Page 5 of You Make It Feel like Christmas

N ICK YANKED A WORN, blue San Jose Guardians T-shirt over his head with so much impatience, it took him a second to realize it was backward.

He fixed it, yanked it down his slightly still-damp body, and stared at the door.

Holy shit. He’d put it together a couple of hours ago, which should have given him time to brace himself against whatever reaction he might have to seeing her again.

But fuck. He didn’t expect her to see all of him or to have that look in her eyes like she too had remembered every single second of being together.

Like he was her long-lost fantasy come to life.

He had expected the fire in her gaze. He deserved her anger.

But the rest of it, her voice, her face, her eyes, just being in the same room with her, hit him in a way he never expected.

Nick did not believe in karma or fate any more than he believed in Santa Claus, but seeing Maisie again, after agonizing months of trying to get her out of his head, felt like… a sign.

A light in the really dark tunnel he’d been lost in lately.

A buoy just when he’d been sure he was about to sink.

On top of rehabbing his knee, worrying about his sister and Asher, and trying to make the biggest decision of his career, he’d been inundated with thoughts of Maisie Smart.

He’d tried drowning them out with hockey, brutal workouts, music, whiskey, beer, friends…

didn’t matter. Nothing he did washed away the memory of her; the way he felt when he was with her, or more important, what a bastard he felt like for walking out. Not his finest moment.

And in between all of that, he’d started seeing a therapist for his anxiety.

He hadn’t told anyone other than his coach yet, not even Ellie.

Not because he was ashamed but because he didn’t understand why he couldn’t get a grip on it; why it came and went like an unwanted drop-in guest. And because he didn’t want his team or other coaches worrying about him any more than they already were.

He sighed heavily, pushing all the air out of his lungs.

The memory of her gaze, the quick intake of breath made the past and present merge so fucking hard that he knew, with a certainty he’d only known a couple of other things in his life, whatever this was between them, it wasn’t over.

It wasn’t finished. It was something he’d never known and he couldn’t lie to himself about it when all he wanted to do was drag her against him and kiss the hell out of her.

Maisie would need to stop sending him death daggers for that to happen and he’d need to try to explain things, make up for past wrongs. His sister would say Christmas was the perfect time for magic. He’d need nothing less to make Maisie Smart forgive him for being such a complete ass.

When he stepped into the doorway of her room—he’d heard the shower shut off and knew she wasn’t in the bathroom—his heart twisted in his chest. She’d put on a hoodie and sweatpants and now sat on the edge of the bed, her head down, her shoulder-length, dark hair falling forward.

When she glanced up, his chest tightened like it was locked in a vise.

She looked like she might cry. Fuck. He had to physically restrain himself from rushing over to her, dropping to his knees, and pulling her into a hug.

He had no right to do that, no matter how much he wanted to.

He should let her stay mad. It was easier that way.

Let her hate him. His life was more complicated now than when they’d met.

Instead, he walked over in slow, measured steps, crouched in front of her, curling his fingers into his palms.

“I’m sorry. I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.

It was a dick move and something you didn’t deserve.

” He didn’t want to dwell on the message he’d received in the early hours of the morning while he’d held her close, marveling at the way her perfectly rounded body fit against his own.

That message from Ellie, saying their estranged mother was in the hospital, was the kickoff to a disastrous several months.

He didn’t want to play the sympathy card or get into all of it, telling her that he’d needed to be there for his sister who finalized her divorce shortly after their mom’s swift and unexpected death.

He also couldn’t tell her in this moment that thinking about her, the beautiful, funny, charming woman he’d met at a friend’s wedding, had helped him surface; helped him fucking breathe.

It was too much to drop in her lap right this second, especially when he didn’t have the words yet. Emotions were high for both of them—his just from the actual delight of seeing her and hers from the anger she had every right to feel.

She sniffed and the sound hit him in the gut. “Right. You’re just saying that because what else do you say when you run into a random hookup you never wanted to see again?”

Both his brows arched and though there was nothing funny about the moment, his lips twitched as he rested back on his heels.

The media did a great job of painting exaggerated lifestyles and sometimes they even got it right.

But Nick was known for being tight-lipped and notoriously closed off with reporters.

That was one of the reasons there’d been so much shock and outrage when he’d mangled a reporter’s camera on a particularly bad day after being asked some invasive questions.

One thing he wasn’t known for, however, was being a player.

“Exactly how many random hookups do you think I’m out there having? ”

He didn’t care what others did but growing up with a bitter, single mom and helping raise his sister, his brain cycled through too many what-ifs to let go and lose himself in some random chick.

Until Maisie. Except, she wasn’t just anyone.

She’d pushed past his gruff demeanor not once, not twice, but three times in the same day.

She’d made him laugh and live in the moment.

She’d been a breath of completely unjaded air.

Sitting up straighter, her brown gaze reached into his chest like a fist and squeezed his heart.

“I don’t know! I read hockey romance. I know about puck bunnies,” she said, her pitch a little squeaky, her hand gesturing toward him.

“But I wasn’t one. I didn’t even know who you were and I thought there was something more between us even though, duh, I shouldn’t have, because that’s the whole point of a one-night stand.

But I did and then you were gone and I found out who you are and realized what an idiot I was. ”

She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them.

Hockey romance? What the hell? He didn’t want to know.

Still reeling from just seeing her, from being away from everything else in a place where he could catch his breath and regroup, he didn’t have it all figured out, but he wouldn’t let her believe she was anything but special.

She was fucking amazing. “Look at me, Maisie,” he said, emotion roughening his voice.

Her gaze drifted up.

Nick leaned in, enough to catch the shouldn’t-be-familiar-but-damn-it-was scent of her body soap.

Or lotion. Or maybe it was just pure Maisie but it made his mouth water, made his heart expand.

“You were and you are special. What we shared mattered. I don’t make a habit of sleeping around not just because it’s not my style or I don’t usually have the time but because that’s not who I am .

What I did to you, leaving without a word, was shitty and I’m sorry.

Sorrier than you know.” Tread softly. “We’re both here for the week to enjoy the holidays and time with our families.

I know it’s easy for me to say this now but I truly meant to reach out to you after that night.

A lot… a lot of shit went down, and I didn’t.

That’s on me. But it wasn’t because you didn’t matter. ”

There. That was enough for now. Her gaze was still watery but she looked less like she wanted to throw a puck at his head.

One side of his mouth tipped up as he narrowed his gaze at her, teasingly, hoping to see a hint of the smile that visited him some nights in his dreams. “If you’re planning to poison my snickerdoodles, it might take away from the festivities.”

Maisie didn’t give him that gorgeous grin but he saw her fighting a laugh, and that, in itself, felt like a victory.

“I wouldn’t waste perfectly good snickerdoodles on you.”

“That’s fair,” he said, standing up, wishing he had the right to pull her into a hug, to sweep her hair back from her pretty face.

There were too many emotions twisting inside him right now; all of them going in different directions.

He did his best to tamp down on all of them. “Can we just get through this week? I don’t know, maybe even—”

She stood up, bringing their fronts too close together to pay full attention to anything other than how it felt to be that near her. “Do not say we can be friends. We’ll get through the week and then we’ll never see each other again.”

She pulled in a deep breath like she was filling herself with fortitude. She was every bit as magnificent as he’d remembered but her words tasted bitter and wrong.

“Hard to say what will happen once the week is up,” he said, watching her closely, noting the way her breath hitched when he dipped his chin to bring his lips closer to her ear. “Maybe we’ll get a holiday miracle and you’ll end up liking me by the end.”

“In your dreams, King,” she whispered with very little conviction.

Nick backed away. You have no idea, Smart. No idea.