“I just need to know, last weekend…what were you trying to do?”

“What?”

“Last weekend at the bar. In the bathroom. What was your purpose?”

I could almost hear her cringe on the other side between her silence and breathing. “It was stupid, can we just forget it?”

“I can’t do that. And I think we have unfinished business.” I took a breath. “I want you to come to the game tomorrow night. I’ll give you what you were after.”

“Troy—I can’t keep doing whatever this is with you—” there was a strain in her voice that tore at me. “Whatever I started, I need to work it out on my own.”

“No. No you don’t. Let me help. I owe you that. Come to tomorrow night’s game,” I found myself pleading.

“What are you going to do?”

“Let me worry about that.”

She let out a soft laugh. “You know you can’t strip on television, right? Or have you hit your head too many times?”

I leaned back in my chair, a smile sneaking up my lips for the first time in days. “I wasn’t planning on it, but is that really all you want, Harper Maxwell?”

“No,” she answered quickly.

“Good,” I replied. “Give me your number, I’ll text you a reservation for two tickets. Bring a friend if you’d like.”

11. Harper

11

“The grin—what’s it about?” Nic asked.

I shouldn’t have been grinning at all. I shouldn’t have wanted anything to do with Troy ever again. It took everything I had in me to kiss him again at that bar just so I could lure him to a trap—one that I’d failed miserably. A kiss that, as brief as it was, was so much better than I remembered.

Soft, tender lips that screamed, “oh my God, she’s kissing me,” as opposed to the “hey baby, get in line,” attitude I was expecting to get.

My insecurities ran deep as I wondered if he was just that good. If he was just playing the player all along that night and all this time, and I was the one who’d walked into a trap.

I forced myself to shake it off.

Troy was never that conniving. He didn’t have the brains for it. He never cared enough to scheme. He was just a selfish asshole.

But saying that now just didn’t feel right.

“The new latte you created this morning. It’s really good. What’d you put in it? Cinnamon?”

“Could it be a certain hockey player that just makes everything taste good?”

“I’m not telling you anything. Last time I did, my ex’s mother caught me jerking off produce.”

She burst out laughing. “I know. Classic. You’ll laugh about it too one day.”