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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Dozer

On the drive back, I’m not content to just sit in the right lane behind whoever’s crawling along on the freeway. Not when Marissa’s sitting next to me, her hand on my thigh, her taste lingering on my tongue, and the knowledge that I’ll get more of that once we make it to my place.

I’m not sure where the night’s going to lead. I know where I hope it might end up, but I’m not going to expect anything. Not when what we have is so new and fragile. In some ways, it doesn’t matter that we’ve been acting like a couple for weeks. This is a new step. And it feels scary and thrilling and unbelievable all at the same time.

The silence stretches between us, and I want to break it, but I don’t know what to say.

“I’ve missed you,” she murmurs quietly after a moment, giving my leg a squeeze before withdrawing her hand.

“I’ve missed you too.” I glance her way before peeling one hand off the steering wheel so I can reach over and caress her leg. I might have to pull it back at some point, but I’m not ready to lose contact so soon. Not when I’ve just barely been given permission to touch her.

Her hand settles on top of mine, layering her fingers between mine, her palm warm and soft against the back of my hand. When I glance at her again, she gives me a soft smile that tells me she’s content.

“How has your week been?” I ask after a few more minutes, needing something.

She sucks in a deep breath. “Okay. Busy. There are always a million things to do at work, of course, so I’ve been spending more time in the office than normal. And when I haven’t been there, I’ve been working on my car.”

“You got the parts in that you ordered?”

“Yes. And I got everything installed. The engine’s basically put back together. I just need to finish with the interior, and she’ll be done.”

“Are you planning on selling this one too?”

She shrugs. “Probably? I’ll need the space for my next car, after all.”

“You haven’t thought about keeping one to drive?”

She grins. “Maybe someday. This one was fun, but if I were going to keep one, it’d be a sixty-seven Mustang Shelby. That’s the car I’ve always dreamed of rebuilding.”

“Why haven’t you done one yet?”

She shifts a little, and I give her leg a squeeze, hoping to communicate that I’m asking out of genuine curiosity and not judgment. “It’s complicated, but there are a few big reasons. One, I haven’t found a body for sale that I can rebuild. At least not when I’ve been looking for one. And two, I always felt like I needed to get good enough to deserve to work on one of those, y’know?”

I arch an eyebrow and glance her way. “Uh … kinda? I mean, I get what you’re saying, I guess I just don’t quite understand why you’d think you aren’t there yet. You’ve rebuilt how many cars so far? Basically from scratch. Plus all the cars you helped out on when you worked at your dad’s shop. I mean, you helped rebuild your first car. So you’ve been doing that for … what? Fifteen years?”

She dips her head. “Something like that.”

“And that’s not even counting all the years you spent helping him as a kid before that.”

“Eh … I’m not sure how much that counts.”

I cut a look in her direction. “Please. You’ve basically had a lifetime apprenticeship. Once you finish this car, you should start looking for your dream car. Give it all the bells and whistles you want. You deserve it.”

She’s quiet for long enough that I look her way again. “Okay,” she says at length, her voice so quiet I almost can’t hear her. “I will.” She looks out the window, but it feels different than before when she was looking away to avoid me. This feels more like I’ve given her something to think about and she needs time to process.

It’s strange to me that someone as confident and amazing as Marissa wouldn’t see herself as the badass ball-buster that she so clearly is.

But I know there’s more to the story. She mentioned not being able to handle more rejection and feeling like she’s never measured up, and the pain in those words makes my heart twist, and I squeeze her leg again, needing to try to communicate some amount of reassurance, no matter how much it doesn’t really matter what I think.

I mean, it does matter. But my approval won’t change whatever happened in her past to make her feel like she can never be enough.

After a moment, she sucks in a breath and turns back to me, her smile looking a little forced. “What about you? How was your week? I’ve been so busy, I haven’t kept up very well. I saw you won at least once while you were away, but I didn’t catch more than that.”

When I give her a suspicious glance out of the corner of my eye, she squeezes my hand and rubs my arm, communicating without words that she’s fine and really wants to change the subject now. Which is fine. We can talk about me for a bit. We’ll circle back to her eventually.

“We did. We lost one, won two, and you saw our game tonight.”

She rubs my arm some more. “It seemed like you guys were struggling out there.’

I blow out a frustrated breath. “Yeah. More than we should’ve been. They were playing better than normal, I think, but even so. We were pretty off tonight.”

“What’s that like?” she asks, turning a knitted brow in my direction. “I mean, I played sports growing up, but just softball, and I stopped in high school, so it was never at a very high level. What happens when you’re having an off night? What goes on behind the scenes?”

Glancing at her, I raise my eyebrows. “Are you asking if the coach screams at us in the locker room?”

She giggles, and the sound makes me feel like my chest is full of champagne, bubbly and light. “Something like that. I dunno. You see movies where they’re down and the coach gives a rousing pep talk and the team miraculously pulls out a win. Is that what happened tonight?”

