Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
The words hang between us and Daisy’s breath catches. “You like having me around?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”
She turns fully toward me now. “That’s not a small thing, Grizz.”
“I know.”
Her hand comes to rest on the couch cushion between us, close enough that our fingers nearly touch. “Then what are you holding back?”
The question is gentle. It’s the gentleness that makes it dangerous.
I look at her, and the answer rushes in too fast, too big. Because I can feel it there, sitting just beneath my ribs: the pull, the wanting, the terrifying urge to let her all the way in and see what happens if I stop fearing what might happen.
“I’ve spent a long time keeping parts of myself separate,” I say instead. “The hockey part. The family part. The… everything else part.” I exhale slowly. “You blur those lines.”
She nods, absorbing it without flinching. “I don’t want you to lose yourself.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
She doesn’t argue or reassure me with empty words. She just reaches out and lets her fingers brush mine, light and grounding.
“I’m not asking you for anything you’re not ready to give,” she says. “I just want to be here while you figure it out.”
I turn my hand, lace my fingers through hers, and for a moment I let myself lean into it. Not the future or the promise. Just this—her beside me… real and undeniably present.
I’m not ready to give her everything. But I’m closer than I’ve ever been. And that realization feels both terrifying and inevitable.
Daisy’s phone buzzes between us, the sound small but audible in the quiet. She glances down at the screen, and her expression shifts.
“Elias,” she says. “Confirming dinner.”
I don’t say anything at first, but I feel it anyway—that tight, irrational flare in my chest, the one I don’t like admitting exists. The idea of her sitting across from him tonight, laughing the way she does when she’s comfortable, leaning in, sharing pieces of her day while I’m somewhere over Pennsylvania eating airplane food and pretending not to care.
I scoff quietly before I can stop myself. “Figures he’s there to swoop in when I leave.”
She looks up at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrug, deliberately careless. “Just funny how he’s always… around.”
Her eyes narrow. “He’s my best friend.”
“Yeah,” I say, a little too offhand. “You’ve mentioned.”
She doesn’t let that slide. “Say it,” she says calmly. “Whatever you’re implying—just say it.”
I lean back, working a muscle in my cheek. “I just think it’s interesting that the guy who helped get you this job also gets front-row access to your life. Dinners. Drinks. Catch-ups. Feels… convenient.”
Her posture straightens. “Don’t do that,” she says. “Don’t reduce him to some ulterior-motive caricature just because you’re uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I lie. I’m so fucking uncomfortable because I don’t know how to handle all these feelings.
She gives me a look that tells me I’m bad at that. “Elias has been in my life for over a decade,” she continues, voice steady but firm. “He was there when I was broke, when I was figuring out who I was, when I got fired, when I moved to New York. He’s family to me.”
I open my mouth to argue. Close it again.
She doesn’t soften. “And if this”—she gestures loosely between us—“is going to work in any capacity, you don’t get to treat him like a threat.”
“I didn’t say he was a threat,” I mutter.
“You didn’t have to,” she says. “Your tone did it for you.”
The silence stretches, thick and prickly. I hate how exposed it makes me feel—how obvious my jealousy must be, how juvenile it sounds even in my own head.
She exhales, calmer now but no less resolved. “I’m not choosing between you and Elias. That’s not a choice I’ll ever make.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I say.
“Then don’t act like you are,” she replies.
I scrub a hand over my face, frustration and shame mixing. “I just don’t like the idea of you going to dinner with him while I’m gone.”
She studies me for a beat, then says, “That’s a you problem, Grizz. Not a me problem.”
I wince. Because she’s right.
“And,” she adds, “I’m not going to shrink my world to make you feel more comfortable.”
“Okay,” I say finally. “Then what do you want me to do?”
She considers that. “Get to know him. Actually get to know him.”
I snort. “That sounds like a nightmare.”
She smiles, unfazed. “You’ll survive.” Then she tilts her head, eyes bright with a look that feels dangerously like determination. “I’m going to set up drinks for the three of us once you’re back in New York.”
I blink. “You’re serious.”
“Completely,” she says. “You don’t have to love him. You don’t even have to like him. But you do have to respect that he’s important to me.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask, already knowing the answer.