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PROLOGUE

ELI

TWO YEARS AGO

The silence surrounds me for the first time in years. As I sit alone in the house for the first time since I moved to Parma, Ohio, I wonder what the fuck I’m going to do with myself now that my roommate, co-owner, best friend, and his wife have moved to their own place.

I’m alone. This whole house is now mine. Every room, the basement, everything. It’s daunting. Luke and Clara have lived here for several years, and it’s been nice having someone around.

Now that I’m alone and can do what I want when I want, it’s a foreign feeling. I wonder if I should ask one of the other guys to move in with me. The only people who I would possibly want to move in already have their own places, so that wouldn’t work. I guess I just need to figure out how to live on my own.

Picking up my phone from the nightstand, I scroll through social media as a way to entertain myself. Or distract me; I’m not quite sure. Probably both, if I’m being honest. It works, though. I don’t know how long I scroll, but my thumb is working overtime. And I’m completely distracted by the deafening silence around me.

Then I see her.

My god, she’s absolutely stunning. She’s not made up with a bunch of makeup. She’s got her hair up in a messy bun, and she has a smile plastered on her lips. That smile reaches her eyes, which is what causes me to pause. She’s not trying to be sexy. She seems just plain happy.

I touch her image so it takes me to her page, and I start to scroll through her posted content. She’s checked in at a lot of places around here. Most of them I recognize, and some of them I’ve been to myself, like the Midnight Hour club and bar.

Her long dark hair, her green eyes. I’ve never seen anyone this beautiful in my life, and I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous women. I’m no slouch, but it helps that I play professional hockey. Maybe it’s the way her eyes stare into the camera, almost like she can see through it and into my soul.

Chewing on the corner of my bottom lip, I think about sliding into her DMs but then set my phone down. I don’t want to seem like a fucking creep. Deciding I’ve had enough internet for the night, I turn on the television in an attempt to distract myself yet again.

I’m not sure how long I search for something to watch, but nothing holds my interest—not a single thing. Mainly because that phone is calling for me to pick it up again and contact her. I hold off, but only for a few moments.

Giving in to temptation, I reach over and pick up the phone, opening the social media app again. I expect her profile to be gone, the app having been refreshed or something. But it’s not. It’s right there, her eyes staring into mine, and I go ahead and touch the Follow button.

Then, I touch the message icon. My fingers move without my brain even registering what the hell is going on. At least, that’s what I tell myself. The little green dot that indicates she’s active right now is displayed.

I decide to shoot my shot.

You can’t ever know if you don’t at least try. And I’ve never been one to be shy. Plus, she’s hot as shit. I don’t know if I would want a relationship with anyone. I’ve never done that before, but it would not be a hardship to have this woman in my bed more than once.

Hey. I’m Eli. I scrolled to your page and stopped. Wanted to say you’re beautiful. Hope that doesn’t come off creepy af.

I’m so cheesy. I’ve never actually tried to hit on anyone via social media before. I typically find girls in clubs or puck bunnies after a game, which doesn’t take much finesse on my part to land.

This is the most awkward thing I’ve ever done, but I can’t just ignore the fact that she’s absolutely stunning.

I’ll regret it if I don’t at least try.

It takes her a few moments to actually reply. My gaze slides up to the television, and I assume it’s all a lost cause, but then my phone buzzes in my hand. Unlocking and tapping the message icon, I smirk at the sight of her reply.

WrenlyFoster: Hey yourself. I had to go on your page to make sure you aren’t some weirdo, except I’m not so sure you aren’t a weirdo. Your page is full of hockey pictures, so I’m just going to assume they’re all stolen.

My lips curve into a smirk. Holy fucking shit. I love this. Every part of it. Instead of attempting to convince her that I am who I say I am, I send her a selfie of me shirtless, sitting in bed, my back resting against the headboard, my hair no doubt a fucking mess.

Not stolen. It’s me.

WRENLY

Holy. Shit.

EliAbbott15 is hot, not just a little, but insanely. The selfie he snaps causes my entire body to freeze in place. My heart even stops, and so does my breathing. I can’t help but wonder still if this is fake, but my god, it’s worth continuing. His white smile, his short, dark, messy hair. His almost hooded eyes. Don’t even get me started on half of the chest stacked with muscle he’s showing and his bulging biceps—wow, those biceps.

I have never been into online dating or dating at all, generally speaking. At nineteen, my life consists of college classes, studying, and the occasional party after a football game. When I first moved here, my roommate and her friends asked me to go to Midnight Hour , the club, with them. But I think I was a drag because they never asked me again.

Really, I don’t care for the parties much. I only go when my roommate begs me to join her, and that only happens when her real friends are too busy.

Moving away from East Texas was enough of an adventure for me. I don’t need to mix in dating my first year of college, at least not yet. I’m too busy trying to keep my grades up and focus on school. My dad would be disappointed in me if I came home with bad grades, especially since out-of-state tuition is so high.

But this guy? I might be tempted to at least try if he actually wanted to date me. Which I doubt he would if he saw me in person. He seems like a little bit of a player, and I’m not anything sexy and special, but that’s me just judging his appearance and mine.

He’s sexy—really sexy.

We start being flirtatious, sending messages back and forth, one of them including a selfie of me sitting in my bunk bed. I try hard not to let the Shawn Mendes poster that’s hanging behind my bed show in the image.

