Just Friends: A Best Friends to Lovers Hockey Romance (Dallas Devils Book 5) by June Winters

Author:June Winters [Winters, June]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

18

Piper

Jax’s truck was anything but quiet. The big truck growled with throaty satisfaction as it chewed up the road in front of us, tires humming on the highway. The stereo played some of his favorite electronic music, and the bass-heavy thumps shook the core of my heart.

Yet the loudest sound of all was the stifling silence between us.

I turned to stare at him, hoping he’d catch me looking. He gripped the wheel with one hand, veins bulging in his thick forearms. The other hand was balled into a fist and held against his mouth, as if he were deep in thought.

What’s going on with you, man? I wondered.

His fitted v-neck shirt showed off his strong collarbone and broad chest, round pecs jutting forever upward. The curved bill of his baseball cap kept his eyes focused on the road—and hidden from me.

Hidden from me.

I really did feel like he was hiding something from me, and I didn’t understand why. Did he not understand how hard I was working right now to pretend things were normal …? Wasn’t that what he supposedly wanted?

I’d hoped he’d sense me staring at him. I’d hoped he’d lock eyes with me and, in a moment of sudden honesty, just come out and say it—whatever it was, because there was obviously something that needed to be said.

Patiently, I waited. But he never sensed me looking. Or if he did, he simply didn’t care enough to acknowledge it.

Does he hate me now?

Tired of waiting for Jax to catch me staring, I looked away. And that, of course, was the precise moment he finally looked my direction.

Ugh.

We just weren’t on the same page anymore and I hated it.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and stared out the passenger window. Riding high above the rest of traffic, I peered down at the tops of the other cars we zoomed past, losing myself in thought.

Fake it ’til you make it.

That was the mantra that compelled me to agree to go on this spa getaway. I’d had my doubts that things between us could go back to normal, but I could at least try and pretend that they were. Or so I thought.

Sure, faking it made me feel like a liar. Sure, every fiber of my being revolted when I interacted with Jax the same way we always used to. Why? Because now I realized how obvious it was: the light-hearted teasing and name calling, the glancing physical touches here and there, the ‘ironic’ flirting …

It was all just one giant cope.

Because yes, I’d wanted him all along—but I wouldn’t be happy just being some girl he merely took to bed occasionally; I wanted something more, something that simply wasn’t ever going to be on the table with Jax. Being the “cool chick” friend was as close to being in a relationship with Jax as I could get without damaging our friendship.

But the moment Jax kissed me, all that changed. The second his lips touched mine, all that denial was vaporized in an instant.

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