Breaking the Ice Read online

  I got up from my seat and walked off, with all intentions of heading back to my safe little table in the corner of the playpen; maybe I’d even call a cab and split for home altogether. I already got Casey talking to Simon. She could do quite well on her own from here on out.

  “Hey, whoa! Avery, hold up!” Zac was on my heels, and I couldn’t decide if I was angry or overjoyed about it. I never expected that he’d bother to follow me, so I guess what I was feeling most was surprised. He put a hand at my elbow, which caused me to turn toward him abruptly and cross my arms over my chest. I was sure the move came off as haughty, but I was only trying to recover from the electric shock his touch had sent down my skin. Dammit.

  “Where you running off to?”

  I gave a quick rub to my arms and answered, “Look, Zac. I know all too well what this scene is about, and it’s not who I am, okay? I’ve been around guys like you my whole life.”

  “Guys like me?”

  “Yeah. You know… Guys who aren’t… serious.” Not serious was the most passive way to categorize a lot of those NHL guys. I figured it was a less antagonistic label than colossal man-whores.

  His lip twitched at that, before he tucked his chin into his chest, lowered his eyebrows, and said in a deep baritone, “I can be very serious.”

  I found myself sputtering out a laugh in spite of myself. He may have been an arrogant ass, but there was no denying that he was funny. And extremely easy to look at.

  Before I could fumble over the right thing to say, he launched into an apology. “Hey look. I didn’t mean to freak you out back there. I was just goofing around.”

  I ran a hand over my hair and met his face. Wow. In this light, I could see that his eyes were a beautiful, brilliant green. Like freshly-cut grass on a summer’s day. Bright and earthy, with a splash of gold near their centers.

  He looked sincere enough, and I supposed I did overreact a little bit. “It’s okay. I’m sorry for getting so snotty so quickly. I’ve been around these guys too long, I guess. I’ve seen too much.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

  I ignored his leading question. For one thing, it wasn’t as though I was going to offer details, for godsakes; I was quite sure he was well aware of exactly what I meant anyway. For another, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a conversation with the guy. I was at eye-level with the white, long-sleeved T-shirt straining to contain his sculpted chest and stretched taut around his bulging biceps. His face was chiseled out of solid marble but there was an intriguing scar across his chin which added a welcome ruggedness to his beautiful features. He was so gorgeous, it was almost painful.

  And I’d been staring at him for far too long.

  I grabbed a lock of my hair and averted my eyes, trying to make it look as though I was simply inspecting my split ends while I changed the subject. “So… you’re new?” I asked, like an idiot. Of course he was new. Even if Simon hadn’t just told me about him, I already knew most of the guys on the team, and I most definitely didn’t know him.

  “That I am.”

  “They playing you?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on his heels, staring me down from his commanding height. “I get my fair share of ice time.”

  “Guess I haven’t caught too many games this season.” That was the truth. While I grew up loving the game, I’d just been so caught up in my new college life that hockey wound up on the backburner.

  His lips quirked as he replied, “You should. I’m quite the sight to behold.”

  “Wow. You’re way too modest. Show a little hubris, for godsakes.”

  His gorgeous eyes crinkled at the corners as his face split into a wide grin. I wondered if the teeth were actually his or if he just had a really good dentist. “Hey, look. I was truly only screwing around before. Let’s go back over to the table. No need for you to cut your night short just because of this.”

  He was right. It took me an hour to get ready and we’d only been there for thirty minutes. It would have been a waste of an evening, not to mention a really cute outfit. What did I really think I was going to do anyway? Stomp out of the bar like a big baby just because of one little offhanded remark? I’d heard much worse out of those guys over the years. Why did Zac’s comments ruffle me more than theirs ever had?

  I wondered if everyone had seen my hasty attempt at an exit and wasn’t much looking forward to slinking back to the table with my tail between my legs. But there was Zac, my supposed antagonist, offering the olive branch. His apology gave me an easy enough excuse to go back to my evening without losing face. I stood there debating my next move way longer than was necessary, until I caught Zac’s adorable grin and hesitant eyes. “We cool?”

