Yeah, one you can’t take your eyes off now that you aren’t afraid of face-planting.

She could look. It was touching that was the problem. She was totally in control about that. Nothing to worry about. Nope. Which was why she was ignoring the “danger, danger” siren blaring in her head and her breath caught when he lifted his arms to stretch and the hem of his shirt went up, showing off the bottom half of a six pack she desperately wanted to lick.

That is very much not a good idea, Shelby, no matter how tempting.

And it was so very, very tempting.

“So your parents never took you to a rink?” Ian asked as he unscrewed the thermos he’d brought from the visitors’ locker room along with the skates.

“My mom was usually working a couple of jobs and hunting for her next husband in her off time.” The drama, the excitement, the loosey-goosey thrill of first falling for someone, that’s the part that had always been addictive for her mom. “There has never been a person who loved love like my mom. It was her hobby.”

“Not yours?” He handed her the thermos.

The smell of hot chocolate wafted up from the opening, and she took a small sip before answering. “No, I went in for peach schnapps and then cheap gin.”

“Started early?”

Did freshman year of high school count as early? Probably. “Quit early, too.”

“What happened?”

Usually people danced around the subject. Not Ian. He went at it head-on, just like a face-off in the circle. It might annoy some people, but she appreciated the honesty of it. Somehow it made whatever was sizzling between them feel more solid, possible. That way was dangerous thinking, but she couldn’t seem to help it around him.

“I went to rehab after hitting rock bottom.” More like landing with a hard splat against it. “I’d lied to myself about not having a problem. I woke up one morning in the drunk tank, no money, no apartment anymore, and no friends who weren’t sick of my self-destructive behavior. I went back home. I thought that would fix everything.” Naive? Hopeful? Delusional? Probably a mix of all three. “Can you believe it didn’t? It went badly. My mom got a counselor and staged an intervention. It sure wasn’t pretty, but we got through it. I went to rehab. Then I went again a few months later—relapses are no joke. And now here I am, six years later flirting with disaster again.”

“My name’s Ian, not disaster.”

Oh God. The man was bad at jokes. Still, she was chuckling even as she attempted to glide back from the wall while maintaining her balance. “I’m talking about this job. It changed everything for me, gave The Biscuit some legitimacy. Do you know how hard that can be for a woman-led hockey blog?”