Colliding Love - Tucker Billi...

"Done," Logan says without missing a beat. "You lead; I'll follow."

I can't believe I've let the part of me that wants him to rise to the surface. Since that night at Wino Wine Bar, I've been stuffing down my attraction. There's only one way something less professional makes any sense. Firm rules. A set timeline. Maybe Matilda was right. To truly get over someone, you need to get under someone else.

"You don't even know what I'm going to suggest," I say.

"If the outcome is that I get you, I'll agree to anything." His deep voice is so earnest that it makes my heart stutter.

"Only this season. At the end of this hockey season when you go back to your apartment in California for the off season, whatever we're doing is over. No long distance. No lingering anything. It's whatever it is for this season, and then it's over. Next season, we're back to being just colleagues."

"Short term?" A line appears in his brow.

"I think it's easier for us to work together after if we have clear boundaries. Short term. Casual." I catch myself at his deepening frown. "Not casual like we're seeing other people. Just you and me, but not serious. Get whatever this is out of our system."

"Not serious?"

I can almost see the wheels churning as he thinks through what I've said, calculates the possibilities. If we can't keep fighting the physical pull, my rules are the only sensible way forward. Ever since I left my office, I've been going over and over how anything could work between us.

"You're twenty-one." Which is one of the biggest factors in my mind.

"I fucking hate when you say that."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think it matters."

"What's the most important thing to you?"

"Winning," he says without hesitation.

"In hockey."

"Honestly, in everything. But yeah, my first priority is hockey."

"I want kids someday, so being ten years older than you matters to me, even if it doesn't matter to you." I keep going, even though I haven't said any of this out loud to anyone before. "I just got out of a really shitty relationship, and I don't want another one that drags on longer than it should. My priorities aren't, ultimately, the same as yours. As long as we know that going in, and we stay firm on our timeline, then I think..." I hesitate for a beat, grappling with how to phrase it. "We could have fun."

"Fun?" he asks, and it's possible he's offended.

"But if at any point," I barrel on, "things are even a little bit toxic between us, I'm pulling the plug early. I won't—I won't stand for any—any..." But I can't get truth out. "Even if it's a mistake."

"We're hooking up. Friends with benefits?"

"That's probably a good way to look at it." Much safer for me to see it in those black and white terms too. Label it, so neither of us gets confused.

"I don't do secrets, so if that's what—"

"It doesn't need to be a secret, just low-key. We don't need to make a big deal about being together or when we're no longer together. Super chill."

It all sounds so great in theory, but I've never had a relationship like what I'm describing before. It must exist because I've been around amicable exes. People who date for brief periods, and it doesn't work out, and they don't hate each other.

Hasn't ever been the case for me.

The thought of him hating me causes my stomach to flip-flip-flip.

"Hmm..." He presses his fingers under his bottom lip pushing them up in thought. "I'm going to need to think about it." He shifts on the couch to put his focus back on the movie.

And I'm left practically gaping at him, stunned for a beat. "Think about it?"

"I've changed my mind about rushing in. You've given me a lot to consider." He picks up the remote and resets the movie, but then his big hand falls on my thigh, stretching across the width of it. So casual, it would be laughable if the contact wasn't making my entire lower half tingle with anticipation. "Is that okay?" he asks.

Whatever he's referring to, my answer is the same. "Yeah."

***

Throughout the movie, Logan's hand stays on my thigh, unless he's refilling the pitcher of water or adding more ice to my glass. As soon as he sinks back into the couch beside me, his hand—his really big hand—spans my upper thigh. The warmth and placement are distracting, and a couple of times when he asks me a question about the movie I respond based on memory, not the ability to pay attention. My whole being is tuned to the imprint of each finger, the weight of his palm pressed against the thin piece of fabric separating skin-on-skin contact.

Behind, what I hope, is my cool façade, I'm processing his rejection. Considering he was the one who showed up at my house and asked to start something, I can't believe he had to nerve to tell me he'd "think" about my proposal. If he really wanted to "explore" whatever this might be, my offer should be more than acceptable. What possible objections could he have? Because he sure as hell didn't voice any of them. My plan means we go into our friends with benefits agreement with our eyes wide open and a complete understanding of the timeline. We can explore whatever he wants within the parameters of that.

"You've basically missed the whole movie," he whispers, his beard skimming my earlobe, and a shiver of awareness runs down my spine. Not for the first time, I wish he wasn't so confident, so sure of himself, when I'm running mental circles around him and us.

"I'm watching it." I wave my hand at the TV.

"No, you're not. You're stewing. I contradicted myself, and now you're mad."

"I'm not mad." I shift sideways to face him, not bothering to pause the movie. "I'm confused. You asked for this."

