Caged (Gold Hockey Book 11) by Elise Faber (romantic love story reading TXT) 📕

and something that had his post-goal grin widening.

Probably not.

She had a million things going on at once.

But when he happened to notice the camera on him, spotting part of his face on the monitors beneath his feet, he lifted his head, stared directly into that lens and winked.

Hopefully, it was so fast that no one but Dani would have seen—he doubted this but was prepared to take any teasing tossed his way, regardless—

The ref blew his whistle.

Ethan focused on the ice.

The puck dropped.

The game went on.

And all thoughts of winks disappeared, but the notion that Dani might be watching stayed in the back of his mind, had him skating harder for those final few minutes, had him working his ass off as they wound down and the play moved into overtime. It had him positioning himself in the right place at the right time when he took his turn, accepting a pass . . . and stuffing it past the goalie.

Then as the horn blared and the crowd cheered, as his teammates surrounded him for the requisite hug, her presence stayed there.

Maybe she hadn’t seen the wink.

But hopefully, she had seen the goal.

Chapter Nine

Dani

A wink.

God, it should have been dorky as all hell.

But instead, she’d nearly swallowed her tongue, had almost gasped out loud, both somehow at the same time, which would have been critically embarrassing considering Jess was in the room with her.

She could hear how the conversation would go in her head.

Why are you choking on your gasps, oh boss of mine?

Because I’m a dumbass, who nearly swooned over a wink.

Of course, Jess would never call her oh boss of mine, but that was far from the point.

The point being, of course, that Ethan had winked.

At her.

And she’d gotten all fluttery inside.

“Fucking hell,” she whispered.

Sliding, sliding down that slope, the rope of her safety net fraying more by the second.

“I know,” Jess said, her eyes on the screen. “That move was incredible.”

“Yes.” She focused back on her job, filing the wink to deal with later, and then added, “Coop has great hands.”

Jess grinned over her shoulder. “Too bad he’s madly in love with Calle, because those hands”—she clasped her fingers together, air-kissed them, a la chef style—“though Ethan isn’t too bad. I wouldn’t mind feeling that beard between my thighs.”

This time, Dani did choke on her gasp, coughing as she attempted to capture the continuing play. “That’s”—cough—“not”—cough—“very”—cough—“professional.”

Jess grinned. “I forgot we did that here.”

Dani snorted. “You know I’m not mad, it’s just . . .”

“Shitty and reductive?”

A shrug. “Maybe.”

“Probably.” She tossed another smile over her shoulder. “I’ll be on my best behavior from here on out.”

Another snort, mostly because Jess was never on her best behavior, and that was part of the reason it was so fun to spend hours in the booth with her. “You forget I know you.”

“You forget . . .” She scowled. “You’re right.”

Dani laughed.

Then they both got back to work, playing catch up at times as they broke each play down into tiny bite-sized pieces to be consumed later. But by the end of the game—and after a really nice goal from Ethan—the Gold had won, and they were packing up.

“Nice work,” she told Jess, as her assistant shrugged into her coat.

Jess nodded. “It’ll still be nice to get an actual intern to help us with the busy work, but we’ve got a good system down.”

“Agree completely,” she said, running the clips through a backup program. “But I’m back to the drawing board on that after our last debacle.”

“We’ll be good until it’s sorted.”

And with that, they hashed out a few details for the next game—an away one—before Jess slipped out into the hall.

Dani, meanwhile, waited for the backup program to run, even though she didn’t strictly need to, since it was all automated. But she wasn’t quite ready to head out into the hall, on potential collision courses with men who winked at her.

At her.

Because it had been for her, right?

“I mean,” she whispered, swiveling in her chair, running her fingers over the keyboard, and really wishing she hadn’t already eaten her one box per day limit of Hot Tamales during the game. “We spent all day together yesterday. He said he wanted to date me. Who else could it have been for, if not me?”

“It was for you.”

Her breath caught, and she swiveled in her chair. Ethan stood in the open doorway, freshly showered and looking all too tempting.

“What are you doing?” she asked, when he stepped inside and closed the wooden panel behind him.

“If it’s my dorky ass wink that you’re referring to, that is.” He smiled, and her brain melted. Just like that.

“Ethan,” she murmured.

He sat in Jess’s chair, wheeled it close. “Do you have any video for me?”

“I—um—” She sucked in a breath, released it slowly. “I don’t have any video for you. Jess took care of that tonight.”

“Good.” He rolled closer until his knees were on either side of hers. “You okay?”

She swallowed. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were upset yesterday,” he murmured.

No, she had been overwhelmed yesterday, frustrated at herself, scared that she liked this man so much.

That was the painful and unhappy truth.

She was the problem, not him.

“I wasn’t upset at you.”

He slid a little closer. “I know.”

And . . . silence.

Good times. Happy times. Fucking awkward times.

“I’m not going to ask you out again,” he began, causing her eyes to fly up from the pale pink she’d painted on her fingernails, matching the color he’d mentioned liking on her so-called cute toes. He wasn’t going to ask her out? But what if she wanted him to?

Wanted him to?

Fucking hell.

She needed to get her head in shape before she even began considering whether or not she wanted the man to ask her, and how she might answer him, how fucking awkward she would be on a date if she did happen to agree to go with him.

God, because if she agreed to go out with him, then she would have to consider what she wore,