A Russian proverb says that falling in love is like a mouse falling into a box—there is no way out. That’s it. Once you’re in, you’re trapped, a prisoner at the mercy of beings larger and more powerful than you, poor little mouse, will ever be.

My grandmother, a tiny babushka with the thick Russian accent of a 1980s movie villain, remembers every proverb she’s ever heard.

Especially the ones about love.

Love is the reason she was married at fifteen and widowed at sixteen when her young husband was killed in a brawl outside her dormitory the night they had planned to steal away from Moscow. Love is the reason she defected from the Soviet Union, and her ballet company, during a tour of Paris when she fell for a charismatic French painter who would later leave her for a younger dancer when Baba was six-months pregnant.

Love is the reason she married a man from Seattle less than a year later—this time for the love of her daughter, who she had vowed to provide with all the best things in life. And through twenty-eight years of marriage to the only grandfather I’ve ever known, she was a good and caring wife.

But she never loved him like a mouse falling into a box. She’d learned her lesson about that kind of love.

“Love will love a goat, my sunshine,” Baba would warn me in hushed tones when I was small and my mother and father were fighting in the other room in French, the only language they spoke that I couldn’t understand. “Love will kiss the goat’s face and call it the most beautiful face in the world. Remember that, and look before you jump into the box. Better to be a good friend than a lovesick mouse.”

Even at six, I understood the main thrust of her argument—my dad was a fucking loser goat my mother never should have kissed, a fact proven when dear old dad disappeared shortly before my seventh birthday, never to return, or pay a dime of child support.

But the rest of Baba’s message took some living to sort out.

By the time I realized she was encouraging me to look for a long-term relationship based on friendship and mutual respect rather than passion, Renee had already lost the baby, blamed me for her pain, stolen the new car I’d bought Baba with my Badger signing bonus, and run off to Vegas to marry a Columbian drug lord she’d met at her Zumba class.

True story.

Apparently even Columbian drug lords enjoy dance-based cardio.

Since then, I’ve dated—even semi-seriously once or twice—but I’ve never landed in the box. I’ve danced around the edge of the box, stared at the shimmering floor far below, even leaned over to sniff the sweet air inside, but I’ve never fallen in.

Like Baba, I know better. The air may smell sweet, but it will eventually start to reek. And then the damned box will run out of oxygen, and I’ll be trapped at the bottom, sucking air and praying for the love spell to break before I suffocate.

Needless to say, I’m not looking to get romantically involved. And even if I were, I know better than to pursue a woman simply because the sex was hot the one night we spent together. Yes, Mandy was fun, witty, wild, and a wet dream on the dance floor. Yes, she has melted-chocolate eyes, the kind of silky brown hair that makes my fingers itch to be buried in it, and a body that won’t quit, but…

Shit…

That body, with the curves for miles, seriously won’t quit.

And I can’t quit stealing glances at the maid of honor over the heads of the couple getting hitched. That black dress with the plunging neckline shows off spectacular cleavage produced by her even more spectacular breasts. I’m supposed to be focused on my friend and teammate and the woman he’s promising to love for the rest of his life, but I can’t stop thinking about Amanda naked in my bed, calling my name as I made her come again and again while I devoured her pussy like a starving man given a jar of honey and a spoon.

She was delicious, addictive, and by far the sweetest, sexiest thing I’d laid hands on in longer than I could remember.

That night as we fell asleep tangled in sheets that smelled of her and me and all the fun we’d had, my alcohol-and-orgasm-buzzed brain had dared to think about something more. Something more than a night or a summer. Something more than casual dating or friends with benefits. After just a few hours, this woman had me at the edge of the box, leaning over so far I could have brushed the smooth, wooden floor with my fingertips.

There was something about her that spoke to something in me, and I was positive she felt it, too. So positive that when I woke up to find my bed empty and not so much as a note or a phone number left behind, I was certain I must have missed something. I searched every inch of the house, looking for a scrap of paper that had drifted beneath the bed or been blown under the couch by a morning breeze.

I even moved the refrigerator. Just in case.

But there was no note, no number, no sign that the girl with the suck-you-under-her-spell eyes wanted more than a one-night stand.

After a few days of waiting, hoping she would swing by to pick up the sunglasses she’d left in my car, I came to terms with the fact that I was never going to see her again, and put her out of my mind.