Then he asks me to go out. Tomorrow night.

I don’t know what to say, how to say it.

My fingers freeze on the keyboard.

My brain tells me to say no, but my gut screams at me to say yes—with bells on. Maybe it’s not my actual gut screaming… I try to ignore what it could be and pinch my eyes closed as I type in yes .

* * *

The next night, I’m standing at the back of Midnight Hour , a club I didn’t think I would ever actually walk into again. My back is against the wall that he told me to stand by. I’m wearing a blue dress that I promised I would be wearing, my hair down, and I’m waiting— alone .

Although he didn’t specify to come alone, I didn’t have anyone to ask to join me. I should have asked my roommate to at least come and dance for safety in numbers. But I am embarrassed to be meeting a stranger, and if he takes one look at me and walks away, I’ll be far too embarrassed for words.

So I’ve come alone. Probably not one of my smartest moves.

My heart races in my chest. It beats so hard that I’m afraid it’s going to actually burst out of my body and land on the ground at my high-heeled feet. My palms are sweaty. My stomach starts to twist and squeeze. I shouldn’t be here. I feel like an absolute fraud.

I’m seconds from walking away—no, running —when I see him.

It’s like the club full of people biblically parts for him. He walks through the crowd with his head held high, his eyes locked in on me, and the entire room disappears. My stomach still squeezes, but it also flip-flops, and butterflies flap their wings inside of it.

He’s better looking in person than in any picture on his social media or selfie—my god. I didn’t think men like this existed outside of television and movies.

He’s tall and built with lean and long muscle stacked on lean and long muscle, that part I know because I saw him shirtless last night. Dark hair and gorgeous eyes that are focused on me and nowhere else.

He stops directly in front of me, his lips curling up into a grin. His eyes search mine silently for a moment. Then he clears his throat.

“Wrenly?” he asks.

“Eli?” I respond on an exhale

He looks behind him, then back to me. I watch as one of his brows arches before he speaks. “Wanna go for a walk? I didn’t think this through at all. It’s loud as fuck in here.”

Smiling, I press my lips together. Because he’s right. It’s loud as fuck in here. I know that walking around outside with a stranger is probably not the smartest decision a girl could make, but my mouth speaks before my mind directs it to say no. And my brain, for whatever reason, completely short-circuits.

“Okay,” I exhale.

His grin turns into a full-fledged smile before he lets out a chuckle.

“Yeah.”

His outstretched hand waits for my palm to slip into his. I accept, and then we casually walk out the back of the club like we’ve known each other for longer than thirty seconds. His hand is warm, his hold firm, as we move down the back of the building and toward the downtown sidewalk.

“I can’t believe you’re real,” I confess once we’re outside and away from the pounding bass of the music in the club.

He laughs softly, then shakes his head once. “Me neither, sunshine.”

“Sunshine?” I ask with a laugh.

I picture someone with bright-blonde hair and blue eyes being called sunshine, not someone like me with long dark hair and green eyes. He’s still holding my hand and gives me a gentle squeeze.

“Because when I saw you in the club, there was a light that surrounded you. It was so bright it hurt my eyes.”

Wow.

That’s good.

My feet stop moving, and his do as well. His hand is still holding mine as he turns to face me, his dancing eyes looking down into mine.

He’s beautiful.

I don’t think I’ve ever imagined that a man could have this kind of beauty in real life unless it were photoshopped or altered in some way, but he’s just proven me wrong. Because he looks unreal. Every single part of him, like he was created and set down in front of me.

Without saying a single word, I do something that I’ve never done before in my entire life. I lift my hands, cup his cheeks, and rise to my toes before I touch my mouth to his.

I make the first move.

Never in my life have I taken charge like this before. Not that I’ve had many opportunities to do so, but still. This is so far beyond uncharacteristic for me that I surprise myself with my actions.

This has the potential to backfire— badly . But I’m throwing caution to the wind, seizing the day. I just didn’t know that the wind would be like a tornado that would last for hours instead of a cool summer breeze.

Eli Abbott came rolling through, consuming and wrecking everything around me and about me—owning my body that night.

And like a tornado, he is gone the next morning.

I assume I’ve done something wrong, something to make him slip out of my dorm in the middle of the night without saying a single word to me. I don’t know how that is supposed to go. I’ve never done anything like that before.

Was it a one-night stand? Maybe it was.

But it’s so embarrassing that I never try to contact him again. I threw myself at him. He probably didn’t even want me. It was a pity fuck. My god, that’s what it was, and then he left. He was nice enough not to actually tell me to my face, but I know that’s what it was.

He messages me half a dozen times over the next few weeks, but I never respond.

I don’t even read them.

I am mortified by what I must have unknowingly done that was wrong. Because if it wasn’t a pity fuck, then I was bad. So very bad, and that’s just as embarrassing.

To say that I am inexperienced would be stretching it a bit. In fact, I’ve only had sex once before him. It was just to get rid of my virginity because I’d carried it with me all the way to college, and I felt it was time.

But I had zero idea what I was doing in bed, and I must have been terribly bad if he just walked away like that without even telling me goodbye. It had to have been awful , and I can’t imagine having to hear him actually explain it to me.

So I ignore him.