Offside Hearts (Love and Hockey Book 1)

A few weeks go by, and even though Noah and I are still keeping our relationship a secret, we are now officially a couple. We spend more nights together than apart, and any time I can get away from work early or his practice gets canceled, we seek each other out like a couple of teenagers sneaking to make out behind the bleachers.

But it’s deeper than that. Even the few nights we spend together where we don’t have sex are meaningful and satisfying in their own way.

I’ve never felt like this about anyone before, and it’s fucking incredible. Everything is new and exciting, and getting to experience falling head over heels alongside someone as amazing as Noah makes it even better.

He makes me laugh, and he seems to notice every little thing about me. He can tell from a moment’s glance if I’ve had a bad day, and he always finds a way to make me feel better. Sometimes, it really feels like we were made for each other.

Which is both wonderful and terrifying.

I know that if I let myself, I could fall completely and totally in love with this man. The kind of love that’s life changing… but that can also be life shattering. Whenever we’re apart, I can’t stop thinking about him, and when we’re together, all I want to do is make it last.

We’re curled up beneath the sheets together on a Saturday morning when my phone buzzes with a text message on the nightstand. Noah is still asleep, and although I don’t know exactly what time it is, I know he doesn’t have to be awake yet, so I try to grab my cell without waking him.

I fail.

Just as I’m bringing the phone up in front of my face, his eyes open and he smiles at me.

“Good morning,” he mumbles, kissing me lazily on the lips.

“Morning.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Just a few minutes,” I tell him. We reposition so that I can lie on my back to read the text I just got, and he nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck, dragging his nose over my skin.

“Who’s texting you so early in the morning?” he asks, stifling a yawn.

“My mom. She was reminding me about my brother’s birthday next weekend. She wanted to make sure I’m still planning on coming to town for the party.”

“That sounds like a good time.”

“Yeah, it should be,” I say with a laugh. “Although we’ll see how well my mom honors Josh’s wishes. He’s told her about a hundred times that he just wants a small get together with the immediate family. This is the fourth or fifth year in a row that he’s tried this, and every time, she throws him a massive party anyway. She can’t help herself with any of us. It’s a compulsion.”

“A compulsion?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what comes over her, but once she gets into party planning mode, her philosophy turns into, ‘the bigger the better.’ She invites all our extended family, plus a bunch of family friends. Heaven forbid she runs into anyone she knows at the grocery store when she’s planning it, or she’ll invite them too, whether or not they even know Josh.”

Noah chuckles. “She sounds like a fun lady.”

“She is,” I agree. “And I think Josh secretly loves the big parties. In all honesty, it’s better for him that way. He’s a little shy, so when there’s a big party with a lot going on, he can just hide in a corner somewhere and ignore everyone. If it were a small, intimate party, then everyone would want to talk to him and ask him what’s going on in his life.” I smirk. “God, he would hate that.”

“Good to know.” Noah purses his lips, nodding. “If I ever meet your brother, I will make sure not to ask him about his life.” He rolls over onto his back and puts his hands behind his head. His dark hair is messy from sleep, a few strands sticking out at odd angles. “My parents never really threw me any real birthday parties when I was a kid.”

“Really?” I wince, putting my phone back on the nightstand before lying on my side to face him. “That’s so sad.”

He lifts one shoulder. “It’s whatever. I mean, they would have parties, but they didn’t really feel like they were parties thrown for me, you know? Which is almost worse. It’s like they used my birthday as an excuse to invite all their rich friends over and drink expensive wine. And they never got me a real birthday cake either. It would always be some elaborate dessert that no kid wants, like fancy fruit tarts or sugar-free espresso ice cream for the years that my mom was on a diet.”

“Bleh.” I stick my tongue out. “That sounds awful. My mom always made us our favorite flavor of cake, and there would always be a few different kinds of ice cream and other goodies.”

“Must’ve been nice.”

A look of disappointment falls across his face as he speaks, and I wonder if I should stop going on about my childhood and the nice birthday parties I had. I run my fingertips down the corded muscles of his forearm and wait for him to look my way. When he does, he smirks.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought there for a second.” He chuckles humorlessly. “I just remembered this one year when they forgot my birthday altogether.”

“They what?” I scowl. It’s one thing to make your kid’s birthday all about you and your ego, but it’s another thing entirely to not remember he has a birthday in the first place.

“They forgot,” he repeats, pulling a face. “And the worst part was, I should’ve seen it coming. They planned this trip to a cabin in Aspen, and they kept talking about it for weeks. Leading up to the day they left, I kept thinking they were pulling a fast one on me. I thought there was no way they’d forgotten about my birthday coming up, so I just assumed the trip to Aspen was a cover for a surprise party or something.”

“Oh no,” I whisper, my stomach twisting.

He nods. “Yeah, pathetic right? I thought they were trying to throw me off the scent, and that they actually had something big planned for my special day. Even as I waved goodbye and watched them get into the back of the town car, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking they were going to be there when I woke up the next day, giving me gifts and asking how it felt to be nine years old.”

“But… that didn’t happen,” I murmur softly. It’s not really a question, since I know where this story is going.

