Joey

“There’s something different about you.”

I look up from the notes on my flight brief this afternoon—our last day of being just two chicks with a flight adventure company before Zeus’s best friend invests a shitload of cash into setting us on a path to the moon—to find Peach leaning in my doorway. “There’s nothing different with me. How’s Meemaw?”

“Flirting up a storm with the hot manny we hired to keep her in line. And you’re smiling.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m—”

She holds her cell phone on selfie mode to my face, and I gasp.

Fuck.

I’m smiling.

And I’m—dammit. I’m fucking pretty when I smile. Like Gracie. Eyes all sparkly, cheeks flushed, even my lips are rosy.

I try to scowl, and now I look like I’m a sex kitten inviting the entire hockey team to come over to my place for cupcakes.

Yeah, that kind of cupcakes.

Because I’m not smiling over a business deal. I’m smiling with fucking hearts in my eyes. And now my nipples are popping lady boners.

Fuck.

I push Peach’s phone back at her. “Stop it. You’re freaking me out.”

“Joey, my dear, you’re in love.”

I’m aware. And it’s fucking terrifying. “I said stop freaking me out.”

“Why do you think I waited until after your flight?” She plops onto the corner of my desk, bending her knee so her whole left leg is crushing my paperwork. Only her foot dangles over the edge. “Deep breaths, sugar-pie. This is gonna be okay.”

“I’m not hyperventilating.”

“On the outside.”

Some days I hate my business partner.

“You tell him yet?” she asks.

“No.”

“Joey.”

I know. I know. He’s told me he loves me dozens of times. Over me plowing through a carton of Ben & Jerry’s. When I bent over and gave him a view of my ass while we were goofing off in the gym in his building. When we’re falling asleep after one of the rarer and rarer nights that one of us sleeps at the other’s place, because he’s up to his eyeballs in hockey shit and the work keeps piling on here too as we get ready to take Chase on as a mostly silent partner.

But I haven’t told Zeus I feel the same. Because once it’s there, you can’t take it back.

The more you love someone, the more it hurts when they leave.

I press my palms into my eyes. “Regular season starts in a week.” I barely recognize my own voice. “We’re about to be pulling eighteen-hour days here, and he’ll be traveling the country until at least April. Maybe June if the season goes really well.”

And I’m terrified.

I fucking hate being terrified. I don’t know myself when I’m terrified. I’m a badass. I was the mother my sister didn’t have. Served my years in the military. Defy gravity every single week.

And I can’t say three little words to a man who’s constantly on my mind and has been since the moment he walked into that clubhouse.

Because what if he ever stops loving me back?

“No risk, no reward,” Peach says softly. “And, honey, love’s the biggest reward there is. Finding your person? That one in a billion who makes it okay for you to be you? If he didn’t walk away when me and Gracie kidnapped him with a battery-operated tarantula, you really think him being on the road is gonna change his mind about how he feels?”

I drop my hands and stare at my business partner, suddenly contemplating murder. “You kidnapped him with a fake spider?”

She doesn’t scoot her butt off my desk, cower in fear, or show the barest hint of remorse. No, she grins.

She fucking grins. “He should really talk to someone about that arachnophobia.”

“You have two seconds to get the fuck out of my office before I rack you in the lady balls.”

“See? You’re still Joey, even when you’re in love.” She slides off my desk and steps out of arm’s reach. Out of leg’s reach, and out of my leaping range too. And don’t think I can’t fucking leap all the way to the door from this desk if I want to. “And you know what happens if he breaks your heart?”

Fuck.

The thought makes my chest squeeze so bad my lungs go inside out.

“You heal, Joey. You remember the good times. You move on.” She pauses in the hallway. “And we break his kneecaps after we plant spider eggs in his bedroom.”

I stand.

We’re signing paperwork with Chase Jett tomorrow. We have forty billion things to do to get ready to take over the world.

And Peach is right.

She’s fucking right.

I love Zeus Berger. And if anyone deserves to know he’s loved, it’s a man with a heart the size of the moon overlooked by the world as a big ol’ hockey-playing dumbass.

I can do love.

I can fucking do love like nobody’s ever done love before.

I’m going to own the shit out of doing love.

“Going somewhere?” Peach asks.

“Shut up and go get your work done.”

She’s grinning again. Just like fucking Manning. “You’re lucky I—”

I stop in my tracks.

Peach is my sister from another mister. My best friend. One of only two—three—people in the world who know me well enough to understand what a big deal love is.

“I love you, Peach.”

She blinks at me, and her eyes go shiny. “Shit, Joey.” She tackles me in a hug. “Took you damn long enough, you hard ass. Make sure you’re back before the lawyers get here, because you know what I’ll do if I have to entertain those boys myself.”

“I’ll be here.” But first, I’m going to go get my man.