Page 41 of Miami Ice

“Have you told them this?” I ask quietly.

He scowls as the light turns green. “Of course I have. I’m not a complete ass.”

“Then you need to let this guilt go and be gentle with yourself. You acknowledged how your mistakes impacted them. You apologized. Now here you are, desperate to do better. You’re even going along with having a fake girlfriend, and that speaks volumes about how much you want to try and make all of this right. Please give yourself credit for that.”

The scowl is replaced by a look of surprise. “You think that,” he says, more of a statement than a question.

“I do. And I’ve decided that you’re going to believe it, too.”

He grins. “Oh, is that a fact?”

“Yes. I’ll have you believing in that along with the magic of Christmas by December twenty-fifth.”

Beckham groans. “You were doing so well until you threw Christmas in there.”

“I know, I couldn’t resist. Your buttons are fun to push.”

Oops! I didn’t mean to say that! His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and I feel my neck flame with embarrassment. Thank God it’s dark out and he can’t see that my pale skin is turning a deep red with that slip of the tongue.

I clear my throat before he has a chance to comment on that statement. “That’s interesting that your parents own an inn.”

“Yeah, they have a place up on the Chain O’ Lakes. I bought it for them after I signed with Denver.”

“Wow. That’s an incredible gift.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s not. The whole family sacrificed so I could follow this hockey dream. Time. Money. Everything. Hockey came ahead of everything else. None of them ever complained, but I knew it. So I promised myself I would make dreams come true for all of them once I was paid. So I retired my parents and got them the inn they always dreamed of running. I paid off Sofia’s student loan debt, so she and Aaron don’t have that responsibility anymore. They were easy things to do.”

I’m touched by the way he speaks of this. To Beckham, it’s so logical and obvious—taking care of the people who sacrificed so much and took care of him to help him live his dream. He recognizes and acknowledges what his family has done for him, and he wants to pay them back for their sacrifices. This is part of the core of who he is—and I’m drawn to it more than I care to admit.

“So Thanksgiving will be Sofia, Aaron, and the girls?” I ask.

“And Aaron’s parents. They’re coming over from Atlanta. They’re good people,” Beckham says. Then a wicked grin passes over his face. “They also have no clue about this fake relationship. So we get to share our fake relationship three times on Thanksgiving.”

“Then we have to get serious about this origin story!” I say, alarmed. “I have to be ready by next Thursday!”

“Relax, it will be fine,” Beckham says breezily, as if a million things might not go wrong with this scenario. “It’s our first Thanksgiving together, they won’t expect you to know that I hate green bean casserole.”

“You do?”

“Don’t you?”

“I’m neutral on it.”

“It’s disgusting and I hate it. There you go, you can impress them by knowing that.”

I groan. He grins.

A few minutes later, Beckham is pulling up in front of the milkshake bar. “Now this is a kind of bar I never thought I’d go to,” he quips as he turns off the car.

“It’s amazing,” I say excitedly.

“You need to get out more, Cupcake.”

I pretend to glare at him, and he laughs again.

I like the sound of his laugh.

We get out of the SUV and walk along the street in South Beach. People are still milling around on this Sunday night, sitting on restaurant terraces and coming out of bars. I glance up at Beckham, whose profile is lit up the with the glow of the streetlights and all the neon coming off the bars and restaurants we pass.

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