Page 54 of Body Check

“So was this a friendly meet-up?” he asked.

“More like a friendly meet-up over drinks that turnedveryfriendly when we got back to her place,” Leah mumbled, her fair skin a little pinker than usual. “And didn’t end until this morning.”

“Oh. That does sound friendly,” Dakota admitted.

She shot him a faint smile. “No complaints here.”

“Other than the fact that she lives across the country?” Dakota guessed.

Leah waved it off, wrinkling her nose. “Nah. We were terrible in a relationship. The sex part we were good at. The actual communication bit, not so much.”

“I hear that,” Dakota said with a sigh. In the end, wasn’t that what torpedoed most relationships?

They fell silent for a few minutes while Dakota ate his food and sipped his green tea.

Leah slurped her coffee, poking uninterestedly at her burrito.

“What didyouget up to last night?” she eventually asked.

Dakota jerked in surprise. “Uhh. Well, I uh, went for a dip in the spa on the roof.”

“Nice. I’ve heard it has a great view.”

He thought about Gavin’s voice in his ear, the thick, hard slide of his cock between his thighs, and the sting of his teeth on his shoulder and had to resist the urge to touch that spot and press on it, feeling the tender ache.

“It was incredible,” he said, but he wasn’t sure which of those things he was even talking about. Maybe all of them.

He stared down at his half-eaten bowl of oatmeal, glad he wasn’t prone to blushing.

“Hey, so, not to pry, but what was up with you and Danny the other night at the club?” Dakota asked quietly. “You seemed pretty into each other.”

He hadn’t had a chance to ask her yesterday.

Leah’s glance darted around the room. “Uhh, I dunno. We had fun dancing is all.”

“Really? Because it seemed like a little more thanfunto me.”

“He’s a great guy but weworktogether,” she hissed.

“The organization doesn’t have a no-fraternization policy, right?”

“No,” Leah said slowly. “But like, thereisthe Code of Conduct we signed.”

Dakota winced. “There is that.”

“And like, let’s be honest, I’m a woman, which makes this extra complicated. There aren’t exactly a lot of female coaches in pro hockey. I should be setting a good example, not screwing around with my co-workers. I mean, you’re a dude, but you have a sister in the head office and you’re gay. Youmustget how much more complicated that makes things for me. We don’t get to play by the same rules straight men do.”

Dakota swallowed hard. “Yeah, I get that.”

As if on cue, Gavin walked in the room.

Dakota’s heart leaped, feeling like it was beating in his throat for a moment, before Gavin swept his gaze across their table, sliding across Dakota like he wasn’t even there.

Dakota frowned down at his half-eaten bowl of oats and yogurt again, stirring it, because he wasn’t sure he could manage another bite with the sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. “I guess itwouldbe really risky to get involved with someone like that.”

“I mean, don’t think I’m not tempted,” she said with a sigh as she glanced over at Danny, who was laughing about something with Jesse and Kady. “He’s great and all. I just don’t want to get myself into a bad situation, you know? Or screw it up for the rest of the women who want a role in the organization.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dakota said quietly as Thad arrived a few minutes later with a couple of the other people who did the team’s social media. “Trust me. I know.”

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