Page 17 of Best Kept Secret
MILLIE
Iknew moving to New York meant that I would eventually come face-to-face with him. But I’d been planning on delaying the inevitable for as long as I could. Right here. Right now. I am nowhere near ready for this. And why does he have to look so damn good?
Stupid Emily. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love her. She’s adorable. Beautiful. Kind. Selfless. Hell, I love her almost as much as my brother does. But fuck her. Right now, my soon-to-be sister-in-law can eat a bag of dicks. I’d been lying on the couch, blissfully watchingFriday Night Lightsreruns, minding my own damn business when Emily strolled in, turned off the television in the middle of a shirtless Tim Riggins scene, and told me to go get ready for the game. I tried to play the jetlag card, but apparently a flight from Texas to New York doesn’t qualify. But if you ask me, that cross over from Central to Eastern time really takes it out of you.
Now, here I am, in some out of the way Hell’s Kitchen dive bar,subjectivelyjetlagged and more than a little tipsy after a few too many draft beers, forced to stare into the same kaleidoscope eyes I’ve been trying to forget for the best part of the last few months.
Of all the shitty trades in the NHL, you’re telling me the hockey gods couldn’t have done me a solid and schlepped him off to some struggling team on the other side of the damn continent? Karma’s always been my archnemesis.
“So, when do you start your new job, Millie?” Fran asks, pulling my attention away from he whose name will never again be uttered from my lips.
“Monday. It’s been a really fast turnaround.” I smile, trying so hard to ignore my nerves.
“How exciting.” Fran grins, and it’s infectious; she’s super sweet. I only met her tonight at the game, but I really like her.
“My little sis is gonna be the next Wolf of Wall Street,” Dallas hollers.
“Dude,” the guy,HappyI think is his name, scoffs. “Did you even see that movie?”
Dallas looks thoughtful for a moment. “I mean, obviously without all the drugs and fraud and shit.”
I roll my eyes, shaking my head at my brother with a light laugh, but then I make the grave mistake of glancing left, meetinghisunwavering gaze yet again, and I force myself to look down at my beer, my stomach knotting. He shouldn’t have this effect on me. Not after everything. But he does, and I fucking hate it.
I stand and smooth down the front of the Dallas Shaw jersey I’m wearing, grabbing my purse.
“You okay?” Emily touches my arm.
I nod. “Just going to the bathroom.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You want another beer, sis?” Dallas shouts from where he’s waiting by the bar with Robbie, Fran’s boyfriend.
I throw him a thumbs up before turning and heading down the darkened hallway that leads to the restrooms.
Washing my hands, I take a look at myself in the questionably smudged mirror. My eyes are a little bloodshot and red-rimmed, my hair is limp, and the tinted moisturizer I applied earlier is almost entirely worn off. Of course, I look like a dog’s breakfast while in the vicinity of possibly the most attractive man ever to grace this godforsaken earth. The same man who took my gullible heart and tore it into shreds. Love that for me.
Rolling my eyes at my own thoughts, I dig around in my purse and find a scrunchie at the bottom along with a tube of lip gloss that’s probably past it’s shelf date. Pulling my hair back into a messy low braid, I secure it with the scrunchie before smoothing some gloss over my lips. I mean, it’s barely an improvement, but at least my lips smell like cherry.
With one last quick assessment of myself in the mirror, I turn and walk out, but right as I the unlock the door, it opens in on me, and I’m pushed back into the rest room with such force, I almost fall on my ass, saved at the last second by a big hand grabbing my waist and holding me steady. Catching my breath, my jaw falls open the moment my gaze meets a set of stormy eyes glowering down at me, his presence all-consuming but in the least threatening way.
It takes me a moment to come to, but when I do, I realize what’s happening, and with all the strength I can muster, I push him off me, taking a much-needed step back. Of course, he barely stumbles, but he at least has a semblance of decency to stay back, holding his hands up in surrender.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” I hiss, looking around. “This is theladies’room.”
Logan just stares at me, his gaze scrupulous as it trails over me from head to toe, lingering a little longer on the New York Thunder logo plastered across my chest. He drags a hand down his face, his broad shoulders sagging with a racking sigh. “You blocked my number.”
I scoff, folding my arms across my chest. “Yeah, like, two months ago.”
“Can you please just let me explain?”
I shake my head. “No.”
With all the audacity of a man, Logan huffs an exasperated breath, like I’m the one in the wrong, and I swear my palm itches with the need to leave an impression of itself across his cheek so damn bad.
Cocking his head to the side, his own arms fold across his chest, which only emphasizes his broad shoulders and the bulging biceps that strain the white cotton of his shirt. I avert my eyes from his tauntingly delicious arms to his face. But with the slight scruff that lines his jaw and those lips—Lord, those lips—his face is just as distracting, so I choose then to look down at the grimy floor.
