Page 55 of Melting the Ice

And yet, during the experiment he’d been unexpectedly careful. Gentle. Considerate.

Ramsey liked to talk about big dumb football players—not that hockey players were necessarilyanykind of improvement in that area—but while Dean might be big, he wasn’t dumb.

Not by a long shot.

“You gonna smile for me again?”

Dean’s gaze was serious. Then he smiled, and it was real.

“There you go,” Brody said, trying not to stammer as the impact of it hit him hard. Glad he’d still not let go of the stupid pillow, because his dick was just as affected by the smile as the rest of him was.

“Thanks to you.” Dean’s voice was gravelly rough.

Brody waved a hand, trying to underplay his contribution. “I . . .uh . . .it was just a bit of friendly assistance.”

But he was beginning to think that wasn’t true, at all.

Sure, hedidfeel friendly towards Dean. He straight up liked the guy. But it was more, too.

He’d wiggled right under Brody’s skin when he hadn’t been looking, and now he was there and wasn’t going to let go.

It was just like Dean to be the source of the stubbornest crush in existence.

Dean got to his feet, like he was all-too-aware that Brody wasn’t going to be moving from his spot—or without his handy pillow—until he did. “Right, pretty boy,” he said as he was picking up his bag and moving through the living room. “See you tomorrow then.”

It took an embarrassingly long time after Dean’s bedroom door closed before Brody felt like he could move the pillow without exposing something about himself thathewasn’t quite ready to face yet.

Chapter Nine

“I’ve heard this isthe best lab of the whole course,” Gina said as Brody dropped his backpack on the floor underneath their shared lab table.

“Yeah?” Brody asked.

“Don’t sound so excited,” she teased. “I thought you liked this class.”

He and Gina had been in a lot of the same classes for most of the last two years.

He liked her because she never hit on him. In fact, she’d have bust a gut at the thought of it. She had a high school sweetheart, a girlfriend who was a budding track star at the University of Oregon.

“I do, I’m just tired.” Exhausted really. It was Tuesday. They’d had two games this last weekend and then of course, there’d been Saturday night—which he’d spent attempting to catch up on his lab workandstaying up too late waiting on Dean—and then Monday, when he’d had a full morning of classes before Coach B had run them through a surprisingly brutal practice.

“Aw, didn’t they tell you this year would get tougher—with the classes and your hockey stuff?” Gina looked sympathetic.

“Yeah.” And he’d ignored them because he was Brody Faulkner and he was fucking invincible.

Or hehadbelieved that.

He didn’t feel particularly invincible this morning.

He felt lost and torn andtired.

“Well, it’s a good thing that, at least, you’ve got the best lab partner in the whole section,” Gina said brightly.

“I sure do,” Brody agreed, giving her a smile. She was great, and even though he had every intention of carrying his own weight, having Gina as his partner would guarantee that he didn’t have to domorethan half the work.

“Okay, here’s the instruction sheet,” Gina said, pushing it across the desk. “Let’s review it, and then we’ll start.”

It always helped Brody to sink into the work, into the technical minutiae of the process. It was one of the reasons he’d fought so hard to keep his biology major. Hegenuinelyenjoyed science. Picking his way through things, discovering how they worked on a deeper level.

---