Grace reminded me of an Aston Martin DB5, the way she zoomed through the crowd in the hotel and pulled up at the first empty stool at the bar. She was enigmatic, stunningly beautiful without trying to be, the kind of girl who turned every head but never noticed.
She was classic.
Her long, platinum hair was a little darker tonight, still damp from her shower. She wasn’t wearing makeup, nor was she wearing a bra under the spaghetti strap sundress that draped down to her ankles. Even in a crowded bar in Atlanta, she looked like she belonged on a beach, like she was a folklore goddess who’d just walked out of the sea.
I caught up with her just in time for the bartender to place a shot glass filled with some sort of amber alcohol down in front of me, his smirk telling me he both pitied me and was jealous I was there with Grace.
There was nothing to be jealous over, since she was anything but mine.
But I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Drink up, buttercup,” Grace sang, clapping her hands together when the same bartender started making her a martini.
“What is it?”
“Tequila.”
I slammed it back without even a little grimace, and Grace’s eyes widened before she blinked three times.
“Well, okay then,” she said on a laugh. “I didn’t realize I was partying with a monster. You didn’t even flinch.”
“Come on, babe,” I said, taking the seat next to her. “I’m a professional hockey player. No one drinks like we do.”
Her cheeks tinged pink, but she didn’t reply, just picked up the menu in front of her and pointed to a dish. “I’m getting this. Strawberry Pavlova and lavender frozen Greek yogurt.” She made a face like she was drooling just thinking about it, and then promptly did a little dance in her seat.
“That’s dessert.”
“And?”
“Don’t you want dinner first?”
“Nope.”
I opened my mouth to argue that she hadn’t had a real meal all day and needed something with more nutrients than a fucking pavlova, whatever that was, but she held up a finger to signal the bartender and ordered it before I had the chance.
A heavy sigh left me, which made her smile like she’d won, and I told the bartender I’d have the grouper before he took our menus and left us be.
“We should toast,” she said, holding up her martini glass. “To new adventures with new friends.”
I grabbed my water glass and tapped it to hers before taking a drink, but she sucked her teeth.
“You can’t cheers with water.”
“Just did. Besides, you’re the one who ordered me a shot instead of a drink.”
“Fair,” she conceded, sipping from her glass. She relaxed a bit when she did, her shoulders visibly releasing from where they’d been tied up by her ears. I saw then the strain at the edge of her eyes, like smiling was taking a little effort tonight.
It made me want to hunt down that motherfucker who made her sad and wring his goddamn neck.
Instead, I got her talking, asking her about college — which she had just graduated from in May. Although she didn’t seem like it was her favorite subject, she indulged me, and I ordered an Irish whiskey and sipped it while she told me all her crazy stories.
The topic of conversation was a staunch reminder of how young Grace was, and how fucked up I was for wanting her.
I knew she was only twenty-two, but sometimes I forgot. She had this air about her that made her feel… ageless. She wasn’t immature, but she wasn’t mature, either. She wasn’t childish, but she wasn’t controlled in the way an adult who’d been hardened by experience was.
She was just this life force, this bundle of joy and adventure. She took the world head on, and I didn’t know anyone else who did that.
When I thought about who I was at twenty-two, I wanted to kick myself for being a fucking pervert. When I was that age, I had no idea about life. I was just a kid who played hockey, hooked up with girls, and partied like it was my job.
Now, I was a thirty-year-old man getting a hard-on for a girl that same age.
She was eight years younger than me.
Hell, when I was twenty-two, she would have been just fourteen.
I was a sick bastard.
This was the kind of shit Taylor Swift would write a song about — and not the good kind of song, either.
I tried to convince myself it was just that I felt protective of her when our food arrived, watching as she dug into her little ice cream dish as if it were a steak, using her knife and fork to cut it into petite-size bites.
Maybe it was just because Vince was one of my best friends on the team, and I knew he’d want me to look out for her.
I actually laughed out loud at that, earning me a quirked brow from Grace as I forked off the first bite of my grouper.
I wanted to protect her, sure.
