Page 44 of Wildest Dreams

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Present day

“Mornin’.”

I jerk my chin at Hunter who’s currently shoving a couple of Fallon’s bags into the back of his truck and he gives me a nod of his head, a smirk playing on his mouth.

I narrow my eyes on him before scoping out the breakfast bags his girlfriend is peeking into, perched on the middle log around the unlit fire-pit.

“What’s up with the… smile?” I ask him, slow and suspicious.

“Who’s smiling?” he replies, full-on grinning.

I watch him for a moment and then give him a smirk of my own, stepping over the log and dropping down heavily right next to Fallon. Her little thigh against my big quad. Her soft shoulder against my hard one.

Safe to say, he is no longer smiling.

I reach around Fallon’s shoulder so that I can grab one of those breakfast doughnuts and then I push a couple inches away from her, waiting for the information.

“Well?” I ask, hunching forward and ripping into the doughnut.

Strawberry jelly, I think to myself, as I finish off the other half.Aisling’s favourite.

“Well what?” Hunter asks, shutting the back door of his truck, eyes on the small space between his girlfriend and me as he makes his way over to the fire-pit. When he reaches us he carefully eases Fallon a little further over to her right and then sits squarely between us, subtly pulverising my boot.

I snicker, give him a kick of my own, and move over to the log on their left.

“You’re lucky that wasn’t the bad ankle,” I drawl, thinking back to the injury I got right before the NCAA Championship final earlier this year. I was advised to not play it but no way could I miss our last game. “Otherwise you’d be finding your ass” – I jerk my thumb toward the lake lapping beside us – “in there.”

Hunter’s cheek tics up with humour, although he winces when he glances down at my other boot.

“It’s fine now, right?” he asks, rolling his shoulders in discomfort.

I grunt, not wanting to talk about an injury that should never have happened. It was barely an issue when it did, but I’m not so far up my own ass to know that repetitive sprains are not ideal for a hockey player. Seeing as I’ll be starting pro at the end of the summer I’m not exactly on the hunt for too many brawls, and I don’t want to exacerbate a dormant injury in the meantime.

“It’s fine.” I clear my throat. “Y’all heading to your parents’ this weekend or something?”

Hunter wraps his forearm around Fallon’s neck and says, “Yeah. We’ll be back Monday.”

Instinctively I glance across the lake, brow creasing when I see that Aisling isn’t there. She’s not up on her balcony like she has been every other morning, and the 4x4 that she’s driving isn’t parked up next to her new porch. My knee bounces up and down, wondering where she’s gone to.

Today is the first morning that I haven’t woken up before six to work out, and my chest tightens with guilt over breaking upour secret routine. I didn’t even realise how goddamn tired I was last night until I hit the pillow and went out stone cold.

Although I’ll admit, I woke up pretty fucking amazing though.

I shift on the log and jerk a thumb toward the lake house.

“She mention anything last night?” I ask, looking across at Fallon.

She blinks up at me for a moment and then gives me a sparkly smile.

“Aw!” she says. “I bet she was the first thing you thought about this morning, huh?”

I clear my throat and avert my eyes because Aisling definitelyiswhat I was thinking about when I woke myself up this morning.

“…Sure,” I say awkwardly. Then, “So did she say anything or not?”

Fallon squeals out a happy laugh.

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