Back Check (Aces Hockey #4)(12)

 

 

 

        

          

        

         

 

A week later he'd stepped in at a party when a drunken frat boy wouldn't leave her alone. He hadn't hit the guy, but she'd had no doubt he would have if the jerk hadn't backed off. At six foot four inches, Tanner was an imposing adversary. Someone would be stupid to fight with him. The big muscles bunching and the tick in his jaw were intimidating … and yet when he'd turned warm, concerned eyes on her, she wasn't afraid. She'd never felt so safe in her life.

 

She cranked off the shower and reached for a towel, pressing it to her hot face.

 

This was ridiculous. Everyone had teenage boyfriends. Things ended, you grew up, and moved on. That was life. Why was she so worked up about seeing him again?

 

But more memories assaulted her as she dried herself off … remembering showering with Tanner, him drying her off with eyes like blue flames … the first time they'd had sex in his dorm room, how tenderly he'd touched her, his big hands moving over her body, how careful he'd been with her despite his size, how moving it all was … 

 

She closed her eyes and held on to the counter as her world spun a little.

 

Practical. She needed to be practical and sensible. So she'd run into an old boyfriend. So what? It happened to everyone.

 

She wrapped a big towel around herself and tucked it in at her breasts, then padded to her kitchen on bare feet. She sloshed wine into a glass and tossed back a big mouthful.

 

Teenage romances never lasted. Everyone knew that. You didn't marry the first guy you fell in love with. Even if you did dream about that when you were together.

 

No. Young love was … young. Immature. You couldn't love someone forever when you both still had growing up to do. When you both would change. When your lives took you in different directions.

 

Tanner was a piece of her past. He was here in the present, but that was okay. She could handle this. She'd be professional and polite. He was a friend of the groom, who was her client, and her job was all about making her clients happy. Creating the perfect day for them that they'd remember forever. She wasn't a part of that, just the one who put it together and faded into the background. They certainly didn't need any drama, because Lord knew weddings had enough potential for drama, with all the personalities and stressors involved. She'd seen drama. Hoo boy, had she.

 

The time the ex-girlfriend had arrived uninvited at the reception, picked up the cake, and chucked it at the groom. The wedding where neither the bride nor the groom showed up, because they were both drunk and passed out in the limo. The bride who poured a whole gravy boat of sauce over a guest who'd worn a white dress to the wedding-because, come on, you don't wear white to a wedding.  

 

Yes, she'd seen drama and she was not going to be part of it. Her clients weren't paying her for drama, and she needed more clients. Therefore, she and Tanner would be casual friends when they saw each other, someone from their distant past they'd once had some affection for but who no longer mattered to them.

 

She was so fucked.

 

She needed someone to talk her down from this. She grabbed her cellphone and called her best friend, Rachel. "You're never going to believe who I ran into today."

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

Tanner arrived at the Moens Center around nine the next morning, carrying his big Starbucks coffee. He'd had a hard time getting to sleep last night and he was irritable because of that.

 

Because of Katelyn.

 

He couldn't believe she'd showed up in his life again. What the fuck?

 

It annoyed him even more that she was still just as attractive to him as she'd been the first time they'd met. Because even though he'd been the one who'd left, he was the one who'd had his heart broken.

 

When he moved to New York, he'd shut that painful shit down. He'd focused on hockey and women. He'd been determined to succeed, knowing nothing was a given in your rookie season. And life in the Big Apple and the plentiful supply of beautiful women interested in dating hockey players provided plenty of distractions from the girl he'd left behind.

 

He'd had no intention of ever getting hurt like that again, which meant he'd been a player, dating one gorgeous girl after another, never serious. Well, until Presley. And that had been a mistake.

 

He headed straight for the omelet bar the team set up outside the dressing room and requested one with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and green onions. Damn, he loved smoked salmon, and they always had a lot of it. But he did like to vary things and try new combinations, like different kinds of cheese with ham, or ones with a bunch of different veggies. He added diced potatoes to his plate and grabbed a glass of juice, then joined his defensive partner Andrew Ross and goaltender Brent Stoyko. Maybe the food would get rid of the grouchy funk he was in.