Wade
It’s barely after six and I’m pretty sure my back is never going to forgive me if I don’t get out of this crappy pull-out bed. Not the best night’s sleep ever, and I’m kicking myself for not making plans before we knocked off. We aren’t due back at my parents’ until lunch, but I have no idea what that means for the woman in the next room.
If she’s the kind to sleep in, I feel like I owe it to her to let her.
That said, the quarter-inch I moved had the springs groaning beneath me. Shit.
I try again, going for a quick roll, thinking if I move fast there’ll only be the one noise and then I can creep out quietly. Not the case. This fucker wails like some jungle animal being dragged to its death, and I’ve barely swung my feet to the floor.
A soft laugh comes from the next room. “I’m awake. Just put it out of its misery and get up.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” Rubbing a hand over my face, I push to my feet.
Jesus, it’s loud.
I walk into Harlow’s room where she’s sitting up in bed with the sheet covering her legs. She’s wearing a pink, short-sleeved pajama set with white piping and buttons down the front that really shouldn’t be as sexy as it is. But maybe it’s her slightly rumpled hair or how she’s even prettier without a lick of makeup.
Whatever it is, I need to forget about it before she notices that I’m standing like a creeper at the end of her bed. I clear my throat. “Give me two minutes and I’ll be out of here and you can sleep as long as you like.”
She waves me off. “I’m good. Early riser. I was texting with Nettie.”
“Letting her know I’m not a serial killer? Maybe we should snap a proof-of-life selfie.”
“I was actually thinking about sneaking out for a run. I can get one then.”
I perk up. “You run? That’s what I was heading out for. We could go together if you want? I can do an easy one today. Maybe show you around?”
Her sleepy eyes light, and I have a wholly inappropriate flash of what it would be like to see her peering up at me from the pillow.
Not cool, creeper.
Thankfully, Harlow doesn’t follow my train of thought and bounces out of bed, ducking into the bathroom before I have a chance to beat her there. Through the paper-thin door, she calls out, “Don’t blow off your workout on my account. I don’t want to slow you down.”
“It’s one day,” I assure her. “It’ll be a nice break. Fun.”
“No, really, Wade, don’t hold back on my account,” Harlow teases, jogging backward in front of me as we close out the sixth mile of a run I was expecting to be more about leisure and less about this ego-crushing good girl giving me a lesson.
“Ha-ha,” I say, chasing her down the path through the wooded park. Yeah, I could take her in a race… I think. I could outlast her… probably. But it wouldn’t be easy. And not only is that unexpected, but it’s pretty damn hot too.
As hot as the black running shorts and matching tank that’s cut like the white sports bra she’s wearing beneath. As hot as the long braid that’s draped over her shoulder and dipping into the valley between her breasts.
Don’t gawk, perv.
I clear my throat, watching her face and not the sweat-slicked expanse of her golden-brown skin. “You got me. I’m the dickhead underestimating you. Again. You’re a badass.”
Her smile cranks up, and I find my own rising to match it.
“You’ll learn. I’d like to think, eventually, everyone will.”
The way she says it, quietly, more to herself than to me, makes me wonder how often and how badly she’s sold short.
It’s a mistake I won’t make again.
The path splits ahead, but we bypass the loop around the lake for the one leading down to a pebble beach. Slowing to a walk, I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my arm.
“And your reward for spanking me on this morning’s run. Behold, Lake Ridley.”
“It’s beautiful here,” she says, her skin flushed from exertion, those burnt-umber eyes lighting up as she takes in one of Enderson’s best views.
“It is.”
She is. She’s beautiful. Sharp. Driven. Funny. Competitive. And unexpected.
So unexpected.
I think that’s my favorite part.
“Is this where you ran when you were growing up?” She puts her hands on her hips and bends at the waist before straightening up and balancing on one leg to stretch out the toned muscles of the other.
I laugh, shaking my head. “Nah. I ran for football, but only where they told me to. How long, how far. Never anything more. Same with hockey. It wasn’t until I was coming home on breaks from college that I started running out here.”
