As he delivered the tea to the table, he gently tugged on a hank of her loose blond hair. He’d done it a million times before, but it felt different this time. He’d never noticed how it brushed his fingers like fine silk threads, how it shimmered like the lights of a sprawling city when you saw it from miles up in the air.
“I need my secrets, damn it, and you seem to guess them all,” she grumbled.
While he might have known Neve his entire life, he didn’t reallyknowher. She was made up of one beguiling layer after another, and he was overcome with an urge to peel them back slowly, one by one.
The pink in her cheeks deepened, and she blew on her tea, averting her eyes. He was looking at embarrassed Neve, though the reason for her discomfort escaped him, and every fiber in his being wanted to understand. See? Layers.
She wasn’t wearing makeup today, and her golden-brown lashes were thick and long, accentuating the stone-washed-denim hue of her irises. Suddenly, he wanted to write a song about those eyes. A tune wound itself around him, followed by a sprinkle of words brimming with love. And he wasn’t a songwriter.
What the hell is the matter with me?He needed to stop the poetic rantings in his head.
She lifted those eyes to his, and a plea lingered there. A shred of memory floated to the surface of his brain. Her eyes had looked that same way the instant before he had kissed her in Vegas. A floodgate of recollection opened up, and he could feel the softness of her lips againsthis, the taste of her tongue teasing his, how her skin had smelled like flowers and vanilla. How perfectly her sensuous curves had fit him.
“Okay, here’s the thing.” She canted her head. “Are you listening to me?”
He cleared his throat. “Of course I’m listening. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Looks like you’re miles away, and you have this dopey look on your face. What I have to say is important, and I need your attention. I need you to be serious. I have a confession to make.”
He focused on the bridge of her nose to keep from losing himself in her eyes. “I’m all ears.”I can do this.
She went on to tell him that anger had clouded her judgment. Between being mad about Chelsea’s blindside and upset that Mr. W hadn’t found his forever home—while reliving the condition he’d been in when Cade had first brought him in—shehadtaken a run at Reece on the ice. “I thought it would make me feel better.”
He raised his mug to hide the amusement that surely showed in his expression. “And how did that turn out?”
“Obviously, it didn’t turn out well. It was a stupid thing to do, and I want to apologize for letting myself get carried away like that. I should have kept my emotions under control instead of trying to take it out on you by checking you into the boards. Not that we actuallyhaveboards, and not that I was actually trying tohurtyou. I just wanted to knock you down.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “You’re kind of like a brick wall. And for the record, I’m glad I’m the one who got hurt and not you.”
“Well,I’mnot glad it turned out that way. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I did?”
“How can you act so surprised? Of course you did. I about had a heart attack seeing you in a motionless heap on the ice.”
Her eyes filled with something akin to confusion. “Oh.”
“What?”
“Didn’t know you cared.”
His mouth dropped open. “Seriously? Neve, if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have stuck around all week. I wouldn’t have panicked on the ice. I wouldn’t havemarriedyou.”
Oops.
Walls had been crumbling all week long, starting with the wedding, where the alcohol had torn away his inhibitions and allowed him to give in to what he was pretty damn sure had been staring him in the face all along. Had Neve been Chelsea or any other woman, those walls would have stayed firmly intact. But this was Neve, his oldest and best friend.Nevehad pulled down those walls.
Moments passed to the ticking of a clock and sipping of tea as Reece contemplated this shiny new revelation. Its presence didn’t exactly sit well with him.
Neve cradled her cup in her hands. “I’ve got to admit it was interesting meeting your love interest …formerlove interest. Other than our high school prom queen—”
“She wasn’t a girlfriend.”
“Which one do you mean?”
“Both.” The prom queen had been a passing crush, a curiosity, a challenge—as in, could seventeen-year-old Reecedothe prom queen? Immature, testosterone-driven stuff. Chelsea had been about testosterone-driven urges too, though he’d conducted himself in less of an asshat manner. Or maybe not, judging by the lingering results.
Like he had with the prom queen and every other hookup since—not there had beenthatmany—he’d fallen into a pattern where his interest in a woman peaked and quickly waned. Would he have behaved differently if, instead of the prom queen, he had chased Neve in high school? The answer reared up and hit him square between the eyes.
Yes.
