Page 98 of Make the Play

I scrub a hand over my face, feeling the weight of the morning skate still clinging to my limbs. I was on the ice for two hours. I should be exhausted, but the second Zoe’s voice rings out from her bedroom, I snap to attention.

“Oh, forfuck’ssake!”

I make my way down to her door but stop mid-step—becauseholy shit.

She’s standing in front of her mirror with her back to me, wearing a sheer black bralette and a tiny silver chain skirt that’s not evenattemptingto qualify as clothing. It glints in the light, just enough to make my spine fuse itself together.

Her legs—fuck, her legs—go on for miles. Smooth, bare, tan. She shifts her weight and my knees damn near give out.

My pulse, which had just started to come down from practice, slams into my throat. Every inch of me goes still. And hard.

I’m standing here in sweat-soaked workout clothes, bag still slung over my shoulder, and Zoe Carlson is dressed as my goddamn music video fantasy at eleven a.m. on a Saturday morning.

I clear my throat. Loudly.

“Zoe.”

She jolts and whips around, leveling me with an expression that could kill a lesser man.

“Jesus! Where did you come from?!”

“Ilivehere,” I grit out, immediately locking my gaze on the ceiling becausewhat the fuck is this outfit?

Zoe groans and flings another top onto the growing disaster pile on her bed. “Great. Amazing. Whatever. You can fuck off now.”

I don’t move. Ican’tmove. My feet are nailed to the floor and my dignity is bleeding out fast, because this woman is standing two doors down from my bedroom looking like a fucking fever dream, and she has no idea what she’s doing to me.

I drag a hand through my hair, still trying to recalibrate my entire existence. “What are you doing?”

She whirls around, fully exasperated. “Trying to find an outfit!”

“For what?”

Her eyes spark as she meets my gaze. “The Enigma Festival.”

My brow furrows. “What the hell is that?”

“You don’t know Enigma?”

“Should I?”

She stares at me, flabbergasted, then steps forward, already glowing with excitement. “Okay. First of all, you are uncultured. Second of all, it’s an underground music festival thing. One night only. No one knows the lineup until they get there. No one evenknows where it isuntil the day of.”

I blink. “The fuck do you mean, no one knows where it is?”

Zoe’s grin turns feral. “It’s based somewhere on the outskirts of Denver in the woods. Totally secret. You only find out where it is by doing a scavenger hunt to uncover the clues.”

“So let me get this straight…” I pause, squinting at her. “You’re planning on going to some random-ass wilderness location, in the middle of the night, with a bunch of sweaty, drunk, half-dressed festival freaks?”

She beams. “Yes.”

“By yourself.”

“My friend from work bailed, and Charlie’s too knocked up or whatever,” she says with a shrug, like that solves everything.

Absolutely not.

“Yeah. No.”

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