Page 5 of The Sweet Spot

Could this have anything to do with him thinking I’m being switched to the Philadelphia Kings? Maybe he misunderstood what he heard and really it was something about this.

I drag myself back to the conversation at hand and try to keep us at this teasing level before I lose my shit completely. “I don’t know. Should I be calling you Coach Kane?”

I remember watching him play when we were young.

The way he moved. Like he was one with the ice... He was beautiful.

He only got one year playing in the pros before he blew out his knee and never got back to the game. I remember reading that he took the job as an assistant coach at Boston University the following year. Thanks to poor choices by the existing head coach involving a coed, Deacon was promoted to head coach two years later. My best friends’ younger brother Nixon played for him. I guess he’s about to again.

I can’t believe my family just hired him.

Deacon has the decency to look uncomfortable for a flash of a moment before his smile slips back into place. “Not yet. It’s not official for a few more days.” He looks around us at the crowd of people. No one seems to be paying us any attention, but they’re there, and they’re definitely close enough to be hearing our conversation. “I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it. Not here, at least.”

“Not exactly a great place to talk without getting caught,” I agree, just as a body knocks me forward. I reach out and steady myself with a hand against Deacon’s chest as a rowdy guy who smells like he’s had one too many beers spilled on him knocks into me again.

Deacon immediately shifts, pulling me against him. “Watch it, man. Keep your fucking hands to yourself,” he growls with a low, sexy voice that makes my knees weak and my panties damp.

But Deacon was always good at that.

When I was younger, I had such a crush on him.

He was big, broad, and filled out his board shorts so damn nicely. But holy hell... teenage Deacon doesn’t hold a candle to the man standing in front of me. And that voice... that growl... they just put my memories to shame because that was way hotter than it should have been.

But when the drunk guy steps up to Deacon and has to lift his head up, and up, and up a little further, just to look him in the eyes, well... yeah. I can’t control my laugh. Because Coach Kane is six six and this guy might be five eight. And where Deacon is broad with what I’d bet is very little fat on his body, this guy looks like he’s never met a beer he hasn’t slammed.

There’s no comparison.

“Whatever, asshole,” sloppy drunk mumbles loud enough for us to hear, and Deacon’s eyes go absolutely feral.

I grab the front of his shirt and stop him from taking a step toward the guy. “He’s not worth it, and you’re about to be way too high profile to be bothered by that man, Kane.”

He takes a step closer to me, essentially blocking me off from everyone else with his big body, and a chill skirts down my spine from our closeness. “He didn’t even apologize.” Deacon bends his knees to close the distance between us, bringing our faces inches apart. “He’s not a man. He’s a coward, Brynlee.”

I drop my hand and look away because suddenly this feels a little too intimate, with a man I barely know as I sit on a barstool in O’Malley’s.

I’m not sure what to do with that because I don’t think I want it to stop.

“Hey.” He lifts my chin, and the connection zings and zaps between us like an electric current. “Where’d you go there?”

I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts and say the first thing that comes to mind. “Do you know how big of a crush I had on you as a kid?”

When Deacon smiles this time, it’s different.

This time, it reaches the depths of his nearly navy-blue eyes.

“It was pretty hard to miss it, if you want the truth.” He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, then twirls it around his thick finger, and I melt... literally melt into a pile of goo.

“Oh yeah?” I ask quietly and catch my bottom lip between my teeth as he moves his face closer to mine. “You never said anything.”

“Come on, Brynlee. You were too young.” His eyes dart between mine, and he tugs that lock of hair, sending a quick hit of longing straight through me. “And when you finally weren’t too young, your dad made sure I knew in his eyes, you still were.”

Yeah... I kinda had a feeling Dad did that, based on a conversation I overheard once between him, Uncle Sam, and Uncle Becks.

I could blame what I do next on the shot of whiskey from earlier, or my extra strong margarita, but either would be a lie.

In fact, what I’m about to do is something I wanted to do every single summer we vacationed on Block Island. Something Lindy heard me babble on and on about each year.

I reach up and drag my thumb over Deacon’s bottom lip.

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