“Wait,” I said as we entered my apartment. I’d texted Ivy on the way over about the movie night, and she was already in the kitchen on the hunt for junk-food.

I set my bag down on the kitchen island, spinning to face Eric. “Let me get this straight,” I said. “My father basically ordered you to hang out with me?”

Eric had spilled his confession in the truck on the way over like he couldn’t stand having a secret between us despite us barely knowing each other. After I got over the shock, I’m sure I would find that endearing as hell.

“Not exactly,” he said, motioning toward the couch with a questioning glance.

I chuckled. “Of course,” I said. “I’m not going to throw you out.”

He actually looked relieved as he sat down.

“Coach just wants to keep certain players from you.”

“You said all players in the truck.”

He sucked his teeth, shaking his head. “Okay, fine. He wants you protected. Focused. You are employed by the Sharks after all, it’s not that…crazy.”

I snorted. “Sure, not being an overprotective dad at all. Or an insane boss. Brilliant.”

“Ugh,” Ivy grunted from our kitchen. “That is so Dad.” She opened and shut the cabinets a little harder than necessary, plopping down bags of chips, gummy bears, popcorn, and chocolate covered pretzels as she went.

“True,” I said, sinking onto the couch—the same one Eric’s cut body took up more than half of as he sat patiently next to me. Captain America was already queued up on the TV. “He should know better. Well, in my case, at least.” I shot Ivy a teasing look, and she flipped me off.

“Yeah, we all know your rule on hockey players,” Ivy said, grabbing three cans of soda from the fridge and setting it next to the goods on the counter. Eric shifted slightly on the couch next to me but didn’t dare interrupt Ivy. “But, this is ridiculous,” she continued, pointing at him. “Dad’s made him your official cockblocker.” She laughed, reaching for her haul. “Get it? Cause you’re a blocker?” She giggled, and I bit down my lip to stop a laugh.

Eric’s strong jaw was smooth, free of any tension, and his smile was genuine as he hopped up and stopped Ivy from picking up the junk-food-loot. “Let’s leave it at blocker,” he said, gathering up everything Ivy had set out and carried it to the small coffee table in front of the couch. “And maybe, when you feel like it, friend.”

He’d spoken to Ivy, but his green eyes were on me. The intensity in the look was somewhere between flirty-funny and sincere. It sent a chill straight through my center, which was only amplified when he reclaimed the seat next to me, the warmth from his body heating up my right side.

God, he smelled better than the sweet-haven of junk food before us. Something like crisp clean soap and fresh cut cedar. My mouth watered so I quickly shoved a handful of popcorn in it.

“We’ll see if you earn the friend title after we finish the movie marathon,” I teased after swallowing.

“How many are there again?” He asked, stretching out his long, muscled legs, settling in for the long haul. The slight action alone made my stomach flip.

Friends. Coworkers. Nothing else.

Funny, I’d never had to repeat this mantra so much before.

“Twenty,” Ivy said, sinking onto the couch on my other side.

Eric whistled, shaking his head. “That’s a long time to decide if we’re friends or not,” he teased.

I couldn’t stop the stupid grin on my face. “Maybe I’ll decide before it’s over,” I said, reaching for the remote. “If you react the right way.”

“What’s the right way?” he looked genuinely concerned which made my belly all kinds of warm.

I smirked and pressed play.

“Ivy?” He asked, glancing around me to look at her. “What’s the right way?”

Ivy chuckled and grabbed the bag of chips closest to her. “Let’s just say the only reason I watch these is to look at the hot guys. I’m not into all the comic crap like Pepper.”

I hissed at her.

“See? That’s the wrong way,” Ivy said, crunching down on a chip.

“Noted,” Eric said, “Thank—”

“Shh,” I cut him off. “It’s starting.”

Lucky for me, I’d seen Captain America over a dozen times because watching it with Eric? So damn distracting. I couldn’t stop myself from stealing peeks, checking to see if he was genuinely enjoying it or if he thought it was lame, like Ivy.

I think it would’ve been easier for me if he did.

Because, damn him, he laughed at the correct parts. He tensed during the action scenes and he did the whole guy-fist-bump-the-air-thing when Cap kicked some serious ass.