It was for the best, really. I was a month away from turning thirty, and starting to feel my age on the ice. The last thing I needed was a sexy distraction to blow my focus heading into my eighth season as a Portland Badger.

But now, here she is, less than three feet away, standing up at the wedding of our mutual friends. All this time, we’ve been one degree of separation from each other, poised for another inevitable run-in with the chemistry that flairs like flames drenched in kerosene every time our eyes meet.

As the man officiating the wedding pronounces Nowicki and Diana husband and wife, Amanda’s gaze meets mine, locking and holding as I telegraph through the electrically-charged air—We should talk. Don’t you think?

Oh dear, her eyes respond. Yes. Maybe? This is complicated…

My lips curve. Only as complicated as we make it, mishka. We could think too hard and talk too much. Or you could come home with me and let me make you come all night long.

She swallows, throat working as her eyes go wide with a mixture of anxiety and temptation. It’s the look of a woman who went fishing for a minnow and hauled in a twenty-pound trout. I get it—I certainly didn’t accept an invite from Saunders to hit 80s night at a cheesy dance club thinking I was going to meet someone like her.

But I did. We did.

And the fact that we’re both here, thrown together by the surprise wedding of friends so close they’re practically family, means something. If there’s one thing my grandmother instilled in me aside from a hearty respect for the destructive power of love, it’s that a man can’t outrun destiny.

Fate brought Amanda and I here, and fate won’t be satisfied until we live out whatever story it has planned.

After the ceremony, I give Mandy space, retreating to the bar to grab a beer while she’s congratulating the happy couple, but I intend to corner her at the earliest opportunity. At least for the moment, my need to get her back in my bed is stronger than my respect for the dangers of the love box.

But when I turn back to the room, beer in hand, there’s no sign of the woman in the black dress. She’s vanished, the way she did the last time she danced into my life and my bed, only to turn to smoke by morning.

“Have you seen the maid of honor?” I ask Saunders, who is busy ordering a double shot of scotch to drown his recent breakup blues.

“Which one?” He jabs a thumb toward Brendan, our team captain and big brother of the bride. “The guy in the tiara is right there.” He shakes his head with a disgusted sound. “I can’t believe he wore that. The pictures are going to be all over social media before he gets to the parking lot.”

“I meant the brunette,” I say, old enough to know there are worse things than wearing a tiara for your sister’s wedding. Like saying no to something that makes someone you love as happy as that tiara made Diana. “The one in the black dress.”

Saunders growls low in his throat. “Don’t, dude. Just don’t. Trust me, it’s the girl-next-door types who break your heart the hardest. They have no fucking mercy. None. At all.”

“I hear you.” I clap him on the shoulder, encouraging him to hang in there as I move away from the bar.

I prowl the party, search the empty hallway outside the skybox, and duck my head into the employee-only area, scaring the girls there sneaking a cigarette before they bring out more sandwiches, but there’s no sign of Amanda. I return to the gathering, intending to ask Diana for more information on her friend, but abort the mission at the last minute.

If fate truly intended this chance meeting to lead to something more, it would have. If not, then tonight must be destiny’s way of assuring me that I’m better off without passion in my life. It’s a sign that I should look for a good friend I’d enjoy fucking to ease the loneliness that’s made me a cranky bastard the past few months, instead of waiting around, secretly hoping lightning will strike a second time.

I don’t need lightning. Lightning leads to the kind of heartbreak Saunders, with his sad, puppy dog eyes and tumbler of scotch, can’t begin to fathom.

In the early days after Renee left, I couldn’t even drag my body out of bed to fetch the vodka from the freezer. I was so fucking low I didn’t even want to get drunk. Alcohol would have done nothing to numb my pain. The little girl we were going to name Sofia, after Baba, was gone. My fiancée had made it clear I was shit she couldn’t wait to scrape from her shoe. And the happy future I’d been so sure of had crumbled in my hands, leaving only ash, bitter and sad, streaming through my fingers to blow away in the wind.

Thinking of those days, and how close grief came to wrecking everything I’d fought for since my mother sent me to boarding school in Minnesota so she could follow Mr. Bad Idea Number Two to a sheep farm in New Zealand, is enough to cool the heat seeing Mandy set loose in my bloodstream. I’m four, maybe six years away from retirement—if I’m lucky and one of the increasingly creaky parts of my body doesn’t give out sooner—and I want to go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Besides, commitment to my team and my career has been proven to bear fruit. I’ve been a finalist for the Norris trophy the past five years—even won it once—and am on track to setting unbeatable defensemen records for the Badgers. All the relationship game ever got me was a battered heart and a bucketful of wasted time.

