Same Time Next Year

Or what to do with my hands.

I mean, I know what I’d love to do with them, but I’d have to get her permission first, and she’s never going to give me that. Not when every guy in this bar is in love with her, and she could have her pick. The fact that Britta is four million miles out of my league hasn’t stopped me from threatening my teammates with certain death if they ever asked her out again, however.

Call it a moment of weakness.

My mother raised me to be an unholy terror on the ice but a gentleman as soon as I take off my skates. Like a fucking Canadian should be, she’d say. But that afternoon in the locker room when I overheard Riggs saying he planned to ask Britta to dinner at his place, my fist bashed itself into a locker, dented it—and while I had the stunned attention of the team, I told them she was off limits. No dating her. No talking about her. Nothing.

I haven’t regretted it a single day since.

Nor have I asked her out myself. Fantasizing doesn’t count.

At twenty-seven, I’m damn good at hockey. Talking to a stunning blonde with a little red jewel winking at me from her belly button and a smile that could save the world?

Not so much.

She’s running back and forth behind the bar, uncapping beers and then sliding cash into the register, but every so often she peeks over at me, as if making sure I’m still there. Does she think I’m going to miss the chance to talk to her about marrying me?

Uh, yeah. I’d have to be dead? So, I’m staying put. Indefinitely.

“Sorry, Sum. Just give me another few minutes, and we’ll go talk in the office, ’kay?” Before I can respond, she’s pointing at a group of revelers holding out twenty-dollar bills. “Another round?”

Then she’s off, her butt shifting side to side in those tight black shorts and making me feel winded. I’ve had a lot of dreams about tucking that ass into my lap while my fingers are busy down the front of her shorts. Rubbing her panties until she’s wet and wiggling around— I cough into my fist as my cock starts to thicken.

Yeah, I had those dreams while fully awake. Sometimes I have them on the sidelines or even while I’m actively taking an opponent to the boards. Might as well admit it, I’m full-time infatuated with my teammate’s half sister. And who wouldn’t be? She doesn’t take shit from anybody. She can talk hockey. She’s witty, spirited, and so beautiful she hurts my eyes.

Compassionate too. I see the way she walks girls out to their Ubers, especially when there are a lot of drunk men around. That fierce protectiveness is probably what I love about her most.

Today anyway. Tomorrow it’ll be something else.

I realize I’m rubbing the cheek where she kissed me earlier and quickly drop my hand.

Not before she catches me, though, pausing as she sets down a bucket of beers in front of a group of guys who are staring at Britta’s headlights instead of their Corona Lights. As soon as she turns her back, I give them a look that says I will hang them upside down by their ankles from a lamppost if they don’t move on—and thankfully they do.

Just in time for Britta to open the hatch at the end of the bar and wave me toward the rear hallway of Sluggers. Oh Jesus, this is it. The first time I’ve ever been alone with her . . . and the topic is marriage. Hell of an icebreaker. I damn well know she’s never going to agree to marry me, but I appreciate her turning me down privately instead of in front of the guys.

That’s the kind of sweetheart she is.

Shit. I’m going to miss being around her when I go back to Canada.

Going to miss our conversations at the bar during closing time when she lets her guard down and tells me the stories she overheard throughout the evening in that soft voice, the occasional yawn interrupting her flow.

That’s usually when she takes the elastic band out of her hair and rubs the tension out of her scalp, and I just watch those fingers rasp around in her blonde hair like I’ve been hypnotized. Sometimes she lets me help clean up, carrying the heavy stuff from the bar to the basement.

Those are the moments when we’re the only two people in the world

. . . and sometimes I swear I’m not alone in that feeling, but common sense tells me it’s just wishful thinking.

Britta uses a key to open an office door, flips on a light, and stands aside to let me pass.

“Let’s fucking go, Sumner” comes a guttural shout from the dining room.

“Lock her down, bro. Do it for the team. Do it for America.”

Out of sight, I flip them my middle finger and follow Britta into the office, ducking just in time to keep my forehead from smacking off the doorjamb. “Sorry about that,” I mutter.

“No worries. It’s standard Bandit behavior,” she quips easily, because she’s so effortlessly cool. Although she does seem a little more restless than usual, twisting a silver ring around and around her thumb. “Do you . . .

want to sit down?”

“Sure.”

I look at the two regular, human-size chairs, know I’ll never fit, and opt for the small loveseat in the corner of the office instead. Britta turns one of the smaller chairs to face me and sits down, tipping her head forward in a moment of thought, all that moon-colored hair falling around her bare shoulders. It’s almost like being on a date, except she’s breaking up with me before we even order appetizers.

“I hear your work visa is expiring tomorrow.” She wets her lips. “And they’re sending you back to Canada—”

“The guys think they’re trying to help, but they shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. I would never expect you to agree to something so crazy.”

Her half smile produces a dimple, and I almost pass out, it’s so pretty.

“Marrying a nice, thoughtful guy isn’t so crazy, Sumner. It’s just the last-minute timing of it all. Not to mention, the fact that we’d be electing to lie to the federal government, and that’s never a good idea.” She pauses, squinting one eye. “Also, I would rather die than get married. To anyone.

Real or fake.”

My throat drops into my stomach.

Bryce mentioned to me once that his half sister didn’t “do relationships.”

I wasn’t sure why. He wouldn’t tell me either.

That conversation has been sitting in the back of my head until now, but I had no idea her aversion to commitment was so extreme. “Why?”

She shrugs. Wrinkles her nose. “Reasons.”

“But marriage is so . . . great,” I say, kind of dazed.

A blonde eyebrow shoots up. “Has that been your experience?”

“Yeah. My parents have been married for thirty-eight years. They have five kids, and they act like they just got back from their honeymoon.”

Just for a moment, there is a dreamy light in her eyes, but it winks right out. “That’s lovely, Sumner. But not all marriages are like that.” She studies me, as if in a different light than usual. “Yours will be, though.

Someday.”

I nod. She’s right. I won’t let it be anything but solid.