Chuckling, I shake my head. “Not even close. And in movies, those are always at super important games, like the championship or whatever. Not a regular season game.”

“True, I guess. But it’s the regular season games that get you to the championship. Aren’t all the games important?”

“Now you’re sounding like Coach!” She laughs. “It’s true, though. His favorite thing to hammer on is that all the games, game one to the Stanley Cup, are all important. If we don’t have enough wins, we won’t even get a shot at the Stanley Cup. And obviously if we don’t win there …”

“You don’t win,” she finishes.

Laughing, I nod. “Exactly.”

“Okay. So tonight. You guys were struggling, but you managed to pull it out in the last period. Your coach didn’t give you a rousing speech to get your heads in the game and make you realize you need to start playing like a team?” She pumps her free arm like she’s giving her own pep talk.

“Nah. He actually didn’t say anything. Sometimes his silence—and the disappointment it communicates—is as effective as words. And Nick told us all to get our heads out of our asses and play like this isn’t the first time we’ve ever laced up our skates and touched a hockey stick.”

She cackles. “Seriously?”

I shrug. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well,” she shakes her head, grinning, “it seems like it worked.”

“Sometimes simple is the most effective.”

Fucking finally , I think as I exit the freeway, grateful that we’re almost back to my place. The change from freeway to surface streets has some kind of effect on Marissa, too, because she lapses back into silence, her expression serious once more.

“I can take you back to your car,” I offer quietly as we wait at a stoplight. I’m going the wrong direction for that, but it’d be easy enough to circle the block and head toward the arena if that’s what she wants.

She gives me a smile, squeezing my hand again. “No. Let’s go home.”

I think those might be the most glorious words in the English language. While she might just mean our building is home, I like the idea of her calling my place home.

Not that I’m going to ask her to move in or anything. But as a future idea, it doesn’t feel stifling. Or like I’d be trapped. I like the idea of having her in my space, though, as often as she wants.

I always assumed that I’d be really on edge with the next woman I dated, looking for red flags or signs she was going to try to move in and take over my life. But I’m not worried about any of that with Marissa. I think because we spent so long as just friends. I’ve had her over to my place plenty of times, and I never felt like she disapproved or wanted to change me or my space. She even likes my truck, despite the fact that I know as well as she does that it’s nothing fancy, that her car is far nicer, and that I could easily afford an upgrade. I’m attached to my truck, and that’s good enough for her.

When we get to our building, I park and climb out, heading around to Marissa’s side to open her door, but of course she doesn’t wait for me to do that. After she closes her door, she stands there and looks at me for a second. I lock the car with the key fob, then hold out my hand to her. A smile breaks out on her face, and she puts her hand in mine, threading our fingers together as we walk to the door.

We stay that way, hand-in-hand, until we’re on the elevator, and then I pull her close, my arm around her back and resting on her opposite hip. She leans into me, and it’s the best I’ve felt in … maybe my whole life.

Never before have I experienced so much fear and anticipation about anyone. The closest I can think of is when I was looking to get drafted into the juniors and then again into the pros. Still, that wasn’t nearly as much of a relief as this.

Cocky little shit that I was, it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t get drafted either time, it was more a matter of which team would I end up with.

This, with Marissa? I had no idea if or how it would work out. And the fact that she’s here, leaning against me, heading up to my condo, is more than I dared hope for.

The best scenario I could come up with was a return to what we had before. I figured it’d take us a while to get there—especially when she wasn’t acting at all like her usual self—and would involve at least one really unpleasant and awkward conversation.

I didn’t dare to hope that she’d want more than that.

Our silence on the way to my door feels charged, full of unspoken desires and hopes and expectations. Once we’re inside, she reaches for me, and I pull her to me, my mouth sealing over hers once more, my arm wrapping behind her back and pulling her body flush against mine.

I groan, unable to help myself, gratified when she makes a throaty sound of pleasure too.

When she moaned in the car? I almost came in my pants. That sound coming from her is enough to undo me completely.

I’d been rock hard for a while, but it had finally subsided to a semi on the drive here, but now that she’s pressed against me, her hands searching for purchase on my back and shoulder? I’m fully hard again in an instant.

She opens for me, her tongue tangling with mine, and I feel myself falling for her more and more each second.

This kind of connection is what I’ve always wanted, always hoped for, always dreamed of.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t manage to find it before, but I’m so glad that Marissa moved into my building and I’m finding it now.

I want to touch her everywhere, and so I keep alternating between hands on her hips, her ass, her back, her head, her jaw, her shoulders, and around and around until she breaks away with a laugh.

“It’s okay, Dozer,” she murmurs, drawing me toward the couch. “We don’t have to rush. I don’t have to run away at midnight.”

“Don’t run away. Ever.”

She stops in the middle of my living room, looking me in the eyes. “I won’t.”