My head back in the game where it belongs, I say goodbye to my teammates, congratulate Nowicki and Diana on their marriage, and head for my car. I’m halfway across the staff lot, pulling my keys from my bag, when I spot a figure sitting on the ground beneath one of the lights in the adjacent parking lot. Even with the harsh light from above casting her face in blackness, I recognize Mandy immediately.

I’m already over the barrier between the lots, on my way to ask if she’s okay, when she tips over, slumping onto her side. By the time I reach her still form, I’ve got 911 on the line.

“She’s breathing, but she’s out cold,” I relay in a tense voice after I’ve given the dispatcher our location, my heart hammering as I check Amanda’s pulse and find it swift, but strong. “I don’t see any obvious sign of injury, but I didn’t see her until she was already on the ground.”

“An ambulance is on the way, sir,” the operator replies. “Just stay where you are, don’t move the patient, and keep her still and calm if she regains consciousness before help arrives.”

“Got it.” I brush Mandy’s bangs from her pale forehead and gently probe the back of her skull, but there’s no lump. Not a head injury, then—thank God. I’m debating whether to call Diana and tell her what’s happened when sirens pulse through the still night. A moment later, spinning red lights are visible at the edge of the lot.

I wave my arm in a wide arc to make sure the driver sees us. A few heartbeats later, the ambulance skids to a stop beside us, and two paramedics leap out with a stretcher.

“Are you a friend?” A young woman with a long brown braid motions me out of the way as the other medics lift Mandy into the back of the ambulance.

“Yes,” I lie. “I want to come with her to the hospital.”

The woman nods. “All right, but you ride in the bucket seat by the doors. Buckle up and stay seated. We need you out of the way in case we need to treat her during transport.”

I agree and hurry into the ambulance behind the brunette, buckling in as the doors slam closed and Mandy moans so softly I can barely hear her over the siren. But I catch the sound, and my gaze is fixed on her face as her lashes begin to flutter.

“She’s waking up,” I say, but the brunette is already leaning closer to Mandy’s prone form.

“Amanda?” She puts a gentle hand on Mandy’s arm. “Amanda can you hear me? You were found unconscious outside the arena and are on your way to the hospital. Can you tell me what happened, honey?”

“Oh no, not again,” Mandy mumbles, brow furrowing. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, sweetie,” Brunette says kindly. “We just want to take care of you. Do you have any health problems we should know about?”

“Low iron levels,” Mandy says in a weak voice. “But I’m taking supplements. My doctor said the fainting spells should pass in a week or two, probably by the time I’m in my second trimester.”

“So you’re pregnant?” Brunette asks as my inner voice lets out a long, low fuuuuck me, and silently admits that Mandy was right.

This is complicated. Crazy complicated. Even assuming she and her baby-daddy aren’t together, I’m definitely not up for dating a soon-to-be mom. Relationships are hard enough when there aren’t any innocent lives on the line.

Mandy sucks in a breath, and her hand flies to her ever-so-slight baby bump. “Yes, I am. Is the baby okay? I remember I sat down when I started feeling dizzy so I shouldn’t have fallen far. And nothing hurts. But I shouldn’t have left the party alone.” Her eyes squeeze shut as she adds in a thick voice, “If she’s hurt I’m never going to forgive myself.”

“We’ll get you and baby checked out at the hospital.” Brunette motions to the shorter male paramedic, who makes a note in the paperwork he’s filling out. “But I’m sure you’ll both be fine. Do you know how many weeks along you are?”

“Twelve,” Mandy says, the word a swift and sudden shock to my system.

At my fancy boarding school, I excelled at hockey first, literature second—years of listening to my grandmother’s tall tales from the old country had made me a lover of stories—and math fifth or sixth, somewhere behind music appreciation and study hall. But you don’t have to be a math genius to take today’s date, subtract twelve weeks, and come up with a hot night in mid-July, which Mandy and I passed in very close company.

I’m running up against the truth hard and fast when Mandy’s gaze suddenly shifts my way, as if she can hear the wheels screaming in my head as the gears turn too fast.

Our eyes lock for the second time tonight, and her jaw drops. “You… Oh dear.”

Those three words transform my suspicion into certainty.

The baby is mine.

The baby is mine and simple is no longer an option.

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