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

The barest hint of ice retreated.

“Nothing’s happened,” she said. “The cost-benefit ratio of having a relationship with someone I work with is too great. I’m not doing it.”

The cost-benefit ratio?

Seriously?

His fingers tightened. “Dani.”

She stood, and he rocked back to his heels for a brief moment before he regained his balance and found his feet. “Look, you’re fun to talk to. You even make me laugh every once in a while. But I’m not the person for you, and I never will be.” She opened the door. “Now, go.”

That was utter horseshit. She was herself, and that was enough for him. He opened his mouth to tell her just that.

“Th—”

Fanny walked up. “Dani, you ready to go—” She stopped, realizing several moments too late that the office wasn’t empty. Her gaze moved from him to Dani. “Or I could just come back . . . later?”

“No,” Dani said sharply. “Ethan was just leaving.”

He met her eyes for a heartbeat, but it was long enough for him to recognize that he needed to regroup. In that moment, he wasn’t going to be able to convince her of anything, least of all to tell him what was really going on. Fucking hell, what had happened?

Fanny’s brows were lifted, but she slid back a pace, as though she were going to be the one leaving.

He glanced at Dani. “We’ll talk later.”

“No,” she said, with a streak of fierce determination. “We won’t.”

His temper spiked, something that Ethan usually controlled, and for an instant, he considered hauling Dani against his chest and giving her the kiss he should have laid on her earlier. It would be good, he knew that.

He’d actually taken a step toward her before he realized what he was doing and stopped, clenching his hands into fists and shoving them down to his sides. He could kiss her, could make her like it.

But . . . fucking hell, he also knew that she deserved their first kiss to be something of passion and need rather than anger.

Fanny’s voice intruded on that haze of fury. “I’ll just—”

“No,” he snapped then forced himself to soften his tone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m gone. Enjoy your . . .” His eyes drifted to Dani, to the muscle clenching in her jaw, her knuckles pressed in sharp relief against her skin. For as much as she wasn’t talking, he knew this was about something deep, deeper than he could get out of her in just a few moments. He needed to regroup. “. . . evening.”

And then with one more look at the woman who’d shyly woven her way into his heart, he turned and walked away.

Chapter Thirteen

Dani

“Want to tell me what that was about?” Fanny asked.

Hell fucking no.

She wasn’t going to tell anyone about what had happened in the Family Suite. Not because she felt ashamed of the way she’d reacted—which, okay, yes, she did feel ashamed because she hated that she was still a person who didn’t value herself. She should be like the other women of the Gold—strong and confident and woke and . . . lots of other things. Equality for all, including the shy, dorky girls. Confidence for days.

She should have just told Sara that she wasn’t going to set Roxanne up with Ethan.

Because he was hers.

Except . . . he wasn’t hers.

And why would he want to be with someone like her?

“Ugh,” she groaned, plunking her head onto her desk and then thunking it several times for good measure. “I.” Thump. “Don’t.” Thump. “Know.” Thump. “What.” Thump. “I’m.” Thump. “Doing.” Thump—

Or it would have been another thump, if Fanny hadn’t caught her shoulder and tugged her up.

“The team needs that brain,” she said.

Misery coursed through Dani. “I—um—I—”

“Easy on the wheels zipping around in there”—a tap to Dani’s temple—“I swear, smoke’s gonna start pouring out of your ears pretty soon.”

She shut her eyes. “I’m a mess, Fanny. I can’t even agree to go on one date without freaking out.”

Her friend squeezed her shoulder. “Let’s go get a drink.”

Dani’s lids peeled back. “You’re not going to pump me for information?”

Fanny straightened, leaned a hip against her desk. “Honestly?” A pause, gaze on her until she nodded. “You don’t look like you can handle an inquisition, bub. Let’s just get ourselves good and drunk, eat too many carbs, and then you can figure it out tomorrow, okay?”

Surprise and relief warred with that ever-present anxiety and self-doubt. “You’d do that?”

People weren’t nice to her—

Except, she couldn’t use that excuse anymore, could she?

Because without thinking hard, she could come up with a list that was plenty long of people who were nice to her, people who cared—and they weren’t just her family, not any longer.

She had Fanny and Jess. Sara and Brit and both Rebeccas and—

The point was that she was living her life like it was the past, instead of realizing she was a thirty-year-old woman who wasn’t on the receiving end of a bunch of mean-ass kids.

And it was high time she stopped giving that past power.

“Dani?” A shake of her shoulder. “Booze. Carbs. Sleep. Okay?”

Since that was better than living in her own head, letting it twist around her like barbed wire, hurting whether she moved or not, but doubly so when she moved, Dani pushed up from her seat and nodded. “That sounds good.”

Fanny smiled, laced her arm with Dani’s. “Great. I’ll drive.”

“But—”

“We’ll have a slumber party at my place, but we’ll stop by yours first, get your stuff packed for the road trip. That way in the morning, we can grab brekkie at Molly’s and come straight here to hop on the bus.”

Dani’s brows drew together because there was a lot to process in that. Starting with, “But you don’t travel with the team.”

“I’m hitching a ride,” she said. “My family is coming to the game in Chicago, and then we’re road-tripping it for a week.”

“That sounds fun.”

“You haven’t driven with my mother.” A grin. “I’ll be lucky to come back in one piece.”

Dani found herself laughing.

Somehow, after she’d spent