The Christmas You Crash (Going Rogue #2)

Chapter 29

twenty-nine

RYDER

The plows have the roads cleared by the 27th, but the service Coach hired to clear the cabin’s drive doesn’t come through until the afternoon of the 28th. The tow truck driver arrives shortly after to drag my car out of the ditch and up to the cabin.

“What would you have done if you were alone, and they couldn’t pull you out right away?” Lexi asks me. She crosses her arms over her chest and watches me give my car a once-over. One hip is popped out to the side, and she’s got a smirk ticking up the corner of her mouth.

“Guess I would have had to live here,” I say with a shrug. “Become one with the wilderness or some shit.”

She shakes her head at me. “You’d be living off canned beans, since you didn’t bring any groceries with you.”

I would have. She’s not wrong.

“Guess you got lucky, getting snowed in here with me, huh?”

Closing the distance between us, I wrap my arms around her and tug her against my body. She tilts her chin up to look at me, those verdant eyes of hers dancing. Little tease. I press a soft kiss to her lips and whisper, “So lucky. Count my lucky stars, lucky.” I kiss her again, our lips soft and pliant as we savor one another. “And not just because you brought enough groceries for both of us.”

The way her body softens against mine fills me with a primal satisfaction I can’t quite define. Of course, part of it is that Lexi is beautiful. Her body is a work of art, and any man who’s attracted to women would puff up his chest if she leaned into him this way. But the main thing is that, in a week, I’ve earned her trust. I don’t think that’s a feat too many people can boast.

“Aren’t you a charmer?” she teases. Her lips brush against mine with each word.

“Only for you, OTG.”

That makes her chuckle. “Yeah. Only for the woman you’ve nicknamed Oscar The Grouch.”

“If the shoe fits…” I offer her a cheeky grin and a shrug. And then I wrap my arms more tightly around her and kiss her again. This time, the kisses aren’t soft and pliant; they’re hot and demanding. I’m rewarded with soft gasps, which I breathe in. Straight from Lexi’s lungs to mine. She shivers. I want to believe it’s because I’m just that good at kissing, but more than likely, it’s because this garage is cold as hell. “Come on. Let’s go inside and get you warmed up.”

Linking our fingers, I lead her into the house. My stomach has been tangled in knots ever since the guy came and plowed the driveway. Our time here is coming to a close. Lexi agreed to date me, but we’re stepping out of our safe, secluded little snow globe and into the real world. Full of unknowns and obstacles. Part of me worries she’ll get home and change her mind about me.

There’s also the matter of the New Year’s Eve party. The one I still need to tell Lexi about. And then somehow convince her to come, even though the party will be full of Rogues players, and she wants to keep our relationship a secret.

No big deal. Totally fine.

It won’t be the end of the world if she doesn’t want to go. It really won’t be. But if we’re going to work, we’ll need to figure out how to combine our lives, won’t we? And that means meeting each other’s friends and coworkers. That means team dinners and dates on the town. And eventually, I hope, games where she’s sitting in a seat close to the ice, wearing my jersey, and cheering for me while I play.

But first, baby steps.

We’re quieter than we have been as we move around the kitchen, making our last dinner in this cabin together. I want to know what she’s thinking, but I’m also scared to ask. I’m not an idiot. I may be all in and ready to give dating a serious try, but she’s more hesitant than I am. The longer I put off talking to her about our next steps, the longer I can live in this beautiful delusion that everything will work out between us.

Time to suck it up, grow a pair, and communicate with Lexi, even if it’s scary or hard. She deserves that. She deserves someone who won’t shy away from the tough conversations. Someone who won’t let her slip away with vague excuses. Because she’s used to that, isn’t she? I don’t get the sense that her parents are ones to have tough conversations with her. Hell, it’s entirely possible that Lexi has no idea how to deal with confrontation, or even a simple conversation about the future, because she’s never seen it in action.

That’s one thing I’ll give my parents. Even though I don’t remember many actual conversations with my mom or what they entailed, I do remember feeling seen and heard. She valued my opinions and feelings. And when she died, my dad got us both into therapy. Sometimes we went together, sometimes separately, but either way, I learned healthy ways to communicate. I won’t throw away all those hours of learning and growth just because I’m scared the woman I’m interested in will walk away.

Only one way to find out.

“Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” I ask, breaking the prolonged silence.

Lexi glances over her shoulder at me. “No. Originally, I was planning to stay through New Year’s, but I’m not so sure now. I guess it seems like the cabin will be lonely without you. I’ll probably leave tomorrow when you do.” She goes back to chopping onions for the chili we’re making. “What are your plans?”

I take a break from opening cans of beans and stewed tomatoes to rub my uninjured hand over the back of my neck. “Well, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with any of the guys on the team?”

She hums, wobbling her head. It’s not a yes, but it’s not a no.

“Well, Maddox Graves is our team captain. His girlfriend, Isla, recently moved in with him, and they’ve invited some guys from the team over for dinner and drinks. I was planning to go to that.”

“Oh,” she says. Her back is stiffer than it was, and I don’t miss the tension in her shoulders. “That sounds nice.”

Dammit. I suck at this. She’s not getting it. I drop the can opener on the counter and walk up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. “It does. Well, it does if you agree to go with me.”

