Page 105 of Slap Shot

“It’s not that,” I say. “I told you it was?—”

“Nice.” Hudson spins his hat backward and carefully cuts the tomato into thin slices with a smaller knife. I’m momentarily distracted by both movements. “I remember. I was there.”

“I don’t want to say it was a mistake, because I don’t regret it, but I don’t think we should do it again. We have a good thing going right now, and adding a physical component to it could mess things up. Is it okay if we acknowledge the kiss happened but agree to move forward as friends?”

“Is that what you want? To be friends?”

Ten minutes ago, when I marched in here, I was certain it was.

Now when I look at him, I’m not so sure. It would be so easy to pull him to me again. To press my mouth to his and spend longer learning what he likes, learning what it would take to get him to say my name again, but Ican’t.

It’s not about me. It’s about my job and the stability it’s bringing to Lucy’s life.

I get to tuck her in every night. I get to help with homework and see her in the school’s talent show. I’m around for the big moments I missed when I was working around the clock in Vegas, and that’s more important than a second kiss or something more.

“Yes,” I finally say.

There’s a flash of disappointment across his face before it melts into a smile with a dimple and some eye wrinkles. Marvelously beautiful and marvelously not mine.

“Then that’s what we’ll be. Friends,” he says. “And there are no hard feelings, Madeline. I’m a big boy. I can handle a kiss without it breaking my heart.” His hip bumps mine. “Don’t hide from me anymore, okay? I want to see you.”

He is big, I think, and I blush a furious shade of red at the memory of how hard he was—thick and long, too—under me.The strain of his cock against my ass and how I desperately wished he slipped his fingers up my shirt.

“I promise I won’t hide,” I say.

“Good. I was starting to think I’m a terrible kisser.” Hudson laughs, and the noise fills the room. It fills a part of my soul, too. “Thanks for not damaging my ego.”

“You’re definitely not terrible. You… you took my breath away.”

“Huh. Sounds a lot better than nice,” he teases, and I blush again.

“Don’t make me regret this conversation.”

“I’m sorry. Last thing, and we’ll never talk about it again,” he says, and his voice drops to something soft and sweet. “I was worried I made you uncomfortable, and that was never my intention.”

“You could never make me uncomfortable,” I say, meaning it. “Plus, I kissed you first.”

“You did.” There’s pride behind his words. Smugness I haven’t heard from him before, and it makes me warm all over. “I wasn’t going to stop you. If you wanted to keep going, I would’ve been okay with it.”

I haven’t let myself imagine what would’ve happened if we kept going, but now I am.

Clothes off.

Hands on each other’s bodies.

His mouth, everywhere.

“I’ll remember that.” I whack a head of lettuce with the knife a little too aggressively to help kick my thoughts to the curb. “Now that that’s out of the way, what should we talk about?”

“Wow. Not a subtle segue there at all, Galloway. I’ll help you out.” Hudson drapes a dish towel over his shoulder. “If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

“Chili.”

He looks up, surprised. “Really?”

“It’s my comfort food. I had plans to make it while you were gone.”

“That was my mom’s favorite food,” he says, and my heart aches.

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