Watching him watch it for the first time was almost better than the movie itself.

“Wait, what?” Eric’s brow pinched together. “He dies? What the hell? He can’t die.”

He looked genuinely upset.

Oh, I’m so screwed. This guy is perfect.

“Just wait,” I patted his leg, the gesture meant to be an innocent comfort, but the way he stilled under my touch and planted me with those green eyes…it was anything but.

“For what?” He asked, his voice lower, more hushed.

“After credits BS.” Ivy bolted off the couch, groaning as she stretched her arms over her head. “They do it every time. Stringing you along.”

“Ivy,” I practically growled. “I’ve never forced you to watch these.”

She gave me a knowing look.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Once. I made you watch them, once. And it was clear you weren’t into them so I’ve never asked again.”

“And?”

“And, don’t harp on my happiness just because you’re not artistically inclined to understand the complexity of writing that occurs between these films.”

Ivy rolled her eyes and laughed. “Whatever. Not everyone can be as big a nerd as you.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said, standing to gather the wrappers and empty bags from the table. Eric’s hands were there, helping with the destroyed haul.

“It is what it is,” she said, prancing to her room. “I have to get ready now. Thanks for the Chris Evans pick-me-up!”

“You’re welcome!” I snapped as she shut her bedroom door behind her. I laughed, tossing the garbage in the bin, Eric following seconds after me.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” he said as we finished cleaning up—an act way too comfortable for this only being his second time in my apartment. Maybe we were on the road to being friends. So far, being around him was easy and fun. If I could just lock down those uncontrollable swooning moments…

“What?” I finally asked, snapping out of it. I had to crane my head to meet his eyes. He was so damn tall.

“Being a nerd,” he said and shrugged. “I think it’s a compliment.”

I grinned. “Do you now?”

“Yeah.”

“Goalie star, celebrity athlete. What would you know about being a nerd?”

He chuckled and raised his hands. “I didn’t realize you were president of the nerd club. What does it take to get in?” He took a step closer to me, his hip leaning against the counter.

“Um…” I fumbled for words. “For starters, knowing and loving the MCU is a must.”

He smirked. “Thanks to you I’m already on my way there. Anything else?”

“Loads,” I said. “You’re definitely not a nerd until someone makes fun of you for doing something you’re amazing at. And I seriously doubt anyone has ever given you crap for blocking a shot.”

He pressed his lips together, nodding. “Give me your keys.”

“What?”

He held out his hand, palm up. I hated that I wanted to slip mine into his, just to see what his skin felt like.

“Your car is parked in the garage, right?”

“Broken, remember? Ferocious squirrels? I haven’t had time to get it into the shop since we moved back.”

“Exactly. Keys please.”

I arched a brow at him but spun around and grabbed my keys from my bag that rested on the counter. “Now what?” I asked, dropping them into his hand.

“Follow me.”

And I did.

He jogged to his truck first, parked in the visitor spaces just outside our garage unit, and brought back a small toolbox.

“You always carry tools in your truck?” I asked, opening the garage when he prompted me to.

“Yes?” He said it like a question. “I grew up on a farm, Pepper,” he said, setting the tools in front of my dormant car in the garage.

“Really?”

“Yes. And it taught me—well, it taught me a lot of things—but one is to always be prepared.”

I bit back my smile as he popped the hood of my car, the garage light flooding over the destroyed interior. “There is that hero thing again.”

He shrugged off my comment, and rolled up the sleeves of his white thermal, exposing the inked feathers that tattooed his massive arms. He placed his hands on the car, leaning over the engine, gazing at it with sharp eyes.

A flush swept over my skin as he flew into motion, something clicking behind those green eyes like an equation finally falling together. His movements were precise, calculated, as he went from his toolbox and back, over and over, clicking and cranking and turning things about.

“You’re going to get grease on your shirt!” I protested when he’d leaned so far over his shirt had raised a bit, showing off his carved muscles, a smooth strip of skin, and more whorls of ink I couldn’t make out.

He didn’t pause in his work as he shot me a really? look.

“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not paying for a new shirt.”