Her silence doesn’t surprise me. Rather than pushing her to answer, I sweep her hair away from her neck and pepper it with slow kisses. My hands roam her stomach and brush the undersides of her breasts. After she’s had some time to process, I say, “I want to spend New Year’s Eve with you. If that means I bail on Maddox and Isla, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“No,” she says with a gust of breath. “Don’t do that for me.”

This woman. “I’ll do anything for you, OTG. I’ll prove it, eventually.”

Her body loosens with those words, and her head falls back onto my shoulder. “I don’t want to be the kind of woman who makes you break your plans, Ryder. That would be selfish of me. I just...I’m not ready for my dad to find out about us.”

A part of me wonders if she’s ashamed to be with me and that’s why she doesn’t want him to know, but that’s an easy fear to squash. I know they have a shitty relationship, so it’s probably more that she doesn’t want to deal with whatever lecture he’ll give us. Because he may be an uninvolved father, but every dad is protective of their daughters when it comes to men, right? I’m sure he’ll chew my ass out once he knows. He’ll probably threaten me with bodily harm, or he’ll threaten my career... But Lexi’s worth dealing with all of that. And honestly, I hope he does do all of that, so she knows he cares.

“We don’t have to tell the guys who you are or how we met,” I murmur in her ear. “You can just be Lexi. No last name. No details. Just the beautiful woman who caught my eye and then wrapped her pretty fingers around my heart.”

Her body shakes with silent laughter. Then her head turns on my shoulder to look at me out of the corner of her eye. “Won’t they recognize my name?”

Ah. This is where it gets tricky. I don’t want to hurt Lexi by revealing that her dad doesn’t talk about her or have any recent pictures of her up. “Uh, well, Coach keeps his personal life pretty private, baby. I don’t think any of the guys would realize by your first name that you’re Coach’s daughter.”

Those big green eyes blink slowly at me. “He’s never mentioned me by name at all, has he?”

Blowing out a deep breath, I kiss her forehead. “No. Sorry, Lex.”

Her eyes close. “And he doesn’t have a picture of me up anywhere in his office, does he?”

“He does,” I say, my arms tightening around her midsection. “It’s just...you were pretty young in it. I’ve seen it, and I didn’t recognize you.”

“Oh.” Her brow furrows. “That’s more than I expected, honestly, so it shouldn’t hurt, but it kind of does.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Lexi. He’s an idiot.”

Lexi only shrugs. “Guess so.”

“Will you go with me?” I can’t hide the hope in my voice, and I don’t really try. I want her to hear how much I crave spending time with her.

She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “I don’t know, Ryder...”

“Come on, baby. I promise you’ll have fun. It won’t be some wild party or anything. It’s supposed to be sophisticated.” She snorts. “Okay, well, more sophisticated than it would have been if Maddox didn’t have his girlfriend planning it.”

I spin her around, press her chest against mine, and tilt her chin up. “If you really don’t want to go, that’s okay. I’ll cancel, and you and I can do whatever you want.” And I mean it. I will cancel. She’s more important than some party, even if I have been hoping to get closer to the guys. There’ll be other opportunities for that.

Lexi blows out a breath. “I don’t want you to cancel because of me. I... I’ll go. Just, please, can we keep who I am a secret, unless it’s unavoidable?”

I kiss her on the forehead. My lips twitch with a huge grin the whole time, making the kiss kind of a strange one. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she says with a little sigh. But there’s a smile on her lips too. Not as broad as mine, but it’s there. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

No doubt, I’m grinning like a total fool, because she starts to laugh. I don’t care. I feel like I just won my first, and very important, victory with this woman. Gripping her tightly, I lift her feet off the ground and spin her around in circles. She throws her head back, closes her eyes, and laughs. “We’re going to have so much fun. Do you want to come stay at my place until New Year’s Eve?” I don’t want this time with her to end.

She cocks her head to the side. “I should probably go home. I didn’t pack anything I’d feel comfortable wearing to a party.” Her fingers tap a staccato rhythm on my chest. “Do you live alone?”

“No.” I sure as hell wish I did, now. “I live with another guy on the team. He’s on the third line, so he’s got his own place but rents out a room, so he doesn’t blow all his money. Aaron’s a good guy. You’ll like him. Especially since he’s hardly home.” Lexi laughs when I waggle my eyebrows at her suggestively. “I never asked if you have a roommate.”

She nods. “Yeah. We’re not close or anything. She posted a room for rent on one of the college boards, and it’s close to school, so it works out well. We don’t really hang out at all, but she’s nice enough.”

It’s far too soon to be thinking about any of this, but my mind instantly conjures images of Lexi and me getting our own place. Of waking up next to her every morning the way I have the last few. I try to imagine how she’d decorate a house. All of it is a fantasy I shouldn’t indulge, but this past week has given me a taste of what life could be like living with Lexi Cross, and I want more.

That desire doesn’t abate while we orbit each other in the kitchen, working together to make the best damned chili I’ve ever tasted. It doesn’t fade when she welcomes me into her body and falls apart beneath me. And it only grows when she snuggles, naked, into my side with her head on my shoulder and falls asleep within minutes.

And when I wake up with our limbs tangled and her lips pressed against my neck, warm puffs of air tickling my skin, I wish we could skip right past all the adjustments the real world will no doubt require and wake up every morning like this.

But there’s no fast-forward button in real life. And in a couple of hours, we’ll leave this cabin and go back to our own beds, where we’ll spend the night alone. I can only hope she hates that idea as much as I do.