  My shy smile must have been enough of a capitulation, because he put a hand at my elbow and escorted me across the room, saying, “Good. I’d hate to think we won’t be friends just because I said something offensive.” I was busy trying to downplay my racing heart at his touch during our walk, and also attempting to dismiss the dirty looks I was receiving from his female entourage as we approached, so it caught me off guard when he added, “But if you plan on hanging out with me, you may need to get used to it.”

  Man, the guy really knew how to blow an apology.

  He deposited me back at Simon’s table, and then promptly left me flat while he made his way back into the crowd.

  “You two make nice?” Simon asked.

  “For now,” I replied flatly.

  “What’s the matter? He get pissed when he couldn’t talk you into bed?”

  “No,” I laughed out, trying to seem unaffected. “It wasn’t like that. He didn’t even try.”

  Simon shot an incredulous look at me and huffed out, “That’s a first.”

  Newsflash: ZAC WAS A DOG. Not that I hadn’t already figured that out on my own, but Simon’s comment basically affirmed my assessment.

  Great.

  I guessed Casey must have found her voice while I was gone, because she piped in with, “He is simply adorable, Avery. You should work on that.”

  I didn’t appreciate that she was not only calling me out in front of Simon, but that she was treating my dating life like it was a job. Work on that? Falling for someone should be easy. There shouldn’t be battle lines drawn within the first minute of meeting someone. And judging by the girls fawning all over Zac at the present moment, I realized I was in no position to try and fight through that army in order to make it to the front lines.

  Besides, I was only going to be home for four short weeks.

  There really was no point in trying.

  Chapter Two

  JANUARY 1996

  I was caught up in the holidays the first few days I was back home, so Case and I didn’t get the chance to go out again until almost two whole weeks had gone by. She and Simon had been talking nonstop over that time, and they’d even had their first official date a few days before. So, on Simon’s request, we chose Johnny’s as our destination for the night.

  Because of that, I’d have to admit that I was more than a little excited about our impending evening plans. It had been ten entire days since the last time we’d been to the bar, ten entire days since I was hit with the bag of bricks otherwise known as Zac McAllister.

  We were at Johnny’s for all of two minutes before I spotted him, and another thirty before I realized I’d been staring like some sort of lunatic stalker. Of course he was the focus of the crowd surrounding him and of course that crowd consisted mainly of women. He devoted a hell of a lot of energy toward flirting with them, and I found myself wondering which one he’d pick to take home at the end of the night.

  Truth be told, I found myself wondering what it would be like if he picked me.

  Not that I had anything to worry about regarding that unlikely scenario. He hadn’t even said hello yet, and I started to get the impression that he didn’t even know I was alive, much less in the same room. When you spend most your life tr
ying to be invisible, the fallout is that sometimes you succeed. Basically, I wasn’t the type of girl to just go barging into the middle of his group of admirers and demand his attention. I didn’t have any right to it anyway.

  But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like to look.

  So, I sat and I watched and I waited. I sipped my drink. I chatted with my friends. I made small talk with anyone who came by the table to say hi. I listened to the band.

  And I watched. And I waited…

  And I realized I was being pathetic.

  I’d been there for two whole hours, and the majority of that time had been spent waiting to find a way to talk to Zachary McAllister.

  I took a look across the table to see that Casey and Simon were enthusiastically sucking face, and I felt like a third wheel.

  I needed air.

  Excusing myself from the table, I made my way to the side door, pulling on my hat and gloves in the process. There was a fenced-in patio outside with a bar that was only opened during the warmer months. Last summer, Casey and I indulged in a few too many Fireball shots and we had to call a cab to take us home. Live and learn.

