The Boyfriend Goal (Love and Hockey Book 1)

Josie

The Internet can prepare you for a lot of things—orbit-shattering orgasms among them. But can it truly prepare you for the back-to-earth moments after the O? Like when you need to, well, clean up? It’s all so terribly awkward once the penis slips out.

“Excuse me,” I say a minute later, then hop out of bed and dart into the en suite bathroom as quickly as I can, leaving Wes to dispose of the condom.

I straighten up, pee, wash my hands, and re-emerge into his bedroom. Wesley must have ditched the protection quickly. He’s now lying on top of the covers, arms parked behind his head, skin sweat-slicked, looking entirely too sexy and sated.

The moment’s still weird though.

Because…do I go home?

As in, downstairs?

Do I stay here?

No research prepared me for this truth of modern sex—banging your hot-as-hell roomie is great until you have to figure out who’s kicking who out of bed.

My stomach flips with fresh nerves as I take tentative steps in my birthday suit into the bedroom. But I stop near the doorway, the entrance to the stairs just beyond.

“Sooooo,” I begin.

Translation: what’s next?

Wes rolls his eyes. “Get the hell over here, Winters,” he says, patting the bed.

My body throws a parade, confetti and ticker tape raining down inside me. Feeling wanted, I hustle my naked booty back to bed and flop next to him. I grab my glasses and slide them back on.

He props himself on his side, parks his head in his hand. “Were you going to sneak out?” He sounds playful as he calls me on it.

“Is it sneaking out if I live here too?” I counter, even though I’m still uncertain. How do you go from having great sex to not knowing what to do next? Why didn’t I do my homework on that?

“Yes, it’s sneaking out, so don’t do it,” he says.

“Still so bossy,” I say, but I think I love his bossy side. It settles me. Makes me feel comforted. My chest is warm, and my cells are a little fizzy.

He tugs me closer, buries his nose in my hair. “The hotel pillow smelled like cinnamon that morning when you were gone. Your lotion, right?”

My heart sprints. He remembered what I told him at the ice cream shop the night we met. “Yes. Good memory.”

“I was hoping you were going to still be there. At the hotel in the morning,” he murmurs, sounding lost in time as he absently strokes my hair while revisiting our first night together.

I feel lost in time too, but in this heady moment. “I was hoping you’d find me,” I say, admitting something I hadn’t fully processed that morning. Something I didn’t truly realize till I bought a cactus to get his last name.

“I’d thought it might be a clue. A line in your letter.”

“Which line?”

There’s no hesitation as he says: “Maybe I’ll see you around the city. It’s big, but it’s small too. You never know…”

“You memorized it?” Each word lands with space between them.

“I did,” he says easily, like that’s all there is to it. But it’s a big deal for anyone to memorize three lines. Only, I don’t make too huge a thing of it. I hold on to this nugget for safekeeping in a drawer full of special memories.

“Maybe it was a clue. I think I was hoping I’d see you again,” I say, admitting that now too.

“Then I found your scarf, Cinderella,” he says, recounting more of that morning as he nuzzles my hair again. “I had it all packed up to return to you the morning after our first game. I’d even written you a letter, asking you out.”

My heart is a pinwheel, fluttering in a spring breeze. “You told me you wrote me a letter too.” He said as much the morning we baked. “Do you still have it?”

“I do.”

“I want the letter,” I say, impulsively. “No one has ever asked me out in a letter.”

His smile is smug as he rustles around in the bed, reaching for the nightstand drawer, then he slides it open. He removes a sheet of paper and hands it to me.

My heart is beating loudly in my ears as I open it. Then wildly in my throat as I read.

Hey Josie,

You left this behind, and I’m honestly glad you did. I’m returning it since it’s yours. But also because I’d really like to see you again. Can I show you around San Francisco sometime soon?

Wesley Bryant

It’s so simple and so perfect. I clutch it to my chest, closing my eyes, my cells flooding with sunshine. His lips sweep over my shoulder once more. “Guess it was just a matter of timing,” he murmurs against my skin.

Timing.

That’s always been the challenge for us. I open my eyes and meet his—they’re full of longing and want. “Our timing hasn’t always been right, has it?”

He shakes his head, his tone sad as he says, “No, it hasn’t.”

And it still isn’t. Timing is the reason I’ll have to move home far too soon.

And I don’t want to push anything now. I don’t want to define this. But I do want—I’m just realizing it this very second—more of him. I’m scared to ask for it though. Scared to figure out what this new thing with us is. What if this moment is just pillow talk?

“Hey. What’s going on?” Wes asks.

If I went to improv, I can do this. It’s okay to be afraid. “I like you. A lot,” I say.

He laughs, smiles, and then covers my mouth with a kiss before he says, “It’s sooo mutual.” He reaches for my hand and slides his fingers through mine. “Was that hard to say?”

“I had one serious boyfriend in college and then after college we dated too,” I say, then quickly backpedal. “I’m not suggesting this…or that we’re having a…or anything. But just that a lot of this is…new to me. I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”

He understands what I haven’t said out loud, since he nods, then says, “I haven’t been with anyone in a while. Not since New York. I dated a woman there. Anna,” he says, and I remember what he said about her—that she said he didn’t like anything but hockey. She was the one who wanted him to debate philosophical issues with her.

He drops another kiss to my shoulder. “It’s different with you, Josie.”

The world halts, slowing to this moment, to that admission, to the thing every person longs to hear—that we’re special to someone else.

I touch his cheek, tracing a line along his jaw. “It’s different with you too.”

I don’t entirely know what that means or where we’re going or what we’re doing. But I’m sure tonight isn’t a one-time thing.

I settle into the crook of his arm, then run my fingers over the ink covering his right arm. “I think I’ve figured them out. Your tattoos.”

“Decipher me, then.”

I trace the dog. “You’re into dogs. You want one. So the dog is like a goal.”

“Yes.”

I run a finger along the music notes. “The music is your love for songs and lyrics. It’s your present—but also your purest interest.”

“You’re too observant,” he says, sounding ridiculously pleased.

“And then you have these sunbursts,” I say, traveling along the thick black lines that curve and bend near his shoulder. “What are they for?”

“Passion, desire, bravery,” he says simply.

I sit with that for a minute, considering the meaning behind them. “Who you want to be? In your job and in life?”

Wesley’s gaze catches mine, and he holds it for a long, potent moment. His eyes are dark brown pools, and it feels like the air is shimmering between us. “You know me,” he says easily, but that can’t have been easy to say.

“I think I do,” I whisper.

“You do.” He cups my face and presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “Stay the night.”

I had a feeling he was going to say that. But I needed to hear it.

I curl up next to him, terribly unsure of what will happen in the morning—but incredibly okay with the uncertainty.

His eyes flutter closed as he coasts a finger along the scar on my chin, then kisses it before he falls fast asleep.