A Guy Walks Into My Bar - Lauren Blakely Page 0,90
the only pro.”
That should make me happy, but it doesn’t. “Dean,” I say, and I hate that I sound enamored of him. I sound like a guy with an unrequited crush.
“Fitz . . .”
“Are you . . .?” I don’t even know how to say it. Ending things? Because things were always ending, and I’ve got to remember that.
But yesterday, last night—it felt like a new start, like another chance to figure out how to do this.
He presses a tender kiss to my lips. “No. I’m not ending things,” he says, following my thoughts. Then he pulls back. “I’ve been thinking though.”
My stomach roils again, and I need to get myself under control because feeling this way is foolish. I knew a split was coming. Knew my time with him was ending. But the end, it fucking hurts.
I clench my teeth.
I will keep my shit together.
“I think you need to focus on training camp,” he says, calm but not clinical. He sounds like he’s been thinking on this for a while, turning this over in his head.
“I know. I will. But what are you getting at?”
Dean clears his throat. “On Sunday, you told me your job was the most important thing to you. The last thing I want is for you to go home and lose sight of that. You said you had this pact with your teammates because you came close last year but didn’t make it. You said your teammates are depending on you.”
“They are. That’s all true.”
Dean runs his hand along my face, and I move with his hand, like a cat seeking him out. A desperate fucking cat. That’s my fate. God help me.
“So let them depend on you.” His voice is kind, loving, even. “I think you need to focus on that when you return home, and not on me. You and me—we don’t know how to do halfway. If we start calling or texting or talking every day, that’ll knock you out of whack.”
I furrow my brow. “You’re saying this for my benefit?” Then I put my finger on what this sounds like. It sounds like a breakup line.
But he doesn’t look at me like he’s handing me a line.
“I care for you too much to be the reason you’re distracted. And I think that would happen right now.”
“You want to cool it?”
“I don’t want to,” he says, holding my face. “But I don’t want to stand in the way of your career. Your success.” He offers me a small smile. “Besides, I know you. You’ll call me in a few days. We’ll talk, we’ll dirty talk, we’ll video chat, and we’ll be getting each other off in no time.”
I groan. “You realize that sounds red-hot?”
“I know. That’s the issue. We’ll combust. But you made your pact for a reason. You need to honor it. I want you to honor it.” His hand slides down to my shoulder, along my arm. “I’m not going to be with anyone else. I can’t.”
“I can’t either.”
Dean squeezes my arm. “Do you get it? Why I’m saying this?”
I swallow roughly, getting it. “I do. You’ll be all I think about, and I need to focus on the ice, on the game plan.” I draw a deep breath. “But what then? After the season starts?”
“Maybe when you’ve done your thing, whatever this pact thing is and however it works, then call me. Text me. FaceTime me. We’ll do . . . something.”
I manage a sliver of a smile. “Something?”
My guy roams a hand over the fabric of my shirt. “Something good.”
I can smile again. The prospect of his something, someday is enough to keep me going. “Yeah? You mean it?”
Dean pushes his pelvis against mine. “Of course I mean it, dickhead.”
I laugh and slide a hand around the back of his head. “You sure?”
“Yes. And I don’t know what happens then, so don’t ask me now. I don’t have a crystal ball. All I know is I care about your career and your job and your family, and I don’t want to be the reason you can’t focus, or that your teammates toilet paper your locker or whatever it is that you guys do.”
I smirk. “You think they’d TP my locker if I got distracted by the sexy British bartender I left behind? That’s what you think they’d do?”
He shrugs. “I honestly have no clue.”
I laugh. “Maybe they’d throw eggs at my car?”
“You have a car?”
“No. I don’t have a car.” I clear my throat. “They won’t TP my