Skate the Line: A Single Dad Hockey Romance (Blue Devils Hockey Book 2)

I press my closed fist to my mouth and mentally cheer for the Blue Devils as they gear up for a shoot-out. Nerves fill my stomach when Rhodes takes the ice. I sit up a little taller on the bed, careful not to wake Ellie.

My heart beats as quickly as he skates.

He winds left and then right.

The cameras follow him like a hawk, and without the rest of the team on the ice, he stands out even more than before.

Come on, Oscar.

My breath hitches when the puck flies off to the top left corner of the net, and as soon as I see his dazzling smile, I silently squeal.

Yes!

The rest of the team spills out onto the ice and circles him. I smile to myself.

For as happy as I am that they won, you’d think I was on the team or something.

I peek at Ellie, who is peacefully sleeping beside me. She is going to be so angry that she missed the end of the game, especially since her dad made the winning shot. After brushing a stray hair out of her face, I place my hand on her back like before. She’s cuddled up underneath Rhodes’s comforter, which I refused to get under. I already felt like I was crossing a line by coming into his bedroom and sitting on his bed, let alone crawling beneath the covers too.

Ellie begged and pleaded for us to watch the game in his room because he has the biggest TV.

It is huge, taking up a large part of the wall in front of his bed. It sort of made it seem like we were there. Only, we are tucked away safely inside the house.

I grab my phone, angle it for a selfie, and do a thumbs-up with Ellie sleeping beside me.

I continue to watch the post-game eview of the game, where they highlight Rhodes and his winning shot multiple times. Each time they zoom in on his face, something hot whips through me.

He makes it look so easy.

His vibrant green eyes are laser focused while he glides over the ice, so sure of himself. He looks so much larger on the screen too, his pads broadening his shoulders even more. There’s a little bit of scruff on his cheeks that’s hardly visible, but I know by morning, it’ll cover his jaw.

He asked me if I thought he was attractive.

What an absurd question.

He knows he’s attractive. Why would a man like him need me to feed his ego?

Which is exactly why I lied.

My phone vibrates on my lap, and I look away from the post-game interview to read the text.

A man of few words.

Rhodes Volkova.

I laugh quietly, but then my phone vibrates again.

My cheeks heat.

Shit, I forgot.

My fingers freeze. There’s a slight uptick in my heartbeat, but Rhodes should know me well enough by now to know that I wouldn’t climb into his bed for any reason other than Ellie.

My teeth dig into my lip as I wait for his response.

It takes far too long.

By the time my phone vibrates with an incoming text, I’m convinced it’ll be an angry message from him.

Whew.

He doesn’t text back for quite a while.

I look around his room, and it definitely has a manly feel to it.

A dark wall painted a deep gray with a large TV mounted above a sound box of some sort.

It’s clean and bare. There is next to no clutter. The only thing on top of his dresser is some hockey memorabilia from past seasons.

I look at his bedside table, which must be the side I’m lying on.

Naturally.

A lamp, the remote, and a book titled Dads with Daughters: A self-help book for parenting.

Okay, that’s sort of sweet.

He may be gruff and a bit rough around the edges, but he tries his hardest to be a good dad to Ellie.

I reach over hesitantly, knowing I’m totally invading his privacy, and pull on the drawer.

My jaw falls. I freeze like I’ve been caught robbing a bank.

Condoms.

Lots of them. I start to sweat.

I peer at Ellie’s sleeping body, hopeful she doesn’t stir and catch me poking around.

The last thing Rhodes needs is Ellie going into school and handing out condoms mistaken for candy or something.

I push the drawer closed and refuse to think of Rhodes and condoms in the same sentence ever again.

My phone vibrates on my lap, and I jump.

I’m not guilty of anything.

Rude.

But also, I am not going back to the hospital.

Rhodes asked them to use dissolvable stitches on my finger simply so I wouldn’t have to go back and get them removed.

Which is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.

I put my attention back on the TV. It’s well after the game by now, so some late-night hockey recap show is on with three men wearing ties, talking stats. I perk up every time I hear the name Volkova. When they start talking about other teams in the league, I quickly shut the TV off. The last thing I want to see on the screen is the face of someone I wish to forget.

I lie in Rhodes’s bed with one hand on Ellie and the other on my phone. My sleepy eyes flutter with an incoming text.

My brows furrow.

I roll my eyes. He is so adamant that I don’t clean or do anything extra, but when Ellie is in school, what else am I supposed to do? Aside from painting and making silly little clay trinkets for Ellie, there isn’t anything to fill my time. It’s not like I can go back to how things were before and become a viral sensation with my painting timelapse videos. There may be a few still floating around on the web, but I’ll make sure there aren’t any new ones.

Not when anyone could access them.

Not when he could access them.

Plus, I don’t think Rhodes understands that this is just me. I grew up helping my nana whenever I could—or anyone, for that matter. It’s just who I am.

Another text comes through.

My heart skips a beat.

Did he mean to text that?

I glance around as if I’m going to find the answer in his room.

My attention flies to my phone with another text.

What other firsts is he referring to?

He’s typing again, and now I’m skeptical that he’s in his right state of mind.

I trap a laugh behind a smile.

I’m enjoying this side of him. Tipsy Rhodes is much more relaxed and less intimidating. I change his name in my phone to Rhodes because, at the moment, he isn’t being a grouch.

I snort and quickly glance at Ellie, hoping she doesn’t wake up.

I see his point.

I guess he isn’t the only one who feels comfortable showing some vulnerability at the moment.

I silently scoff. As if I needed the reminder.

Help me?

I wait eagerly for his next text.

The typing bubbles pop up. Then they disappear. This happens a few times before a text comes in.

Just how much has he had to drink?

My heart beats a little faster. I glance at the drawer of condoms. Surely this man, so untrusting of women—nannies in particular—is not suggesting what I think he’s suggesting.

It takes too long for him to text back. My hands sweat so much my phone eventually slips to my lap. Too many scenarios run through my head. He’s my boss, the grumpy hockey player who scowls when a woman looks at him for too long, and the father of the little girl I nanny for.

Surely, he isn’t insinuating that he and I…

I shake my head. Of course he isn’t.

Is he?

Why does the thought not make me cower?

I scramble for the phone when it vibrates again.

Hot nanny?

Are those Rhodes’s words or Malaki’s?

Why do I want them to be Rhodes’s? Do I want him to think I’m attractive?

No, I most definitely don’t.

I’m only thinking about these things because I haven’t sex in what feels like a million years.

That’s my problem.

I’m desperate for affection, and I crave things that any twenty-five-year-old woman would…like the hot, grumpy, single dad thinking she’s attractive.

My stomach drops.

I push my phone away and flop backward onto the bed as punishment.

Of course Rhodes’s cologne would waft up from the pillow.