  The booming music from inside was merely a garbled hum out here, emanating from the building along with the excited frenzy of the people that occupied it. I brushed off the light dusting of snow to take a seat on one of the stools, turned my head up to the sky, and let out with an expended sigh. I watched my breath curl into a cloud of smoke over my head, and when it dissipated, I caught sight of the starry night above.

  At first I was glad to be alone, but then the warring thoughts took over my brain. I loved being home, seeing my family, hanging out with my friends. Heck, I even liked coming to Johnny’s with the team. I’d always leave my house feeling optimistic about the evening ahead, even though by the end of it, I always left deflated. As much as I liked hanging out with the guys, there were times I wished it wasn’t always as their mascot. I was bored living life on the outskirts. After years of being friends with Casey, you’d think some of her outgoing nature would have rubbed off on me, but I was still the same old Avery Brooks I’d always been. Was I destined to spend my life on the sidelines?

  A burst of music blasted out in a brief crescendo, and my attentions turned toward the door.

  Zac.

  “Hey! You cutting out so soon?”

  I gave a rub to my arms and answered, “Nope. Just taking a break. You?”

  “Nah. I just noticed you were gone and—” He shot a hesitant look over his shoulder into the club, trading alternating looks between the crowd inside… and me. He seemed to be considering his options. A slight thrill ran through me as he let the glass door close behind him and came over toward the bar. Apparently, between whatever was so fascinating inside and the company that awaited him outside, he’d chosen me. I knew I shouldn’t have cared, but the fact that I was all alone out there with him kinda made my heart stop beating.

  I swiped a gloved hand over the stool next to mine, and Zac sidled onto it, facing sideways. He draped one elbow over the back of the seat and the other on the bar, his knees pointed in my direction. “It’s kind of dangerous to be out here all by your lonesome.”

  “Why?” I asked, jerking my head toward the door. “All the predators are in there.”

  That made him chuckle.

  He leaned in a bit closer and offered in a conspiratorial whisper, “Don’t fool yourself, baby. I’m the biggest threat there is.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  I was already aware of the way he joked around and figured he was only kidding. And thank God for that, because I was feeling too vulnerable to be able to deal with him if he was flirting with me seriously.

  “And yet you’re out here with me instead of trolling the club for your next victim. Taking it easy on the helpless prey this evening?” I asked, unable to hide my smirk.

  “For now.” His eyelids lowered, shooting me a dirty look, daring me to doubt him. Then his lip quirked into a crooked smile as he said, “I just thought I’d come out here to let you know what everyone’s been saying behind your back.”

  Oh, this should be rich. “What’s that?’

  “Nice ass.”

  Zac couldn’t contain his smile as I snorted out a laugh. “Ouch. You sure can toss out a line. Did you study some sort of handbook or something?”

  He ignored my jab and reached his hand over to pinch a corner of my scarf, rubbing it between his fingers as he changed the subject. “What is this? It’s nice.”

  “Yeah, no. It’s wool,” I said flatly.

  “Huh. Coulda fooled me. It feels like girlfriend material.” He raised his eyebrows and shot a wide grin at me, nodding his head, obviously impressed with himself.

  That he managed to blindside me yet again with such an obvious pickup line had me cracking up. “Stop! Okay. You roped me right into that one.”

  “Yeah. Can’t believe you fell for it. You must get stuff like that all the time.”

  “Sometimes,” I admitted.

  “Lemme hear one.”

  “What, a line?” I asked, incredulously. “What’s the matter, Zac? You run through your whole catalog already tonight? Need some new ammo?”

  He lowered an eyebrow at me. “I don’t use lines.”

  “What are you talking about? You just tossed out like thirty of them!”

  “I don’t use them seriously.”

  “Oh really? Then how do you manage to leave with a different girl every night?”

  The question slipped out before I realized just exactly what I was revealing. Great. Now he knew how aware I was about his stupid sex life.

  Thankfully, he didn’t offer commentary on my slip and just answered the question. “Like I said, I don’t use lines. I use honesty.”