“Nope.” He blows out a breath. “They really left, and they really forgot. And it wasn’t until a few days after they got back from their trip that anyone even remembered. My mom came bustling into my room with a gift that she’d clearly bought on her way home from the country club. It’d been wrapped at the store, and it was a toy I already owned. She handed it to me and said something like, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t give this to you sooner, your father and I have just been so busy.’”

I shake my head in disbelief. “Noah, that’s awful. I can’t even imagine how I would’ve felt as a kid if my parents forgot my birthday.”

“It’s fine,” he says, his expression lightening. “Now I’m old enough to celebrate my birthdays however I want.”

“Which is how, usually?”

He arches a brow at me, a smirk tilting his lips. “I don’t think you want to know.”

That makes me laugh, but before I can insist that no, I really do want to know, another message comes through on my cell. I roll over to check it, twisting my hair around my fingers as I open up the messaging app.

MOM: Oh, btw, don’t worry about bringing anything. I’ve already bought everything for the party, streamers and all.

I put my phone back down, glancing over my shoulder at Noah with a grin. “Well, whatever you normally do to celebrate your birthday, I’m going to assume it doesn’t typically involve streamers and party games.”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘party games.’” He sticks his tongue out suggestively, laughing and running his hands over me.

“I’m talking about games like charades or Trivial Pursuit,” I squeak, squirming as he gropes my ass. “So get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Can’t help it, Sunflower. Whenever I’m around you, that’s where my mind automatically goes.” As if to prove his point, he slips a hand between my legs, sliding his fingers over my clit with a light touch. “But come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever played Trivial Pursuit.”

“For real?” I make a face, shifting my hips. “How is that even possible?”

“My family didn’t play games.”

I grimace. “Of course they didn’t. We’ll have to play it sometime. Although now that I think about it, it’s really not a two-player game. It’s a lot more fun with a group.”

An image pops into my head of Noah at my childhood home in Boulder, arguing with my brothers about which baseball player has hit the most home runs in history, and my stomach flutters. I grab his hand, because there’s no way I can think straight with his fingers between my legs, clasping it between mine as I meet his gaze.

“Um, I have an idea,” I murmur.

“What kind of idea?”

“A crazy idea.”

His eyes widen. “I’m intrigued. Go on.”

“What if you come to Boulder with me? You could come to my brother’s birthday party and eat cake and play games. It could be fun.”

Noah freezes, an expression I can’t quite read passing over his face. “Really?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I add quickly. “It was probably a bad idea. I know my family wouldn’t say anything to anyone about us being together, so that wouldn’t be an issue. But if you don’t want to come, it’s totally—”

“Margo,” Noah says quietly, stopping me in the middle of my sentence. “I want to go.”

I blink. “You do?”

A broad smile overtakes his face as he laughs. “Yes. Of course! It sounds super fun. I mean, I’ve got so many questions I want to ask your siblings and your parents. I want to know all about your childhood, and I’ll definitely want to see any embarrassing childhood photos if they’ve got them. Wait, who am I kidding? Every family has embarrassing photos.”

“Nope, not my family,” I tell him, moving closer to snuggle into his embrace and hiding my grin against his shoulder. “I burned all of them.”

“Yeah, right. I may not know your mom personally, but based on everything you’ve told me about her, she would never let you burn your old pictures.”

I groan, pressing a kiss to his warm skin. “Alright, fine. There might be a few photos hanging up, but that’s nothing a quick phone call to my sister can’t fix. I’ll have her run around their house and take down any evidence that I ever went through an awkward phase.”

“Aw, come on.” His laugh rumbles against my ear. “That’s not fair! You have to let me see what awkward little Margo looked like. It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, but it can.” I lift my head, giving him a grave look. “I had braces and glasses, and I hadn’t yet figured out how to deal with my hair, so that was a bit of a nightmare.”

He waggles his eyebrows. “Sounds cute.”

“It really wasn’t. And don’t look at me like that, with that cocky grin of yours. You don’t understand! I’ll bet you never went through an awkward stage.”

“I did too.” But then he frowns. “At least, I probably did. I can’t think of when that might’ve been off the top of my head, but I definitely recall getting a few zits back in the day. Definitely didn’t start wearing deodorant early enough, that’s for sure.”

“Did you just say ‘a few zits’?” I let my head fall back onto the pillow with a heavy sigh. “You’re talking to a girl who had cystic acne, and you have the gall to complain about getting a ‘few zits’? Oh man, now I’m really starting to get the full picture. You were the boy that every girl had a crush on in school, and I was the girl who never got asked to the dance. That’s just great.”

“If we went to school together, I totally would’ve asked you to a dance.”

I snort. “Sure.”

“I would’ve.”

“Noah, if we went to school together, you wouldn’t have even known my name,” I say honestly. “You wouldn’t have known I existed.”

“That’s not true.” He shakes his head firmly, conviction shining in his blue eyes. “You are impossible to miss, Margo Lucas.”

He rolls me onto my back, settling between my thighs. Then he spends the next hour showing me exactly how unmissable he finds me.

