Page 13 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

We actually are going to fuck tonight, aren’t we?

It was like a sudden intuition—like when I spotted the perfect play on the ice from a mile away, and I already saw myself scoring before it had happened.

You still totally, completely want me to fuck you, Hot Mess, and you’re not even good at hiding it.

He held the cherry over me.

But just as he was moving it toward my lips this time, I saw someone walking out the back doors of the patio.

A moment later, Kane stepped out, looking over at us. Kane’s eyes traveled down in an instant, seeing Mason about to lay the cherry onto my tongue.

Mason turned to see Kane and jumped like he’d seen a goddamn bear.

“Holy fuck, Kane—”

The cherry fell out of his hands and he lurched backward, his back hitting the pinball machine. The drink in his hand tipped.

“Oh—”

I reached a hand out to help steady him, but he overcorrected, and the glass fell out of his hand. It hit the pinball machine, sloshing the whole drink all over the top. Half of it drenched the front of Mason’s shirt in a big, wet splotch, and half landed on the wood planks of the patio, forming a pool below our shoes.

“Fuckme, that is cold,” he said softly, his eyes wide as he looked down.

“Hey, look at that,” Kane said, grabbing the glass. “It didn’t break. What’s with you, Hot Mess?”

Pink slashes had formed on Mason’s cheeks.

“Sorry,” Mason said.

“Don’t sweat it,” Kane said. “I’ll go grab you a refill, if you can handle it this time.”

“No refill,” he said. “I, uh, didn’t need it, anyway.”

“Never heard you saythatbefore,” Kane said.

He looked between the two of us. I wondered if he was going to say something. There was no shot he’d seen me grabbing Mason’s wrist earlier, right?

But before he could say anything, one of the younger bartenders stepped out the back doors and tapped his shoulder from behind. He was saying something about a pisssed-offcustomer who thought he was getting the wrong price on a drink special.

“The special was two-for-one, notfour-for-one,” Kane said, turning to the guy, instantly switching back into bar-owner mode.

He nodded at us before heading back inside, leaving us alone on the patio again.

Mason looked at me like a guilty puppy. “Okay. I’m going to head home.”

I turned my head. “What? Already?”

He looked defeated. “It’s about time to head back.”

An hour ago, I would have given anything to get out of having to talk to a stranger, but now I was disappointed that he wanted to leave.

I’d been looking forward to… I don’t know what.

Maybe I’d just liked his company.

“What happened to beating my ass in pinball?”

“My shirt’s soaked. And you probably have the highest score in pinball this bar will ever see, anyway.”

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