Felicity

Ares’s Escalade has magically appeared in Gammy’s carport Wednesday morning, and he lets me drive after a minimal stare-down.

Well, a stare-down after he followed me to drop my car at a tire place to get me back on regular tires and not just the spare donut. I’d let him drive all day if it weren’t for the boot on his right foot, because it’s a triple espresso kind of day after staying up past one to see all of the game and I’m tired and I don’t want to deal with traffic.

I also don’t want to talk about how much I didn’t sleep.

I hate filing police reports, but it’s clearly time. And I have a buttload of witnesses from last night who all insisted I give the cops their names, phone numbers, and addresses. Chase and Sia both thought it was crazy funny when I asked if he was sure about giving his name to the cops since something clearly went down on Gammy’s front porch, though Ares glared and glowered some more. Something about being familiar with jail cells and having enough cash to post bail if defending a woman from a stalker is a crime here in southern Virginia.

Which of course it isn’t.

Copper Valley is in the South. Southern Virginia, to be exact. We’re a city with manners and some old-fashioned chivalry at our roots, though we’re known more for being the environmental capital of the East Coast. A huge revitalization went through downtown in the late seventies when some of the first green energy companies sprouted here, and the city has continued to grow with the environmental revolution. Even Doug owns a small green energy consulting firm that competes with Maren’s employer.

Unfortunately, being environmentally-friendly—my ride to work this morning excluded—doesn’t always mean sanity and friendliness in other parts of life.

“Do you know when your sister and Chase are heading back to New York?” I ask Ares. They left for a hotel after the game.

He grunts, which I assume means no. If he’s tired after the late night, he’s not showing it.

“Nick told you to babysit me, didn’t he?”

He slides me a glance that I catch out of the corner of my eye as I steer his big honkin’ monster SUV into the parking lot at the clinic, and I realize I’m starting to understand his looks.

Duh, this one says.

You’re a menace to your own dating life, it adds.

You think I’d be fucking hanging out here at a fucking rehab clinic where you won’t fucking let me use my own fucking two feet? it continues.

Either Ares is way more fluent in his head than he lets on, or those weird feelings in my chest and cooch are inspiring imaginary rage on his behalf.

Possibly some of both. He’s too good of a hockey player to be a total meathead.

“You can talk more, can’t you?” I say before my brain gets the message that I probably shouldn’t taunt a 350-pound hockey player this early in the morning after he watched his substitute score the game-winning goal last-minute right before we all went to bed. I can’t say exactly why, but despite the nod he gave the TV, I don’t think he was happy about the team winning.

That doesn’t seem like him though. It’s a puzzle.

I love a good puzzle.

Like why he doesn’t talk.

“We heard that haiku yesterday,” I vent in my Lucy voice, because clearly, I have a death wish. “Don’t go glaring at us, Mr. Grumpy Gus. We’re just curious.”

“Speak for yourself,” I vent as Tim the Goat. “I listened to my mother when she told me not to be nosy. You should too, Lucy.”

“Would you both shut up?” I add as Harold. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Grumpapotamus,” Ares says.

My heart flutters. He’s learning my puppets. “Hey, that’s a big word! Great job, Mr. Force!”

I should probably muffle Lucy a little more. But she’s so cheerful, and I need cheerful this morning.

He shakes his head like I’m nuts and climbs out of the car.

“Don’t forget your crutch,” I say in my Tim voice, since he’s probably more relatable than Lucy is for Ares.

I catch up with him halfway across the parking lot. “Do you talk more? Like with Zeus and Sia and Chase? When you’re alone?”

“You talk,” he says.

Too much is the silent end of that sentence.

“It’s why she can’t keep a boyfriend,” Lucy says for me. “She’s only charming when she does this on stage.”

He slides me another look. “Or with monkeys.”

I crack up, because he’s got me there. “You really like your monkey, don’t you?”

Another look, and this time, it’s personal, and this time, I blush from my chin to my roots. “Loki,” I add quickly. “Not your…” I wave at his crotch.

Not because I can’t say penis. I grew up with a brother who was very attached to his, and you can’t work in physical therapy without being comfortable with body parts, so I’ve had to learn to be comfortable saying penis and vagina and ulna, which isn’t dirty at all, but for some reason makes me think of vulva, which is one of those words you couldn’t say in front of Gammy without getting a lecture about STDs and being sent away to birthing camp because good girls from good families didn’t have sex and get pregnant.

And my point is, I’d really rather not think about Ares’s penis. Because now I’m remembering all that movement under his sweatpants Monday morning in my kitchen, having a hot flashback to the sex Olympics that played out in my head while he was staring through me last night, and I’m wondering just how much Nick would kill one or both of us if I made a move. Because he might be quiet, but I sincerely doubt he’s celibate. Rumors went around that he hooked up with Liv Daniels last summer. I don’t know if they’re true or not, but I kind of hate her right now.

Which is silly, because I’m not interested in Ares.

Just because he’s injured and protective and more than a little mysterious, plus solid muscle, and smells like cinnamon coffee cake today, doesn’t mean I’m interested.

Actually, it means I shouldn’t be interested. I’m reporting my ex-boyfriend for harassment today. I have terrible taste in men. Ares is my brother’s teammate.

And given what Nick likes to do to my exes…

Clearly I have some kind of hormone deficiency that makes me make stupid decisions in my love life. I need to be stronger than my hormones.

But my IQ is no match for my basic horny needs.

Ares pulls the door open for me, because he has long arms and can reach from half a block back. I feel his gaze on me as I walk in, and I glance up at him.

“Police,” he says.

I panic and look around for the cops until I realize it was an order, not an observation.

“At lunch,” I say on a sigh.

He nods.

And that’s the other problem.

Ares isn’t interested. Because I’m his job. The job my brother assigned him while he’s off the ice.

Brilliant move on Nick’s part.

Having us babysit each other.

Honestly, I’d hate him right now, except the truth is, I’m grateful to not be alone.

And even more grateful that Ares can look terrifying when he wants to.

Can I take care of myself?

Yes.

But am I going to refuse the help when the help comes in such an intimidating package that has a vested interest in being on my side?

Nope.

Not at all.

That would possibly be even stupider than dating Doug in the first place.