Everyone pulls out their wallets. My jaw drops. My stomach drops. Everything inside me drops because what the actual fuck?
My gaze whips to Rory’s, and I widen my eyes in question. “Really?”
“Like I said,” he says lightly, “not my idea.”
“Eisner, Volkov, Chopra,” Hayden reads off his phone, “Jordan, and Streicher, you owe a hundred.”
I send Jamie an accusing look, but he has his full attention on his beer, avoiding my eyes.
“Pippa, you, too,” Hayden continues.
My mouth falls open in disbelief. “Pippa.”
She winces, laughing. “Sorry. If it makes you feel better, I thought you’d hold out until the end of the season.”
I shake my head at her while Hayden lists off more bets, but I’m laughing. “Traitor,” I say, but there’s no bite to my words.
“And finally,” Hayden calls, and a hush falls over the bar. “The winner is…” He turns to Rory. “Miller, who has won two thousand bucks.”
A round of cheers and laughs rises up, and I stare at him with unfiltered shock.
“Thank you, thank you,” he says as people pass him cash. He stands and sets the cash on the bar counter, nodding at Jordan. “Prepayment on anything we break this season.”
Everyone laughs, and I shake my head at him as he slides back into the booth. “You bet that we’d get together the first month of the season?”
His expression is pure innocence, eyes sparkling. “I always bet on myself.”
“Aww.” Hayden jostles me, but I slap him away. “He likes you.”
This is so stupid, but I’m smiling. With confidence like Rory’s, I don’t know why I’m surprised.
He hooks a big arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his chest, and my stomach flutters at the contact. “Get over here, my little fire-breathing dragon.”
Pippa chokes on her drink, laughing.
“That is not my nickname,” I tell him, elbowing him.
Rory just smiles before his hands come to my waist and he lifts me into his lap.
“Really?” I mutter at him over my shoulder, praying that in the bar’s dim lighting, he can’t see me flushing. God, even sitting in his lap, he’s so tall. His thighs are solid and warm under me and I just—
This is a lot. He’s all around me. My pulse jolts. This is so much more intense than I thought it would be.
Like he can sense my thoughts, Rory’s hand smooths over my back in a comforting motion.
“Play nice, fire-breather.”
Another strained laugh lodges itself in my throat, and I hate that I like that nickname, but my name catches my attention. Pippa’s looking at me with a question in her eyes.
“We’re talking about the skating event in December,” she explains. “It’s for the players and their partners.” Her smile turns impish, and I cringe, because I already know where this is going. She looks to Rory. “Hazel can’t skate.”
“What?” He’s baffled. “You work for a hockey team and you can’t skate?”
“We don’t do physio on the ice.”
“You need to know how to skate,” he says.
“You need to know how to skate. I don’t need to balance on knives on a slippery surface. Regular ground with sneakers is fine for me.”
“It’s because she fell as a kid,” Pippa adds.
“Pippa.” I stare at her. It’s my shut up now look. She wiggles her eyebrows. Make me, her expression says.
Rory hums a teasing, sympathetic noise and rubs a hand up and down my back. “Poor Hazel. You’re scared of skating?”
“I’m not scared.” My voice is too high. “I’m not scared,” I say again in my regular voice. “I’m busy, and I don’t want to get hurt.”
“I’ll teach you.” Connor interrupts, taking a seat at the booth, wearing a stupid smirk. His eyes move over me, sitting in Rory’s lap, and there’s an edge to his gaze, like he doesn’t like what he sees.
Rory tenses, his hands tightening on my waist.
“I’ll teach you,” Rory cuts in, wrapping his arm across my stomach, looking down at me in challenge. It’s the competitiveness I see in him on the ice. Play along, his eyes say. “I won’t let you fall.”
My instinct is to fight him, but we’re supposed to be pretending and making Connor wildly jealous, so I force a soft smile and gaze up at him like I’m besotted.
“I’d love that,” I say softly.