Page 87 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

“Am I being kidnapped?” I asked. “How often do guys just come over and demand that I get in their cars?”

“Hey, I’ve already had to do it to you once in the past,” he said. “I know you’ll do it, so do it again.”

It felt like my heart was thawing from the slow freeze it had been in for the last ten days.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere in Tennessee.”

I shifted on my feet. “Need a little more detail than that.”

Jesse lifted his eyebrows. “You got other plans for tonight, Mason?”

I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or fight back.

I didn’t have other plans. And maybe I should have resented the way he asked it, like he was already damn sure I was going to get in the car with him.

“I know of at least three different parties or get-togethers my friends are having tonight that Icouldgo to,” I said.

I loved the little smile that appeared on the corner of his mouth.

How could he smile at me?

How could he be sopatientwith me, even still?

“I know. We all know you have a very active social calendar, and that you fill your days with it. But tonight, I want to be with you.”

My heart kicked in my chest. Jesse couldn’t possibly have a clue how much it meant to me to hear that. Six simple words that felt like so much more, when it was coming from him.I want to be with you.

Doubt had been ruling my thoughts, but when somebody point-blank tells you that they want you around? Not even my bone-deep uncertainty could argue with that.

Jesse nodded toward the passenger side door, beckoning me to get in again.

That falling feeling was back. All year, I’d been searching—but on that search, I was the one making decisions. Even if deep down, I knew I might never find what I was looking for, I was in control.

But with Jesse, thesearchingturned intofalling, and I wasn’t in control at all.

I squinted into the sun.

“Well, only because you asked so nicely,” I said.

I rounded the car and swung open the passenger side door, sliding in.

The car smelled like him. He must have just finished a practice, because he was freshly showered too, his hair still drying off. He was in a TNU hockey T-shirt, heather grey with the green TNU logo on the front. After I shut the door and put on my seatbelt, Jesse drove off back down the driveway.

“We’re going to the Hard Spot,” he said.

I frowned at him. “Wait. No we aren’t. Stop the car.”

“Fuck no,” he said.

My heart was pounding fast again, this time for a very different reason. I went from feeling like I was floating in a cloud to being dropped into a cage.

“Every time I’ve gotten a text from Kane this week I’ve practically jumped out of my skin,” I said. “Do you know how hard it is to think about your brother and then remember what we did?”

“Oh, you mean when I railed you so hard you said my name like I was a god?” he said casually.

“I hate you. You don’t have to say it like that.”

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