There was a long pause. “Are you high? Did the doctor give you some kind of new pain medication for your nose?”
“I’m being serious.”
“You obviously don’t have any idea what you’re saying right now.”
“Yes,” he gulped. “I do.”
Could he do it? Say he had legitimate feelings for her, and he wasn’t going to sleep with anyone else? He’d already said it. Actually, he was already doing that. Now he just wanted his grand gesture returned.
She’d gone quiet again. The buzz on the other end of the phone was prominent as he waited for her to finally answer. She’d have to answer eventually.
“You would do that?”
A gush of relief fell out of him. “Again. A little insulted by the shock in your voice.”
“I’m not shocked, Henrik, it’s just—we barely know each other.”
“You’ve known me since you were eighteen.”
“Yeah, but how much of that time did we actually spend getting to know each other, or even spending time together? We hated each other, remember?”
“No. You hated me. I was under strict instructions to stay the hell away from you.”
“That still doesn’t mean this is a good idea.”
“You’re right,” he breathed, unwilling to recall all the times he had to force himself to turn and walk the other direction when he saw her coming. “I may not know your favorite color yet, or even how you take your coffee, but there are some things I’m certain about when it comes to you.” He checked the door again, just to be safe. “I know you’re an amazingly loyal friend, because you and I both know Drew doesn’t trust easily. You’re supportive and caring, because I’ve watched you cheer on your brother too long. I know I’ve never felt comfortable enough to talk about my mother with anyone else.”
The sound of shocked silence was deafening.
“I’m not asking for some kind of commitment in stone, Leila,” he continued. “I’m just saying it’s obvious that both of us are harboring some more-than-friend type feelings about one another that we don’t know what to do with right now. We owe it to ourselves to have time to figure it out.”
Silence. Dead, suffering silence.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you hooking up with anyone,” he blurted out. “The thought bothers me to an extent that is embarrassing. On occasion, you’ve implied that you feel the same about me. I mean, honestly, do you want me bringing girls back to my apartment? You running into them in the hallway in the morning?”
There was a pause, and then an audible, annoyed huff. “No,” she said stiffly, “I would prefer not to have that happen.”
“Then we have an understanding.”
She let out sigh, obviously overwhelmed. “This is crazy.”
It was more than crazy. It was real.
“Maybe, but if it helps us sleep at night…”
She scoffed. “I highly doubt you were losing any sleep over whether or not I’ve been hooking up with random guys since I’ve been here.”
“You’d be surprised.” It had crossed his mind more than a few times. “Check my game stats for that night you gave your ticket to Drew’s friend. Zero points. Zero hits. All I could do was sit there and think about whether or not you were out with some random guy.”
“I spent the evening in my pajamas combing through ads for a job,” she said, chuckling.
“Now you tell me.”
She laughed again, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re still the only one.”
Something tightened in his chest.
“It does, actually,” he confessed, knowing it was difficult for her to admit anything to him, especially when it involved her feelings. “And I was being honest when I said I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
She made an almost hysterical laughing sound. “Okay, so that’s settled. Neither of us will be hooking up with anyone else.”
“Just to clarify,” he smiled into the phone, “that includes no hooking up with each other, right?”
“Yes, Henrik. That includes each other.”
“Okay,” he breathed, probably for the first time since they started the conversation. “Good. I can totally handle that.”
And he could.
“I trust you.”
The emotion those three simple words evoked was astonishing. It shocked him. “Thank you.”
He smiled like an idiot and was grateful she couldn’t see the inevitably goofy look on his face.
“Just one other thing,” he added, since she was being agreeable for the first time in her life.
“There’s more? Maybe we should write this down. Get lawyers involved.”
“You’re cute, Blakely. Real cute. I’m trying to be serious right now, remember?”
She cleared her throat. “Okay.”
“Since we have this new understanding, I’m going to need you to be available next weekend,” he told her, his voice a little more chipper than he meant it to be.
“For what?”
“To be my date for the Hockey Pays Forward Charity event the organization hosts every year. I’m required to go, and everyone brings a date.”
“Henrik. I’m sorry, but—”
“We can go as friends if you want. Just don’t make me show up alone.”
“No. It’s not that. I would love to be your date, but I promised Austin I’d go with him. Apparently, since his favorite wingman has been blowing him off, his datebook has suffered. However, I suspect it’s his passive aggressive way of keeping me from going with you.”
He flopped back on the bed. “Austin knows me too well.”
And he did. Austin knew he’d ask her. He’d been trying to corner him for weeks, and now he’d won. He would have to talk to him. That meant he would have to admit things. Things Austin already knew. It would be ugly, and painful.
“I’ll take care of it,” he finally decided.
Leila laughed into the phone. “Good luck with that.”
“Thanks,” he sighed, slumping down on the bed.
He would need it. He silently wondered if he should wear his new face guard.
Chapter 19
HENRIK’S CONVERSATION
The team was on the way back to Manhattan, a three-hour flight ahead of them. Henrik sat in the back of the team’s private jet with Austin, Sam, and one of their other teammates, Callen, playing a game of cards to pass the time. They were halfway through their first game when Austin finally looked over at him and nudged him with his knee. “So, how long are we going to sit here and act like you didn’t ask my sister out on a date?”
Sam’s panic-stricken gaze immediately shot up to him. Henrik remained calm. At least, calm on the outside. His insides took a dive to hell and back. He studied the cards in his hands. “So, you talked to her?”
“This morning. Mentioned something about going to buy a dress for the charity event, and then asked if I’d talked to you yet.”
“Yeah, about that…” He finally looked up and gave Austin a sympathetic slap on the back. Very casual and very calm. “You’re going to need to make other arrangements.”
Austin paused, staring daggers across the small space at him. “Excuse me?”
“I’m taking Leila,” he asserted with a small smile, his foot bouncing wildly beneath the table. “She’s my date.”
Austin threw his cards down on the makeshift table between them, leaning forward to glare into his eyes with a fury Henrik had never witnessed from his best friend—at least, not directed at him. “Are you trying to fuck my sister, Rylander?”