"Not quite. I asked for us to see where this goes. The no pressure part, I agree with that. You're right that we might have different priorities. But the timeline and labeling..."

"I don't see the difference. If you don't want there to be any pressure than labeling it and setting a timeline means we both know exactly what this is and what it isn't."

"No pressure doesn't mean it can't go anywhere."

"Do you want to get married and have kids?"

"Eventually." A furrow appears between his brows. "Someday."

"I'm not wasting a lot of time on a dead end."

"Tell me how you really feel, doc."

"I'm not calling you a dead end, Logan. It's the age thing and the priorities thing. You're just starting your career. Mine is more established, and as a woman I have to consider when and how I'll have kids. Maybe a year ago I could have gone into something with you blindly, but I just can't now. Honestly, even agreeing to the rest of this season might be too ambitious."

"It's not," Logan says, giving me a long look. "That's really not going to be the problem."

A fizzy sensation develops in my chest at the way he's gazing at me, as though it's impossible for him to believe we'll ever get tired of each other.

But I've been fooled before, and I'm not letting my heart run full throttle into something my head doesn't trust. My skull still bears the phantom ache from the last time I ran right into the brick wall of regret.

"Neither of us can know what will happen," I say. "I've become a lot more of a "hope for the best and plan for the worst" kind of person the last couple of years."

"Why's that?"

"Because I didn't used to, and I really should have."

"Why was your last relationship shitty?"

"All kinds of reasons."

"Stop evading the question."

"I can evade it if I want to. Why it was shitty doesn't matter. What happened with him won't happen to me again."

He smooths a wisp of my hair that's fallen on my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. "Am I just your rebound, doc?"

"You might be."

"Honest, probably. But I don't fucking like it."

"Because it's not winning?"

"I'm hyper competitive. Definitely my best and worst trait." A hint of a smile tips up a corner of his mouth. "You could call it winning, though. Since anyone could be your rebound, and you're picking me."

"Is that enough for you?"

"You don't make the big plays sitting on the bench."

"What does that mean?"

He leans back and crosses his arms, putting some distance between us again. "You're set on casual with a limited timeline?"

"I have to be."

My favorite scene in the movie between Wyatt and Ellie is playing. A real gut-wrenching one that would have me crying if that's what I was focused on right now.

"I can't do it." He rubs his face, releases a deep sigh, and looks at me. The internal conflict and determination are clear in his eyes and his expression. "Audibly ticking clocks on relationships are a "no" for me. I want to—badly—but I can't. After the way I grew up, I just can't."

The credits to the movie are rolling across the huge screen above the fireplace.

"I wouldn't want either of us to do something we weren't comfortable with," I whisper, but even as I say the words all the anticipation that had been bubbling and fizzing inside me is dissolving, leaving behind a surprising amount of disappointment. We'd been headed somewhere. "I should probably go home."

"I have practice in the morning," Logan agrees and stands up, holding out a hand.

I take it, but when he draws me up, we're far too close. Spearmint and peppermint invade my senses, and that familiar awareness crackles in the air. Maybe, like me, he'd been counting on a different outcome.

"Would one kiss really hurt?" His gaze shifts from my eyes to my lips and back again, and his hand is at the small of my back, easing me a little closer, tighter. "Satisfy our curiosity."

"We shouldn't." But my hands are on his chest, and I'm conscious of how easy it would be to rise onto my toes, loop my arms around his neck, and drag him down, make us both regret that I came here at all. "The line we've drawn is important."

"We can redraw it. Colleagues who kiss sometimes."

"Sometimes? I thought you said "one" kiss?"

"Is there a world in which one kiss would ever be enough? 'Cause I don't think I live in that one."

Right now, with my thumping heart and tingles down my spine, I'm almost high enough with desire to find out beyond any doubt which world I live in.

"I should go," I say, stepping around him.

He trails me to the front entrance, and when I step out and turn to thank him, one shoulder is propped against the doorway. There's something about the way his gaze sweeps over me, like he could eat me up and then beg for seconds that makes my whole lower half turn to liquid.

That look should be illegal.

"If you change you mind..." Logan says. "You know where I live."

"I won't. But if you change yours..."

"I know where you live," he says with another almost smile. "But you'd have to invite me."

"True, and I'd only do that if you change your mind."

"I think we're at an impasse, doc. As much as I'd love to be almost anywhere else with you."

I can't help one last lingering glance at his tall, athletic build framed in the doorway. Neither of us seems willing to put our pasts aside, and maybe that's for the best. We're still in a place where we can work together without our relationship being strained, or at least I think we are.

When I glance back just before I step into the elevator, he's still in the doorway watching me, and I wonder whether months of this raging sexual tension with no chance of an outlet might actually be the worst outcome of all. 

So close, yet so far. What will it take to overcome their impasse?

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