Gauging the Player: A One-Night-Stand Sports Romance (The Playmakers Series Hockey Romance Book 3), стр. 34

His breathing stalled during the long minutes it took her to reply.

Lily: Probably better if I come to yours. When?

Gage: Two hours from now?

That would give him enough time to spruce the place up and run out to buy drinks and snacks. What did kids eat anyway?

Lily: I pick Daisy up from school in an hour so she’ll be with me.

What he’d hoped for. At least he thought so. He pulled in a breath to quell his spiking nerves. Bring her. Perfect time for me to meet her. She can hang with Hobbes. Unless she’s allergic. Is she allergic to cats? Or she can play video games. Do you let her play video games?

Lily: Are you sure you’re not a serial killer luring us to our doom?

Gage: No, I’m not sure, but being a serial killer is bad for PR, right? Shit. Now I have to give it up before I even get started. You’re taking all the fun out of this.

Lily: LOL. I do what I can.

“And you do it very well,” he chuckled aloud.

Hobbes gave him a look that seemed to say, “You’re acting like a complete and utter doofus. You know this, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” he answered the cat, as if to prove that yes, he was a total doofus by addressing the damn thing in the first place.

And if anyone was luring anyone to their doom, it was him luring himself.

Lily crept her Highlander up an inclined driveway to a wide wood-and-stone affair nestled among tall evergreens, with peaked roofs and massive decks. It screamed of masculinity yet was warm and inviting. Like its owner.

Said owner stepped out of the front door and pointed her farther up the drive toward a three-car garage.

She parked her SUV, and he opened her door before she could gather up the bin of mail, her coat, or anything else.

His eyes scanned the inside of her car, and his face seemed to fall. “You’re alone?”

“Yeah, Derek called at the last minute and wanted Daisy to come with him and Vi to the Downtown Aquarium.”

He took this news in, stepped back from the car, and nodded.

“Is that … is that okay?” Kinda late, but still, it hadn’t occurred to her that Gage might actually be disappointed Daisy wasn’t with her. No, she must have been reading him wrong. What single twenty-six-year-old guy wants a five-year-old running around his place?

He scratched his beard. “No, that’s fine. I didn’t know what she liked, so I stocked up on juice boxes and Goldfish and fruit leather and animal crackers and … But they’ll hold.”

Oh my God! He wanted her here? And oh my God! That’s so sweet.

Lily stared at the gorgeous, adorably flummoxed man standing outside her car, dressed in soft, faded jeans, gray T-shirt under an open blue-and-gray flannel shirt cuffed midway up his strong forearms. And on his feet? Fuzzy sheepskin slippers.

She was speechless. And motionless until he held out his arms. “Load me up, Goldilocks.”

Shaking herself from her daze, realizing he wasn’t inviting her to jump into his arms, she fumbled and shoved the container at him, which he caught with an “Oof!”

Horrified, she leapt from the car. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“No, it’s fine,” he laughed as he bobbled it in his grasp. “I just wasn’t expecting it to come at me quite so quickly. What else ya got?”

She snatched her purse and portfolio from the backseat, along with a few files. “Just these.”

He thrust his full arms at her. “Throw them in here.”

She did as he asked, noticing the way his bare forearms flexed as he adjusted the load. He canted his head toward the front door, and she headed inside with him trailing behind. The place was open, spacious, with lots of angles and windows, yet it somehow maintained a coziness that reminded her of him. The foyer where they stood opened onto a sunken family room with a stone fireplace that soared to a vaulted wooden ceiling. To one side was a dining room with a rustic table and too many chairs to count. Did he entertain a lot? Behind it, open to the family room, was a cook’s dream kitchen that featured a wide window running the length of a granite counter. The view beyond was of manicured pines on a sloping hill hugged by natural ground cover.

Gage veered off in the opposite direction. “This way.”

She followed him into a manly office with lots of dark wood and an enormous desk that spanned a width of floor-to-ceiling windows, offering the same evergreen scene.

“Wow! What a view!”

He deposited the container on one end of the desk. “Like it? Me too. It’s one of the reasons I bought the place. C’mon. I’ll show you around.”

Um … “That’d be great?” When was the last time she’d been alone with a man—who wasn’t Derek—in his house? A hot man at that.

Gage arched an eyebrow at her. “If you’re going to do my PR, you need to get a feel for how I live and what I do in my downtime at home, right?”

“Makes sense.” She pulled out her chain, sliding the ring smoothly along its length, suddenly in need of its weighty comfort as she followed him out of the office.

“And if you’re a good girl and work really hard, I’ll even cook you something. I make killer wings. T.J. once asked me to marry him, he liked them so much.” Pride made an appearance on his chiseled features.

Another surprising side to this man she had so much more to learn about.

Okay. Onward. But no deets about bedroom downtime, please. Why did that make her uncomfortable? Give her a twinge of jealousy?

A little scowl creased the space between his brows. “Don’t like wings?”

Her nerves all seemed to fire at once. “No. I mean, yes! I mean, um, how long will you need me here today?”

My inner idiot’s brilliant attempt at redirection.

His scowl twisted into a question mark. “I don’t know. How long have you