  Ha! As if!

  My expression must have relayed my skepticism, because Zac said, “Don’t believe me? Fine. Let’s play a game. You give me the worst pickup line you ever heard, and I’ll give you one of my sure-things. We’ll take turns.”

  Gleaning some insight into Zac’s world-class hookup skills was too tempting an offer to pass up. But even still, I couldn’t believe he was prepared to invite me into his brain. “You serious?”

  He smacked his bare hands together and gave them a rub, cupping them against his mouth and blowing before answering. “Sure am. You ready? You can go first.”

  As a living, breathing, single woman who found herself out amongst some red-blooded males on occasion, there was no avoiding the cheesy pickup lines. It’s not like guys were constantly throwing themselves at me, but I’d heard enough bad come-ons to play along.

  I shifted in my chair, nodded in his direction, and asked, “Let me ask you something first. Did it hurt?”

  Zac stopped rubbing his hands together and stared at me with scrunched brows. “Did what hurt?”

  “When you fell from Heaven.”

  He groaned, half in pain, half in laughter. “Oh man. That’s bad. You got me. I didn’t realize we were starting.”

  “Payback’s a bitch. Now it’s your turn.”

  He didn’t even wait a beat before lowering his lids to half mast and eyeing me up and down. The look on his face was thrilling enough, and I could see how any girl would be helpless at the mere sight of those green eyes traveling along her person. Hell. I melted into a puddle easily enough.

  He leaned a bit closer and raised a hand to my cheek, tucking a stray curl back under my hat, his fingers swiping behind my ear and raking down the line of my hair to the ends. He gave a playful tug to the strand in his grasp before twirling it around his finger, refocusing his attention back to my face. His touch sent shivers through me as his eyes bored into mine, and I was panicked at the thought that he was going to kiss me. My fight or flight response had taken an extended vacation, and I was left staring into those smoldering green eyes as a small smile broke from his beautiful lips, sending my heart racing into overdrive.

  And then, God help me, he added his honeyed
voice to the equation. “What’s your sign? Because I think we should fuck.”

  “What?” I immediately found myself busting up; that was so not what I was expecting him to say. “Oh my God, that’s horrible,” I laughed out, not sure if I was grateful or heartbroken with the recent turn of events.

  He laughed back. “Your turn.”

  I was still trying to recover from the lightning bolts running under my skin, but the fact that he had me laughing managed to loosen me up a bit. I guessed he wasn’t going to take this game as seriously as I thought. No matter. This version was way more fun, and a hell of a lot safer.

  Hunching my shoulders like a caveman, I offered in my sleaziest Jersey-guy voice, “That’s a nice outfit. It would look betta on my bedroom flaw.”

  “Cute shoes. Let’s fuck,” he shot back.

  “You have beautiful hair. I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like sprawled across my pillow.”

  “Hi, I’m Zac. Wanna fuck?”

  “I’m sensing a pattern here.”

  We both cracked up as he shrugged. “I told you. I’m honest. Women respond to that.”

  “Yeah, sure, women who are looking to…” Even though he’d just dropped a handful of F-bombs in my presence, I couldn’t find a way to say it back to him. “…looking for the same thing as you, you mean.”

  He stopped laughing at that, giving out a heavy breath as he turned in his seat. “Yeah, I guess.” He put his forearms against the bar and focused on his clasped hands, surprising me when he sighed, “Actually, I don’t know what I’m looking for, Ave.”

  My heart sped up involuntarily when I heard him say my name. And heck, not even my name, but his very own personal nickname. Ave! Oh God. It sounded so much better coming from his lips than it should have.

  I was so elated at his words that it took me the extra second to recognize the weight behind them. I broke out of my own euphoria when I realized what he’d said and registered his defeated pose. His shoulders were slumped and he was swirling the snow on top of the bar into a little pile with his fingertips. I never imagined he was capable of being so… contemplative.