He chuckled. “I’ve loved engines since I was a kid. Cars, bikes, tractors. Anything with a motor. I loved it almost as much as being on the ice.”

I took a few steps closer, watching as his hands worked, hating that I wondered how those capable hands would feel on me. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said, a bit of strain in the answer as he reached across the car for something. “If I wasn’t skating or helping on the farm, I was tinkering. And I caught flack for it. All the time.” He shifted for a moment to look up at me from where he was hunched over the engine. “All the other guys were off chasing girls and partying for the first time. Me? Work. Ice. Farm. Cars.” He shrugged. “Guess that qualifies me as a nerd, right?”

A flutter burst through me, realizing he was still on my earlier comment. I chuckled. “Mechanic,” I said, slightly under my breath.

“What?”

“Just like Tony. Mechanic. Hero. You really are Iron Man.”

He grinned and leaned away from the car, rising to his full height. A strand of his long red hair had come free of its tie, falling across the side of his face. And damn me if I didn’t want to touch it, push it back, or run my fingers through it if he ever let it completely down.

Grabbing a cloth from his toolbox, he rubbed at the grease on his fingers as he stepped closer to me.

“You won’t ever let that go, will you?” His green eyes were churning with…heat or adrenaline or maybe it was just the fumes from the car.

“Why should I?” I asked, my voice cracking the closer he came, the more he towered over me. Heat fell from his body onto mine, making my blood race.

He shook his head, lowering it slightly so he could meet my eyes. “If I’m Tony,” he said, his breath warm on my cheeks he was so close. “And you’re Pepper,” he continued, his eyes slowly trailing from my lips to my eyes and back again as he placed a hand on either side of me, caging me in. “Then, doesn’t that make you mine?”

A stuttered breath escaped my lips as his inched toward mine, hovering there, so damn close all it would take from me was a tilt and we’d collide.

Heart racing, skin vibrating, head swimming.

Eric held me in the charged moment, content to tease and wait and watch the battle in my eyes.

I darted my tongue out to wet my lips, unable to stop the motion like my body wanted to be kissed despite all my brain’s logic against the idea.

A muscle in his jaw ticked as he watched the move, his chest rising a bit faster than moments before.

One kiss wouldn’t kill me.

My eyes fluttered closed, my body arched—

Squealing tires burst the fantasy bubble, and I jerked away from the mistake I’d been about to make. Eric blinked a few times, shaking his head like he too had fallen under some spell.

The culprit car screeched to a stop, parking next to Eric’s truck.

Eric kept his gaze locked on mine as if he were trying to puzzle me out.

Heart in my throat, I shrugged, motioning to the engine with my head. “Too many fumes,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“Right,” he agreed, but there was a huskiness to his voice that wasn’t there before. “Friends?” He asked like he needed clarification.

“Depends on how you like the next movie,” I teased, happy to return to common ground. The playful smirk that shaped his lips sent a zing straight to my core, so I hurried completely out of the garage, needing the crisp air to clear my head.

Get a grip!

“Gentry?” Crosby’s brash voice hollered across the fifteen-foot space between us as he climbed out of his horribly loud car.

Be grateful! He stopped me from making a huge mistake!

Right.

“The fuck you doing, man?” Crosby asked, stopping at the lip of the garage.

Eric cleared his throat, waving a wrench at the popped hood of my car. “Playing soccer, dick. What does it look like I’m doing?”

Crosby laughed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Coach has you on bitch duty?”

Eric straightened, taking two steps toward him, but I blocked his path. “Excuse me?” I snapped, shocked that my tiny frame had brought Eric to a halt.

Crosby rolled his eyes. “Not you…Pepper?” He narrowed his gaze, searching my hair. “I meant Coach has him doing chores. Fixing cars. You clean her crib too?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him. “Coach doesn’t have him doing anything. I asked for his help.”

“Whatever. Is Ivy in there?” He motioned toward our front door.

I parted my lips, ready to tell him she’d already left with a hotter, nicer, smarter hockey player, but Ivy took that moment to open the door and wave enthusiastically at him.

I rolled my eyes.

Ivy. You picked a bad one. Again.

“Babe!” Crosby left us and spanned the distance to Ivy, his hands immediately going for her hips. “You look hot.”