But I also wanted to hike that dress up and see if she was wearing any panties underneath that thin, floral fabric.
I shook the thought away, and both of us fell a little quiet as we ate. It was only when I saw her eyes losing focus as she drew circles in the leftover glaze on her plate with her fork that I broke the silence again.
“You okay over there?” I asked, dabbing the corners of my mouth with my napkin before I set it over my plate. The bartender appeared a second later to take it, but Grace glared at him like a feral dog when he tried to grab hers, too.
She smiled at me next. “Yeah, I’m great. Why?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Didn’t you hear what I said the other night?”
“You mean your offer to kill my ex? Trust me, I haven’t forgotten. Just trying to plan out the murder weapon.”
The joke was her way of deflecting, and I ignored it. “You don’t have to pretend like you’re happy all the time.”
Her hand froze where she was still drawing designs on her plate with her fork, and she slowly lowered it before letting out a sigh.
“What’s on your mind?”
She ordered another drink before answering, sucking down half of her next martini before staring at where she held the stem of the glass between her fingertips. “I called my mom upstairs.”
“Oh?” I asked, calmly taking a drink of whiskey while I internally freaked the fuck out. Because if she told her mom she was with me, Vince would find out by morning.
“Yeah,” Grace said, still staring at her glass. “I told her I was in Atlanta. You know, just checking in so she’d know I was still alive,” she added with a note of sarcasm I didn’t miss. “Not that she’d care if I wasn’t, or notice, for that matter.”
I frowned, abandoning my drink and turning on the bar stool until I faced her.
She glanced at me and shook her head. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t say shit like that. Go ahead and tell me I’m being dramatic.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You were thinking it.”
“All I’m thinking is that I’m sorry you feel that way, and I want to know why.”
Grace froze at that, blinking once slowly before she turned to look at me. “You don’t think it’s stupid that I said that?”
“Not if it’s how you feel.”
Her brows knitted together, bright green eyes skirting between mine like she was looking for the lie. “Well… thank you,” she said after a moment.
“For not negating your feelings?” I laughed a little. “The bar is really in hell, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea,” she said on a sigh, but she was smiling again, and this time it was genuine. She took another drink before adding, “Do you have any siblings?”
I shook my head, my stomach hollowing out a bit. Sometimes I wish I’d had a brother or sister, just so they could take some of the attention of my father instead of it being fixed on me all the time. I immediately felt guilty for that thought and shoved it away.
Grace smiled, but it fell quickly. “I love Vince. I do. He’s the best big brother I could have ever asked for.”
“But?”
“But,” she conceded, like she hated that there was a but. “Living in his shadow is getting really fucking old.”
I swallowed, and before I thought better of it, my hand slid from the bar down to cover her knee.
I didn’t say a word, just squeezed her gently, letting her know I was listening. I also tried to ignore the way my hand wrapped around her so easily, the way chills washed over her arm at my touch.
“I know my parents love me,” she added after a moment. “And they’ve always taken care of me. But… like, okay, for example. My mom knows I’m going through a breakup. She also, until this phone call, had no idea where I was in the world. And when I called her? She didn’t ask where I was. I told her. And she also didn’t ask how I was doing. I mean, she did,” she amended quickly. “But not in the real way. Not in the concerned way a mother would when she knows her little girl is heartbroken. She asked in the obligatory way, just a quick pulse-check so she could tell me she was busy and needed to get off the phone.”
I took another calm sip of whiskey to keep myself from commenting on that, because I was not the kind of man who would ever speak ill of one of my friend’s mothers.
But also, fuck her for making Grace feel insignificant.
“And look, I get it, I’m an adult now,” she added. I fought down the urge to argue that point. “And it’s just a breakup, with some guy who really doesn’t even matter, to be honest. But… if this were Vince? If Maven broke up with him?” She looked at me then, shaking her head.
“She would have asked,” I finished for her.
“Oh, she would have already flown down to Tampa and set up camp in his house, cooking for him and doing his laundry and whatever else.” She waved her hand in the air to illustrate. “Dad would be there, too. The same way they drop everything to go to his award shows or his big games.”
