“I’ve already taken fifty seven practice runs according to Aunt Faith.”
“Take fifty eight,” Grant told him. Then grinned at Faith. “He’s a really good sport. Half the high school team would have dropped like flies by now. He has a future in high school hockey if his tenacity holds.”
“That news will thrill his mom.”
Grant nodded. “I’m sorry about yesterday too. I pushed too hard. I forget not everyone is as intense as I am.” He held her gaze, but the passion from the day before was absent, and Faith discovered she missed it. “But I’m not sorry about what happened. I wanted to kiss you from the first day.”
“I’m re-ady,” Caleb sang, skating restless circles. “When-ever you are...”
Faith laughed, and the uncomfortable tension she’d been feeling since Grant walked out of the store yesterday finally ebbed a little. She lifted her phone toward the rink. “Okay.”
She tapped play and followed Caleb through the drill. When Caleb sprayed the cone, Grant put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Faith cringed and covered the ear closest to her.
“Oh,” he said, laughing. “Sorry.”
She shoved his shoulder. “Are not.”
He caught her wrist, and held it. Their eyes met, and there was no freaking way she could deny the pull between them. But Grant didn’t push it. He loosened his grip and slid his hand over hers, then yelled at Caleb, “Clean up, kid.”
Without one word of protest, Caleb started picking up cones and sticks, dragging them to the bench and tucking them away in equipment bags.
Grant looked down at their hands and threaded their fingers, but didn’t speak, and the moment felt unnervingly intimate.
“I wish he couldn’t see us,” Grant murmured. “Because I’d kiss you again.”
All the feelings from the day before rushed in, mixing with new nerves, and she breathed, “Yeah.”
Grant chuckled, squeezed her hand and met her eyes. His were relaxed, but a spark was missing, and that made her sad. He lifted a hand, swept a piece of hair off her cheek, then tucked it behind her ear in a gesture so tender, it flipped Faith’s heart. “Headed home?”
Her stomach did that squeezing thing again, but this time she couldn’t tell if it was fear or excitement. “No. I have to take him back first. And I told Emma I was going to take him through the Dairy Queen drive through, which means she’ll be expecting her regular.”
He grinned. “What’s her regular?”
“Oreo.”
“And what’s your regular?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t have one. I try something new every time I go.”
He lifted his brows. “Really.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m reckless like that.”
He chuckled, opened his fingers and slid his hand against hers. “I like reckless.”
She nodded. “I figured. What’s your regular?”
He lifted his gaze to the rink. “I’d like to taste Faith Nicholas again. I didn’t get enough the first time to tell if it was my flavor or not.”
Her whole body erupted in a mass burst of tingling heat.
She hummed a laugh, and before she could think of a witty comeback, Caleb streaked across the ice, shoes and hockey stick in one hand, blade guards in the other. “I’m ready to go. Wait ‘til mom sees me.”
Grant released her hand and pushed off the wall, putting space between them as Caleb jumped and turned, planting his ass on the ledge. And he slid on his guards, then changed from skates to tennis shoes while talking nonstop about practice.
Grant egged him on, but kept looking at Faith as he shifted restlessly on his own skates. While Faith’s mind was spinning a mile a minute—ask him to come over or leave it relaxed between them? Go for it or let things end on a good note? Was she ready to jump back in to the deep end? Should she do it with this guy?
The flutter in her belly told her she was pretty sure he’d drag her under and drowned her without ever realizing. But then she wondered if she were underestimating herself. Underestimating him.