Melting the Ice(25)
“That sounds fabulous. My toes are cold and my legs feel like Jell-O.”
He laughed. “We need to work on your skating endurance.”
They removed their skates and headed upstairs. “Since it’s highly unlikely I’ll be ice skating regularly, I don’t think I need to worry too much about building up my endurance.”
Drew ordered two hot chocolates for them. “Oh, you never know. You might decide you love it.”
“It’s doubtful.”
“What if I give you season hockey tickets?”
She cracked a smile. “First, thank you for the offer. I do enjoy hockey. Sadly, I won’t have time to see all your games, because I’m kind of busy right now. And why would you do that?”
“Always nice to have someone you know in the stands.”
She shook her head. “You need a girlfriend.”
“I do, don’t I? Care to apply for the job?”
She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. “Uh, no, thanks. I think that ship has sailed.”
“Has it?” The way he looked at her melted the last of the ice on her formerly frozen toes. So direct, so purposeful, the way he had been that night so long ago. She might have been inebriated and she’d definitely consumed enough wine for liquid courage to embolden her to invite him to her place after the graduation party. But he’d latched onto her at the party and hadn’t let go of her the rest of the night. He’d danced with her, had held her close, whispering in her ear about how beautiful she was, and how he’d asked himself why the two of them had never gotten together before that night.
And then he’d taken her back to the quiet of her dorm room when everyone else had been out partying . . .
“Carolina.”
She lifted herself out of that trip to the past and met his gaze. “Yes?”
“You were off in a fog somewhere.”
“Thinking about work.”
“Time to go?”
“Yes, I think so.” Before she did something foolish, like travel too far down that path of yesterday and fall down the rabbit hole again.
With Drew right beside her.
Which would be a huge, huge mistake.
SIX
DREW WATCHED THE PLAY OF EMOTIONS CROSS Carolina’s face as they climbed into the car. One of the things he’d always liked most about her was how smart she was, how she was more than what you saw on the surface. In college, he’d often run into her on the quad, and she was always sketching, or had her nose in a book.
Beautiful women were a dime a dozen. He knew, because he’d had plenty of them chasing him through college. But try to have a meaningful conversation with some of them and it was like coming up against a brick wall. A lot of them wanted to get their hands in his pants, and hey, as a young stud, he’d let them. But after you got out of bed, you had to have something to talk about besides where the next party was.
A beautiful, intelligent woman? Now that was something special.
He’d always kept his distance from Carolina because she was Gray’s little sister, and that had made her off-limits.
Until the night of graduation, when he’d had a little too much to drink—okay, he’d had a lot to drink. And Carolina had given him an invitation that had been too hard to resist. He’d forgotten all about her being his best friend’s sister then.