Ivy gave him a light smack on the chest and paired it with a girlish laugh that induced my gag-reflex. He tugged her toward his car, and my stomach churned.

“Ivy!” I called, waving her over.

She sighed, told Crosby to go ahead and start the car, then practically stomped over to me. “Yes, mother?”

I flinched, the pain stinging every cell of my body. “You know I hate it when you call me that.” We’d lost our mother at seven. Cancer was a bitch.

Her shoulders dropped and she loosened her tense stance. “Sorry. Just save the lecture you’re about to give me, ‘kay?”

“Who said I was going to give you a lecture?”

She arched a brow at me, then chuckled when she glanced up and behind me. I spun around, finding Eric making the same look.

I flung my arms in the air. “What? Maybe I was going to tell her to tap that! Or make him beg for it! Huh? What about that?”

Eric’s eyes flew wide holding mine for all of five seconds before the three of us burst out laughing. So that didn’t sound the most natural coming out of my mouth. Sue me.

“Come on, Pepper,” Ivy said.

I swear that was her favorite freaking phrase.

“I just want you to be careful.”

“I know,” she said. “But I’m not a Shark. Or, at least, I’m not paid to be one. I don’t have the same risk you do.” She glanced at Eric again, and a flush raked over my cheeks.

The almost kiss. Damn, I was still tingling from it and he hadn’t even touched me.

Crosby honked.

The douche actually honked.

“Remember our code?” I asked as Ivy backed toward the car, her heels clicking against the pavement.

“For ten years now,” she groaned.

“Good. Use it. You know I’ll find you, anywhere. Anytime.”

She chuckled. “Not if Iron Man doesn’t fix your car.”

Eric hissed. “You too? Really?”

She shrugged.

“I’d find a way,” I assured her.

“I know. Love you.”

“Love,” I called back as she climbed into Crosby’s car. Another squealing of tires, the smell of burned rubber, and they were gone.

“Ugh,” I said, turning back to Eric. “That guy is a—”

“Teammate,” Eric cut me off. “Co-worker,” he added, smirking.

I took a deep breath, unclenched my fingers, and sighed. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He asked, returning to cleaning his hands on that rag of his. Good God, what was it about his now grease-stained fingers that was so sexy? Or maybe it was the white thermal stretched so tight across his muscled chest?

“For stopping me from bad mouthing my players,” I finally said, trying to get a lock on my hormones. He must be wearing drive-Pepper-crazy cologne. “I’m not used to the co-worker/teammate thing yet.”

“You’ll get there,” he said. “And I have free reign to talk shit on the guy, so I will if it makes you feel better.”

I laughed, the tight air in my lungs releasing. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” he challenged.

“I do,” I said, shocking myself with the certainty in that statement. I’d only known him a few days, but he was one of the good ones. The rare pro-athlete not out to use his status to get girls or booze or freebies.

Okay, so it wasn’t fair to lob them all under a stereotype, but maybe I’d been around too many not to.

The moment hung silent and charged between us. Eric threw the rag back in his box and closed it up, holding it by his side as he opened his mouth to say something but closed it last second.

God, was he thinking about our almost slip? Or was that not even a thing for him? He may be a good one, but that didn’t mean he didn’t indulge in a bunny every now and then. Just the thought was enough to have ice crystalize over the super-hot memory of Eric merely breathing close to me.

Pathetic.

“I need to snag a part from my guy at the auto-store,” he said, finally breaking the silence.

“You have a guy?” I teased.

“Naturally,” he said. “I’m well connected.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

“Once I get it, I’ll finish with her.” He motioned to my car.

I blinked. “It’s that easy?”

“For me.” He smirked.

“Ah, there is that Iron Man cockiness.”

He walked toward his truck, setting the box in the back. “It’s not cocky if it’s true.”

And damn if that wasn’t sexy. A humble, good ole’ farm boy with just the right amount of cocky in him. One who also had a tendency to save me.

Damn him.

No.

Friends.

We could be friends. It would be amazing to have a friend like Eric Gentry.

I’d simply have to keep any sort of benefits buried in an ice-cold cave with his name on it.