Page 21 of Miami Ice

He stares at me, a crease forming in his brow.

“Who knows, maybe this month you’ll start figuring out who Beckham Bailey is meant to be, too,” I add, smiling encouragingly at him. “Like if you’re a white light or a multicolored light person. Do you know what you are on that front?”

“What?” he asks, chuckling. “What are you talking about?”

I grin. I like that I made him chuckle.

“What lights appeal to you for a Christmas tree. People fall into one of two camps: white lights or multicolored lights. What are you?”

“Georgie, who are you?”

“I can see you haven’t given this serious contemplation. I’ll add it to the list of things we can work on this month.”

I begin to remove my hand, but to my surprise, Beckham holds it in place, then puts his large hand on top of mine, squeezing it.

My heart does that weird, stupid flutter thing again.

“Thank you for not judging me,” Beckham says. “Believe me, nobody has judged me harder than I have myself. It was … nice to just talk without that.”

Then he releases my hand, and I draw it back, placing it in my lap. “You’re welcome,” I say.

At that moment, the door to the room opens and a different server walks in with my consommé and Beckham’s shrimp cocktail.

Just as I pick up my soup spoon, Beckham speaks. “Multicolor,” he says simply.

I don’t move.

“I can tell that question is important to you, so I wanted to give you an answer,” he explains, picking up one of the biggest shrimp I have ever seen and dipping it into cocktail sauce. “What are you?”

I put my spoon down. “You really want to know?”

His gaze meets mine, and something inside of me shifts. Like I feel … different. I don’t know how else to explain it.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I like multicolor, too,” I say.

Our gazes remain locked.

“Ah, so we pair up with the lights,” he says, taking a bite of his shrimp.

I swallow nervously.

Yes, we do,I think.

The playlist in my head abruptly stops playing “End Game” and begins playing “I Knew You Were Trouble” instead.

Because I have a feeling that’s exactly where I’m headed if this conversation continues the way it is right now.

And I feel as if I’m powerless to stop it.

Chapter Seven

Dinner wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be.

As I watch Beckham scrawl his name on the receipt, I can’t help but think this was actually … fun.

After he confided what led him to this place in his career, I stayed away from deep topics. I knew it took a lot for him to reveal that much to me, and I didn’t want to aggravate him by pushing further. Instead, I asked him more fun questions, and to my surprise, he wasn’t grumpy or irritated by having to answer them.

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