When I started needing excuse after excuse to get out of the house.
Harlow cuts me one of her sidelong looks, and I have to remind myself that we’re not in public so pulling her into my chest isn’t on the table. And my T-shirt’s soaked through with sweat, so… gross.
“What?”
“Tell me about the football. What happened there?”
I grin and grab her hand, leading her down to the shore where the water laps gently against the stretch of small stones nestled between piled boulders at either side. Guiding her around the rocky bend, we come to the sheared-off slab of a boulder high-schoolers have been calling “the bed” since my parents were kids. Probably longer.
I help her up and then hoist myself onto the level top, leaving a few inches between us. The sun glitters gold on the lake in front of us, and I lean back on my arms, letting the stone cool my overheated body.
“So basically, no one saw the hockey thing happening. It was sort of an accident and one I’m pretty sure my dad hasn’t forgiven himself for yet.”
Harlow laughs and leans back, mirroring my pose. “This sounds good.”
“Yeah, local football legend raises hockey pro. Family can’t live down the shame.”
“Okay, so tell me about it. But keep in mind I don’t speak jock, so you’ll have to dumb it down for me.”
“Ha, pretty sure I don’t have to dumb down anything for you.” But I do need to keep my eyes off that bare stretch of skin between her shorts and tank. Damn. “Here’s the short version. I was athletic, energetic. You know how it is with kids. They do all those tyke-level sports, getting a taste of everything.”
She wrinkles her nose. “My father isn’t really into sports. I played the piano and clarinet.”
And her mom passed away when she was young. I feel like an ass.
“Well, I was a kid who took to all of it. Mostly because I had an overload of energy and my mom was willing to run all over Enderson to help me burn it off. But the expectation was always that I’d play football like my dad. Only problem was, football’s a fall sport and once it ended, I was climbing the walls.”
“Hockey’s a winter sport?”
I smile. “Yeah, it is. There are other winter sports too. Thing is, the basketball coach made the mistake of asking my mom out in high school.”
Harlow’s eyes go wide. “He didn’t dare!”
“Right? Needless to say, there was no way in hell William Grady’s kid was shooting hoops.”
“Why not something else?”
“Mom’s favorite cousin played hockey. So, I hit the ice.”
“And that was the day the football died?”
“Hardly. I played both sports into high school. My dad still thinks I could have gone all the way with football.”
She turns to me, squinting in the morning light. “You don’t think so?”
“Nah. I didn’t want it with football the way I did with hockey. I had a lot of the components you need to win. But if it’s more than the win you’re after, you have to want it. You have to want it more than anything else, because there’s a cost to getting it, and there’s only the one way that payoff works out.”
I can see her absorbing what I just told her. Weighing it in a way I don’t see with most people.
“Was it hard to choose?” Her voice is quiet, thoughtful. “Knowing what your dad wanted for you wasn’t what you wanted?”
“It was brutal. Before I told him was the worst. There were months of that gnawing ache in my gut when I knew I was going to let him down.”
She nods, looking off into the distance. “I know that feeling.”
“I hung on to that longer than I should have. And then one night after a meatloaf dinner, I finally sacked up and spit it out. He just stared at me for what felt like an eternity. My mom let out this horrified squeak and, yeah. That was a rough summer.”
She’s watching me intently now. Her eyes soft and curious. “But it was worth it? You’re happy? No regrets?”
It takes me a minute to answer. No one asks me that. Ever.
I’m playing in the NHL. It’s a dream not many realize. But it comes with sacrifices that start the second you realize you have to put it before everything else, and that might continue well past the last time you step off the ice.
But none of that changes my answer.
“I’m happy. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally where I wanted to be.” Or I will be once the contracts are signed. “And as to regrets? Only that I wish my dream hadn’t come at the cost of my dad’s.”
“I get it.” She smiles again. “But even if he was disappointed at first, that man is so proud of you now. No matter how he teases you, I don’t think even he would change a thing.”
I like that she sees it. That she understands. I like that she’s sitting on “the bed” with me in one of my favorite spots in my hometown.
Hell, I like her. Period.