“Have you seen the movie Magic Mike?” I asked Mark Milone and Sean Burrows, two forwards from the Rock, along with Josh. We were in the gym where we trained during the off-season.

“Isn’t that the stripper movie?” Josh asked.

“That’s the one.” I removed the clip from the bench press bar.

His mouth quirked up to one side. “Then that would be a definite no. Not my scene.”

“Bridget dragged me to see it when we started dating,” Mark said, his voice low, as though admitting this would be a major blow to his manhood.

Had I seen the movie? I might have watched a clip from it on YouTube. I might have also seen the climactic dance scene from The Full Monty.

Completely for research purposes, mind you.

“Never seen it,” Mark said as I slid the twenty-pound metal plate onto the end of the bar. “Fortunately, Becca went to see it with her friends.”

After securing the clip at the end of the bar, I lay on the bench and positioned my hands shoulder-width apart. I had already loaded the other side of the bar with another twenty-pound plate.

“Why do you want to know?” Josh asked from behind my head.

“Because I thought we could do something like that to raise money for the James Bell Youth Center.” I glanced up at Josh. It had nothing to do with him being the one who was spotting for me. It was because Josh and I were similar when it came to our grandparents raising us—or grandmother in my case. Except instead of Josh’s parents dying in a car accident, his asshole father had played in the NHL and had been more interested in puck bunnies than his own wife and son. He abandoned them when Josh was a kid. A few years later, his mother did the same thing.

So if there was one thing Josh could appreciate, it was what a lot of those kids at the youth center were dealing with.

How did I know what they were dealing with? I had done research on the center after I made the agreement with Emma. It helped kids who were at risk because of their home environments.

“We?” Josh asked, amusement in his tone and the quirk of his mouth. “You expect us—as in you and me—to dance around onstage in our skivvies?”

Still lying down, I said, “No, not just you and me. Us—as in the four of us, and anyone else from the team who wants in.”

Sean laughed. “You’ve got to be shitting us, right?”

“Do I look like I’m shitting you?”

“Not exactly,” Mark said, looking like he was doing his best to not laugh, “but where the hell did you get the idea? I mean, what did you do—wake up this morning and think that stripping in front of a bunch of horny women would be a brilliant idea?”

“Trust me,” I told him, “you don’t want to know.”

Mark glanced at both Josh and Sean. “What do you say, guys? Do we want to know where he got the idea from?”

Both guys nodded. “Yep, I’d be interested in finding out,” Sean said.

“Me too,” Josh added.

I sat up. This conversation wasn’t one I wished to have while lying on the bench. “Well, if you have to know, it was my grandmother.”

All three guys stared at me for a second, then burst out laughing.

“Are you seriously telling us your eighty-year-old grandmother said she wants to see members of the team dance onstage in our underwear?” Mark said, the first one to get his laughter under control—if you could call it under control.

“Technically, she said shirtless, but I figured if we did something like on Magic Mike, we would raise more money for the center. Women go nuts for crap like that.”

“And you think the team won’t have an issue with us showing off our junk to a group of screaming women?” Sean asked, eyebrow raised.

“Well, Becca definitely will have an issue with it,” Mark said.

“Yeah, I can’t see Holly being too impressed, either,” Josh piped in.

“We’re not completely stripping,” I said. “Our underwear stays on.”

Sean frowned. “You’re not making us wear a thong though, right? Those things look damn uncomfortable.”

“Yet I bet you have no issue if your woman wears one.”

The corner of Sean’s mouth tugged up to one side. “Damn straight.”

“No thongs.” Because as hot as they looked on women, there was no way I was wearing anything stuck between my ass cheeks.

“All right, so we’ve cleared that up,” Josh said. “Except what do you know about choreographing a stripper act? Or do you have other skills beyond playing hockey and painting murals we’re not aware of?”

Sean and Mark both looked at Josh. “He paints murals?” Sean asked.

Josh nodded. “He painted one in Lily’s bedroom when Holly was pregnant. But painting and dancing aren’t the same thing.”

No shit.

“How hard can it be?” I asked.

Right—I didn’t believe it was all that easy either. But it wasn’t like we needed to dance like professionals. I mean, have you seen The Full Monty? Those guys definitely weren’t professional dancers.

Of course they had something I didn’t have—a choreographer. But I didn’t mean the old guy in the movie who supposedly came up with the dance routine. They had someone behind the scenes. Someone who knew what the fuck they were doing.

“I don’t suppose any of your wives have ever taken dance?” I looked at all three men.

Mark and Sean both gave a hell-if-I-know shrug. Josh looked like he would be more than happy to hightail it from the gym.

“Holly can dance?” I asked him.

He nodded. “She took lessons when she was a kid.”

“Do you think she’d be interested in helping us? For charity?”

If Holly helped, how could Josh say no?

He shrugged, but unlike with the other two guys, I wasn’t letting him off the hook. Not that I was letting any of them off the hook for long. “Can you call her and ask?”

A few minutes later, I had my answer.

