dryer opening.

She was in the hall. Last night.

And she knows what I did.

I wonder how long she stayed outside my room. Did she stand by my barely opened door for a few seconds? A minute? Was she tempted to come in?

Heat blasts through me.

I wish she had. I wish she’d pushed open the door, leveled me with her sexy gaze, fiddling with the hem of her sleep shirt, and asked—in that Sabrina ramble—for a do-over.

“It should happen again,” she’d have murmured, like she’d already decided.

“It really should,” I’d have said, voice rough, sheets low on my waist, the lights dim in my room, the heat shimmering between us in the dark. “Right the fuck now.”

My throat tightens with lust. My mind pictures her closing the distance between us—climbing into my bed, unstoppable, impossibly sexy. I’d toss the covers off, invite her to join me. Watch me. Climb onto my lap. Sink onto my cock.

A rumble rises in my chest, threatening to break free, but I swallow it down along with all this red-hot, fucking stupid desire.

Because then what?

We’ve been down this road before. Traveled far down it last week. I’m hardly able to resist her as it is, but she’s working for me all season.

I have to exercise some restraint.

My kids adore her.

Hockey is going well.

I need to keep my focus—on the game, my family, the season.

That’s all.

This is not the time to play this kind of dangerous sex roulette.

“Did you like the NutRageous bar?” I ask, changing the subject with zero warning.

As she finishes a bite of her avocado bagel, she rolls with it. “It was amazing. Have you ever tried one? I saved a little bit for you. Even though it’s not your guilty pleasure,” she adds, looking down now again.

She says it like she’s not my guilty pleasure. Like I’ve rejected her.

Because you did, you dumbass.

She busies herself with tracking down the candy bar she saved in a Tupperware container, then hands it to me, and I say, “I bet I’ll like it. ”

Like that can erase the rejection from the other day.

“I bet you can’t resist it,” she says, but it’s not said flirtatiously, like she might have said it before. It’s said matter-of-factly.

I really need to get back to the way we were. Maybe this candy will help. Hell if I know. I take a bite.

And I can see why she loves it, even if candy’s not my thing. The flavors collide in a sweet explosion. “Damn, this is good,” I say, focusing on facts.

“Where did you find it?”

“I went online and ordered it for rush delivery yesterday morning. I wanted you to have your favorite candy bar—the one you never had as a kid.”

Her smile is soft, a little wistful. “You kind of surprised me.”

And I don’t think she’s had a lot of that. Surprises. Kindness. Gifts.

She had a shitty boyfriend for six years who cheated on her and betrayed her on their wedding day.

And before that, she was raised by a mean fucking man.

“Only kind of?” I ask, playing it light, finding my footing again.

“It was only kind of because…I’ve kind of gotten used to nice things from you.”

The breath flees my lungs as the weight of that hits me. The precious, precarious weight of responsibility.

There it is—the reason.

The reason I can’t close the distance, grab her face, and kiss her like she’s all I think about.

I don’t want to mess up anything in Sabrina’s life.

I want to be a good man.

The one she hasn’t had before.

And good men?

They don’t fuck their nannies.