Page 54 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

For some reason I’m filled with the need to convince her I’m a nice guy. “I don’t go around doing things like that, you know?”

She leans forward onto the stage, stretching for her bag which is about six inches out of her grasp.

“Like I said, it’s fine.” Her voice is strained, maybe from the edge of the stage cutting into her middle. She’s reaching so much that her feet leave the floor.

I twist the tissue tight around the condom and shove it into my back pocket as I move toward her.

“I can get that for you.” I arrive at her side just as she replants her feet and straightens, her upper arm brushing against my chest.

A ripple of residual desire skitters across my skin as she hops away from me like I’m on fire.

Great. Maybe it’s not that she thinks I wanted a quick one and done. Maybe that’s allshewanted.

I reach for her bag and hand it to her. “There you go.”

She takes it from me, gripping it at the sides, the farthest point from my hand.

“Thanks,” she says without making eye contact.

She steps away and immediately starts digging in it. “I have to lock up, so you go first and I’ll follow you out.”

Wow, she really wants me out of here.

Now I know what it must feel like to be one of the women the guys brag about in the locker room—the ones they bang and leave without ever getting their number.

Call it competitive spirit, call it not wanting to lose, call it pride, call it whatever the hell you like, but I’m getting her fucking number.

I pull my phone from my back pocket—the one without the condom—and open a new contact.

“Here.” I hold it out to her. “Give me your number, then I’ll text you mine, so you have it to let me know when you next need me.”

Her eyes shoot up and meet mine, a flash of panic in them before she looks away, pulling her keys from her bag then yanking it up onto her shoulder.

Shit, yeah, that might have sounded bad.

“I mean, need me to help with the play. Not need me to…” Before I know what I’m doing I’ve tipped my head toward the seat she was just on, and my ill-judged, badly timed, and generally all-around painfully bad joke makes me look like a total skeezeball.

“Not that I wouldn’t want to do that again.” Not making it better. “I mean…I meant with the play.” Fuck, now I’m sweating. “Let me know when you need help withthe play.”

She stares at my phone but doesn’t take it.

It’s as uncomfortable as offering someone a high-five and they leave you hanging.

Fuck it, I’m not giving in.

Just as the amount of time we stand frozen in these positions is about to enter the excruciating stage, she takes a small step toward it.

“Sure,” she mutters, and taps at the phone, entering her number without actually taking it from me.

Then she turns her back and trots up the steps to the stage to grab her coat, which is hanging by its hood from a piece of scaffolding.

Hold on, if she had to go onto the stage anyway to get her coat, why was she struggling to stretch to reach her bag?

Is her brain as addled as mine?

Is she so distracted by the incredible thing we just did that she’s lost all sense and logic?

Her profile is to me, making the pink flush to her cheek visible.

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