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“Seven twenty-two. That’s your wife’s birthday.”

I laugh. “Oh, right. The night we met, too. We could add 728 for our wedding date, too,” I joke.

“Let’s go tomorrow.” She yawns sleepily. “I’ll get a matching one.”

“Talk to me, Ive. Are you really okay? I know that was intense.”

“It was super intense, and I’m really okay. It was overwhelming in the best way.” She’s mumbling, nearly asleep. “And Cash?”

“Hm?”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t let feelings get involved, but I broke that promise already.”

I’m pretty sure she’s in a sex-induced orgasm stupor or she wouldn’t have said that aloud.

I blow out a breath as her breathing starts to even out. “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”

And then I fall asleep, too, with her in my arms, and it’s one of the best nights of sleep I can remember having in ages.

When morning dawns, we have an entire day ahead of us.

As much as I want to fuck her again, I know her body needs time to heal. So with that in mind, I take her out for brunch instead. Summerlin is a master-planned community in the Las Vegas city limits, but it has its own downtown area, and that’s one of my favorite places to frequent for brunch. Lots of hockey and football players live out here, and I run into people I know all the time.

Which maybe I should have thought through before I suggested brunch.

We end up staying at the restaurant a full three hours, and it’s less of a date and more of a time to introduce her to roughly forty thousand of my closest neighbors.

That’s an exaggeration. Not everyone in Summerlin shows up to brunch, but it sort of feels like it.

We’re walking to the truck, hand-in-hand, when she says, “It feels like you know everyone in the area.”

I chuckle. “I’ve lived here for a few years now, but I’ve been playing for Vegas for a long time. You get to know the community.”

“You’re like this huge celebrity,” she muses.

I lift a shoulder. “You know what that’s like with your brothers. I’m just a regular guy who likes to play hockey.”

She presses her lips together. “Yes, but thankfully, I’m not married to any of them. It’s different.”

We get into the truck, and I wish it weren't so goddamn hot outside. It’s late August, the time of year when the heat really starts getting to me…the time of year I actually miss Minnesota winters. I just want to get outside and move. I’m tired of being stuck indoors.

I glance over at her. “Do you want to go for a hike?”

She wrinkles her nose as her eyes dart to the temperature gauge in my truck. “It’s one oh seven outside right now, Cash. No, I don’t want to go for a hike.”

I chuckle. “Mount Charleston is less than an hour from here, and it averages like thirty degrees cooler.”

Her eyes widen. “Then yes. I’m all in on that.”

We stop home to change clothes and shoes, and she packs my backpack with snacks and drinks. We’re on our way less than twenty minutes later.

On the way there, she researches the different trails. “Oh, this one sounds nice. It’s about three miles with lots of shade.”

“I’ve actually done that one before, and it’s perfect.”

I let her connect her phone to my truck’s audio system so she can choose the music we listen to, and she settles on a playlist of mainly alternative rock. It’s a nice mix of The White Stripes, The Killers, and Arctic Monkeys, among others.

The forty-five minutes in the truck passes quickly. Soon enough, we’re pulling into a parking lot closest to the trailhead she wanted to try.