I chewed my lip to keep from saying words I’d regret, watching as the sadness sank even deeper into her bones right in front of me.
“I just want to be someone’s priority.”
She whispered the words, so softly I almost questioned if I’d heard her right.
And those words broke my fucking heart as much as they made me grind my teeth.
“I’m sorry, Grace.”
She nodded, and for a moment I thought she might cry. Her eyes glossed over, but she quickly inhaled and blinked several times with her gaze cast up toward the ceiling. Then, she pinned me with a breathtaking smile, lifting her drink to her lips. “What about you? Do your parents fawn over you the way mine do over Vince?”
Her question socked me in the gut — almost the way her masking her feelings with that smile did. I hated that she felt she had to put that mask in place, but I understood the need for it.
She leaned on happiness the way I leaned on apathy. She chose to smile where I chose to float through my life without any agency.
We all had our ways of coping.
“Not exactly,” I answered.
Grace frowned, but before I could elaborate, I was tapped rather aggressively on the shoulder.
I spun in my seat just enough to look at the offender, a white, burly looking mammoth with an impressive beard and a smile that both terrified me and made me feel like we could be best friends.
“I knew it!” He turned back to a group gathered at the other end of the bar. “It is him!”
Their faces all lit up as they ambled closer, and I internally groaned, all while putting on my best fake smile. I could learn a lesson or two from Grace in that department.
“It is me,” I confirmed.
“Man, you’re a fucking beast,” the guy said, clapping me hard on the shoulders as if we were family. “I used to watch you even when you played for the Assassins.”
“Appreciate it, man,” I said, clapping his shoulder in return. I was just about to tell him to kindly fuck off when he waved his friends closer.
“Can we take a pic?”
He asked, but by the way they were all crowding in, I knew it wasn’t a question I could say no to.
“Sure,” I said, already standing, but it was at the same time Grace said, “Tell you what.”
Every head swiveled in her direction, as if they’d just noticed she was there. How they managed that was a magic I wanted to learn how to harness, because I was nothing but aware of that woman any time she was near.
“If you can beat me at a game of quarters,” she said, standing on the footrest of her stool long enough to swipe a shot glass from behind the bar. She slid it between me and the fan, arching a brow. “You can have a picture and an autograph. But, if you lose, then you have to pull up the Ospreys website and buy a Jaxson Brittain jersey right here at the bar.”
Grace dug a quarter from her clutch next, flipping it between her fingers with a dare in her eyes that was fixed on the guy beside me. I had to bite back a smile as I turned to face him again, watching as confusion bent his brows, his gaze flicking from me to her and back again.
She was like a little bulldog when it came to me. I’d seen it earlier when she took a picture for a couple of fans then, too. She’d glared at anyone else who tried to come close, and now here she was again, doing what she could to protect my peace.
Fuck, that turned me on in a way not even slow grinding with her in a crowded Austin bar had.
When I just cocked a brow at the man — not jumping in to say it was fine and I’d take the pic regardless — he shrugged, looking back at his friends, and then at Grace.
“You’re on.”
She grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “Fabulous. Ladies first,” she added, handing the quarter to him.
His friends chuckled a bit at that, the circle thickening around us. I heard someone call the guy Ben, so I assumed that was his name. And Ben lined up his shot, quarter balanced between his thumb and forefinger, before he slammed it on the bar in an attempt to make it bounce into the glass.
He missed.
His friends razzed him, and Grace slid the quarter toward her with a little smile. She framed it in her fingertips just like he had, and then closed one eye, her tongue sticking out as she bobbed her hand in the air.
One, two, three…
And the fourth time, she slapped the quarter down against the bar, and it popped up in a perfect arch before sailing into the shot glass with a satisfying tink.
The little crowd around us reacted in a mixture of cheers and groans, but Ben wasn’t deterred. He fished the quarter out, pulling up a seat at the bar with determination etched in his brows.
“Best two out of three?” he asked.
Grace shrugged. “Sure.”
Then, she winked at me, and the devilish smile she wore almost made me feel sorry for the guy.
Almost.
