Page 54 of Off-Limits as Puck

“Shouldn’t you be inside with Jake?”

“He’s talking to the team physician about CrossFit. I have about ten minutes before he notices I’m gone.”

“Lucky me.”

We stand there, not looking at each other, while valets fetch cars for other escaping guests.

“That wasn’t fair,” she says finally. “What I said. About the ending being decided.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I used to think so. But lately...” She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. “Lately, I don’t know anything except that this hurts.”

I shrug off my jacket, draping it over her shoulders before she can protest. She pulls it close, and something in my chest cracks at seeing her wrapped in my clothes again.

“It doesn’t have to hurt,” I say quietly.

“Doesn’t it? We’re impossible, Reed. Everything standing between us—”

“Is just noise. Fear. Other people’s expectations.”

“Those things matter.”

“Do they? Or do we just let them matter because it’s easier than admitting what we really want?”

My car arrives before she can answer. The valet holds the door, waiting.

“Keep the jacket,” I tell her. “It looks better on you anyway.”

I drive away, watching in the rearview as she stands there, drowning in my tux jacket, looking like everything I want but can’t have.

At home, I hang up the rest of the torture suit and collapse on my couch. My phone buzzes—a photo from the team photographer. Chelsea and me on the dance floor, lost in each other, looking like we’re the only two people in the world.

I should delete it. Instead, I save it to the folder labeled “Bad Decisions.”

It’s getting pretty full.

22

His tux jacket still smells like him, which is why I’m standing in my office at 7 AM, holding it like evidence of my complete professional collapse.

“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

I spin to find Maddy in my doorway, coffee in hand and accusation in her eyes. She’s wearing her PR armor—power suit, perfect makeup, expression that could crack walnuts.

“It’s just a jacket,” I say, hanging it on the coat hook like it doesn’t make my pulse race.

“A jacket that looks suspiciously like the one Hendrix was wearing last night. When you two were practically dry-humping on the dance floor.”

“We were dancing. For charity.”

“Chelsea.” She closes the door behind her, and I know I’m in trouble. “I’ve spun a lot of stories in my career. Sex scandals, DUIs, players caught with their pants literally down. But this?This scares me.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Bullshit.” She sets her coffee down, crosses her arms. “I have photos from last night. You two looked like you were thirty seconds from ripping each other’s clothes off.”

“Photos?”

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