Page 135 of Friendzone Hockey
“I’ve been keeping something from you. Well, it’s not as dramatic as that sounds it’s?—”
“Whatever it is, I don’t care. We’ll work through it. After I forked out thirty grand for your wedding to another man, I was fucking devastated. For a moment, I’d lost you forever.”
“I lost you forever once,” I point out. My insides shattered that day.
“That was a particularly painful entry. I spent the morning reading your journal. Crying. Philip called and said he was on his way, already halfway to Vancouver from Seattle. I still wasn’t sure what to do about us, but then I saw you walk into The Wicklow and it was like we’d found our way back to each other.I’m not tempting fate anymore. I want to be with you, only you. Forever you.”
“I want that too, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be a whole person, Stace. That’s what you seem to want. You want me healed and whole before you’ll have me.”
“What? No. No, no, no, sweetheart. Nothing like that.”
“I still can’t function without you, that gonna be okay?” I hold my breath. He might walk away after hearing everything, but he should know.
“I’ve had some realizations of my own. I can’t function so well without you either. Don’t even want to.”
“Really?”
“I’m a mess without you. I’m the world’s biggest fucking hypocrite because I spent all this time telling you how wrong it was to exist for someone, when all the while, I existed for you. You had it right all along, Dash. I just want to be with you.”
All I’ve wanted to hear is that he wants to be with me. I don’t know what to do with it now that I have.
“What about everything you said? Are you gonna hear me say something and bolt? Because there’s a lot I don’t say around you.”
“And now you’re gonna say it without end because you like to test me.” He smiles as if he’s looking forward to all that, and yeah, he’s right. I’m gonna test the hell out of him. “Bring it, baby. I can take whatever you throw at me, Dashie.”
“Yeah?”
He nods. “But I want to make something clear. There’s been no misunderstanding here. I don’t regret turning you down before, as much as it almost fucking killed me. It would have been wrong.”
I bite my lip. “It sucked, but in hindsight I agree.”
His lips find their way to my neck, and when I tell you I fucking shiver … fuck.
“I’m needy.”
“I like you needy, Dash. Too much.” He kisses my neck, sucking just a little. It’s hard to breathe. “I live for the moments I get to take care of all your needs.”
“I’m high maintenance.”
“I love maintaining you.”
“Looking after me’s gonna be a full-time job,” I promise him, and maybe I want to scare him a little. He needs to know what he’s getting into. “I second guess everything, which means I’m often paranoid and anxious.”
He stops what he’s doing to my neck to raise his brows at me. “You’re not that good of an actor, Dash. I know.”
My body starts to let go. “I’m the worst kind of jealous and possessive.” But only of him for some reason. I couldn’t give a fuck who Syd was with. “I’m deleting your Benduovr profile.”
Stacey laughs. Too loudly, if you ask me. “Believe me, I know. Still surprised you let me have a profile at all. You’re the one who made it for me in the first place.”
“I was trying to be okay with you dating!” Clearly, I failed.
“Anyway, you know what a barbarian I am, we’ll be two possessive peas in a pod.”
How jealous he gets of Hunter comes to mind, but not for long. Hot breath heats the underside of my jaw while my cock slowly fills. Those little kisses are everything, lulling me into a haze.
His hand drops to find my left hand. Fingers inspect the place where my ring used to sit. I left it on Syd’s dresser when I was getting ready to go.
Stacey pulls back to meet my gaze. “Does this mean you’re already…?”