Noah clears his schedule, and I give my family the head’s up that I’m bringing someone home, although I keep the details vague. A few days later, he picks me up in his Mercedes, and I put my parents’ address into his GPS.

Once we’re on the interstate, he turns the radio down a bit and smiles at me.

“Okay, so tell me everything I need to know about the Lucas family.”

“There’s not that much to tell,” I say. “You already know about my siblings. There used to be five of us, and now there are just four. I’m the youngest. Josh is the one whose birthday we’re celebrating, and Derek is a huge hockey fan, so he’s probably going to lose his mind when he sees that you’re the man I’m bringing home.”

“You didn’t tell him who I was?”

“No way.” I shake my head, flipping down the visor to check my makeup. “Are you kidding me? I can’t throw something like that at my mom at the last minute. If she knew she would be hosting a famous athlete at her house, she would go even more over the top with her party planning. I know it’s a little rude to keep this a secret, but I honestly think it’s better to just spring this sort of thing on her. That way, she can’t stress out about it too much ahead of time.”

Noah’s deep chuckle fills the car as he dips his chin. “If you say so. What else do I need to know?”

“Nothing really. We’re just a normal family.”

“Right, but I don’t come from a normal family, remember, so I need you to help me out here. Like, which one of your siblings should I be most concerned with impressing?”

“Oh, my sister. Obviously.”

“Is that obvious? See, I didn’t know that. Okay, gotta impress Heather. How do I do that?”

“By impressing April.”

“Your niece, right?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, so the way to Heather’s heart is through April, got it. Is there anything else I should know about your parents? Does your dad have a favorite brand of beer that I should pick up on the way?”

I glance over at him and notice that he’s tapping his fingers anxiously against the steering wheel, which is not one of his normal quirks.

“Noah,” I say gently, reaching over and putting my hand on his arm. “You know there’s nothing to be nervous about, right? They are going to love you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because everyone loves you!” I say, as if it’s obvious. “As the person who runs all the social media accounts for the Denver Aces, I can say with complete and total certainty that people adore you. Every time you’re featured in a post, more than half the comments are just people talking about how cool you are, or someone will post a bunch of heart-eye emojis.”

“Yeah, but those are hockey fans,” he murmurs, sounding unconvinced. “That’s different. Not everyone I meet in the real world likes me right away.”

“Name one.”

“Uh… you?” He lifts an eyebrow as he cuts his gaze to me. “You hated me when we first met! You wanted nothing to do with me, remember?”

I laugh, putting the visor back up. “I didn’t hate you…”

“You didn’t like me though.”

“Yes and no,” I say, shrugging. “The problem was that I liked you, but I didn’t like that I liked you.”

“Say that again?”

“You’d already gotten under my skin, that day in the elevator,” I tell him. “You were so sweet and charming. But once I realized who you were and learned more about your reputation, I got freaked out. I didn’t want to like you, because I wanted to protect myself, but my attraction to you didn’t go away. That’s why I was so cold when we first met. I was hoping that if I ignored you, ignored the way you made me feel… that maybe those feelings would disappear.”

“I’m glad they didn’t.” He reaches over the middle console to take my hand.

“Me too,” I agree, curling my fingers around his. “Very glad.”

Noah asks me a few more questions about Heather and April, and as we travel the short distance from Denver to Boulder, I find myself telling him a few funny stories from when Heather and I were kids and used to get into all sorts of trouble. I tell him about the time she dared me to put superglue in Josh’s shoes, and how our mom then made us pool all of our allowance money to buy him a new pair.

“Oh, and when Heather and I were in middle school,” I say, “there was a girl who used to pick on Heather all the time. She’d call her ugly and write mean things about her on the bathroom wall. We had gym class together, so one day I stole this toy my brothers had—it was like a little recording device that made fart noises. I played one of the sounds while we were in gym and pretended it was the girl who farted.”

“Wow, remind me never to mess with your sister,” Noah mutters, laughing.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know… Heather and I have just always looked out for each other. That’s all.” I hold up a finger as I add, “And that girl had it coming. I found her after gym and promised her I’d never do that to her again, but only if she swore to leave Heather alone.”

“Did it work?”

I smile proudly. “Yes. Yes, it did.” I notice that we’re coming up on the exit for my parents’ neighborhood, so I point at the next sign and say, “Get off here and then go right.”

He follows my directions, and soon we’re winding through the familiar streets of my childhood. Although I’m feeling a little anxious about introducing Noah to my family, being back home immediately relaxes me. We pull up in front of the house, and I peer out the window at the familiar light green paint.

“Well, this is it,” I say.

Noah leans over the wheel to look out my window too. “Looks nice.”

He gets out of the car and opens my door for me, and I lead the way up to the porch. When we stop in front of the door, I sling my purse strap over my shoulder and turn to him.

“You’re going to do great,” I whisper, putting my arms around his neck and stretching up for a kiss. He kisses me back, his hands sliding over my hips as he pulls me a little closer.

When we break apart, I slip my hand into his and reach for the door handle. “Ready?”

“Yup. Let’s do this.”