“You owe me big-time for this,” Josh said after getting off the phone with his wife.

“Does this mean she’s in?”

“Yes, she’s in. I believe her exact words once she stopped laughing were, ‘I can’t wait.’ So I guess that means I’m in too?”

The grin on my face? I hadn’t expected it to be so easy to find someone who could help with the actual dance.

But while that might have been the easy part, I knew the rest wouldn’t be.

Christ, my plan to get Granny off my case about having a girlfriend had better work after all of this.

I looked at Mark and Sean. “So what do you say? Are you two in?”

They exchanged glances. “Yeah, I guess I’m in,” Mark said at the same time as Sean’s “Looks like it.”

“So it’s only going to be the four of us?” Josh asked.

“I’m hoping to convince a few more guys on the team to join us,” I said.

Several hours and a bunch of phone calls later, I had recruited a total of eight teammates—including Josh—willing to join me onstage for the fundraiser. Unfortunately, not everyone on the team lived in San Francisco during the off-season, or else I might have gotten a few more yeses.

Now I just had to figure out the other details…like when and where we would be rehearsing.

At the thought of the planning involved in the event, a shudder rolled through me.

It was late afternoon by the time I returned to Emma’s store. She was at the back, where the boner-inducing, sexy underwear was kept.

“Are you planning to wear that on our first date?” I asked as she hung the black lacy number on the rack. The black lacy number that left nothing to the imagination—other than me visualizing what she looked like in it.

She rolled her eyes. “Since we’re not actually dating, that would be a no.”

Too bad. Although I guess it didn’t matter—not unless I could convince her that a good fuck or two while we were “dating” would be worthwhile…for the sake of appearing authentic.

Would Granny find out about it? Hell no. And I was sure she wouldn’t want to know all the details—unless it meant she would be getting a great-grandchild.

Did I see kids in my future one day? It wasn’t on the agenda—nor was a wife. I just wanted to focus on what was important: my career.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t a fan of kids. Far from it.

A woman walked to the fountain. Her lips moved but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Then she tossed money into the water. Plop. Plop.

She turned away from the fountain and walked over to the shelf containing mugs.

“People actually believe their wishes will come true just by throwing coins in the fountain?” I asked Emma. If only it was that easy. I’d do that in a heartbeat if it meant winning the Stanley Cup.

“It’s not about wishing for something. It’s about the possibility of finding love. Most people realize it’s not as easy as simply tossing the coins into the water—but it’s nice that they want to believe it. And thanks to them, I’ve raised enough money to buy paints for a mural at the youth center. Now I’m working on raising money to pay for an artist who can paint it. I would do it myself, but a monkey can draw a better stick man than me—which doesn’t bode well when it comes to creating a mural.”

“What kind of mural are you looking at doing?”

“Something bright and colorful, with rainbows and butterflies and dolphins.”

“Why those?”

“They make me think of hope, especially the rainbow and butterflies. And the dolphin symbolizes protection and joy and inner strength and cooperation. I figure with everything some of those kids have gone through, that’s all important to them.”

Without giving her a clue of what I was thinking, I switched topics. “I rounded up volunteers for the Magic Mike part of the fundraiser.”

Her eyes widened. “You found hockey players willing to dance on stage shirtless?”

“What—you didn’t believe I could do it? I even found someone willing to help choreograph the routine.”

Wow, Emma’s eyes really could go wider. Time for me to make the most of this.

“And since I went beyond what you were expecting, it’s no longer enough that you pretend to date me.” I leaned in closer, my words warm against her ear. “I think we should also have sex.” Hey, it was worth a try.

She gasped in a soft breath. “You do, do you? And why do you think that?”

Was it my imagination or did anyone else notice how she shifted closer to me so our bodies almost touched?

“Because nothing says, ‘I’m happy in my relationship’ like a satisfied look on your face. Then my grandmother will have no doubts that we’re dating.”

Emma turned her head to me. “Are your acting skills that bad? Is that really the only way she’ll be convinced?”

“No, but it will help.”

“And what if we can’t convince her?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions,” I said, fighting the urge to knot my fingers in her curls and kiss her senseless.

She smirked. “Yes, I do. And I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer the last one. What happens if we can’t convince your grandmother that we’re dating?” She stepped back and removed another hanger with sexy lingerie on it from the plastic crate on the floor.

Good question. “I won’t talk to the building owner about your store.”

“What about the fundraiser?”

“No, that’s still happening. Which brings me to why I’m here. Where are you going to hold the event and when?”

“To be honest, I have no idea. I didn’t believe you’d actually pull it off. I thought you were kidding.”

I shortened the distance between us. “Sweetheart, I’m never kidding when I promise something.”

I glanced around the store. “We’ll need somewhere with a stage. I might have an idea. Give me a few days, and I’ll see what I can come up with.” I started to walk away but then tossed over my shoulder, “Our first date will be on Sunday. At Granny’s apartment for dinner.”

Then I walked out the door—to see Wes.