Page 9 of Waiting Game

Still, there’s no denying he’s all golden and smoldering—like a lazy panther who’s pretending to be a pussycat.

There’s a scar on his eyebrow that I know has to come from skating, but the rest of his face is literal perfection. Aquamarine eyes, a sharp blade of a nose, a wide mouth that looks eminently bitable, and an indent in his chin that shouldnotkeep drawing my eye.

“I want to replicate their routine,” he exclaims, sweeping a lazy hand over his head, making his golden-brown hair stick up at all angles.

Not cute.

Not cute.

Not.

Cute.

So. Goddamn. Cute.

Still, his eager answer has my brows lifting. “You want to replicate their gold-medal-winning routine? In… You booked four weeks’ worth of lessons, Cole.”

“I did. But we can up the number of sessions per week. I’m free aside from collabs with my sponsors for the whole summer.” He rubs his hands together. “Yeah, that’s what I want to do.”

Uneasily, I mutter, “Are you going to give me a one-star rating on Trustpilot if you don’t finish the routine?”

He snorts. “No. Will you go on social media and talk about me to get followers?”

The words cut close to the bone. Really close. So close that it hurts.

Once upon a time, I’d have said I could never be such a scum-sucker. I’d have hit a mofo with one of the bats in Chuck’s collection for so much as suggesting it.

But these past twelve months, my self-worth has taken a hammering.

I can no longer make that claim because Ihavedone that—I’ve betrayed someone for clout like a grade-A asshole.

Rightfully so, she cut me out of her life. Which is ironic because if Gracie Bukowski were still friends with me, I wouldn’t be so alone.

Karma—that’s what this is.

And what’s worse is that I know I deserve it.

“I would never betray your trust,” I vow with a low whisper.

After everything that happened with Gracie, it was the height of bittersweet irony for a hockey player to hit me up for figure skating lessons.

While I might share a rink with some hockey players who rent out the ice for private training time, that’s as close as I’ve come to breathing the same air as NHL players.

Until this past year.

Everything started to go wrong when Liam Donnghal—a dude I’d never heard of before that night—walked into my uncle’s bar, took a seat in a booth, and Chuck saw him before Gracie cut out on her shift early to go home with the guy.

I didn’t even know that Liam Donnghal was an NHL star. I thought he was a freak who came into a bar one boring midweek shift and ordered water.

That was the most memorable thing about him—his drink order.

I never realized that the moment he took a seat, some Pandora’s box-level shit would gain ground.

Nothing’s gone right ever since that night.

Entirely unaware of where my memories took me, Cole’s smile practically beams from him. “We have a deal then.”

I swallow. “It might not be as easy as you think to replicate the routine.”

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