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I didn’t believe anything would come of my attraction to Carter anyway. Our age difference meant we were in very different places in our lives. I was almost a dozen years older than Carter. Which put me in perimenopause while he was hitting his peak years. Why would he even be interested in me?

Maybe I was making this bigger than it was. I had been taking care of Carter’s eye. Maybe he’d just been grateful, and it was my attraction to him that had me reading more into it. The only way to erase any awkwardness was to talk it out.

Plus there was the viral video. Emily had shown it to me as soon as she saw it. It was the type of thing that could cause Carter all kinds of trouble with the club.

I was pulling out the ingredients for turkey-and-Brie paninis when Carter opened the side door.

“Hey.” His half smile seemed uncertain. His eye was dark purple and swollen, but at least he could still see out of it.

“Hey yourself. How’s your eye?”

Carter touched the swollen area and grimaced. “It hurts, but I’ve had worse. Can I help?”

“There are vegetables in the fridge. Can you make a salad while I grill these? Ethan is out with friends, so it’s just us.” I searched for any indication that this news made him more uncomfortable, but he simply nodded and began pulling ingredients out of the fridge.

We worked together, moving around each other in an awkward dance of avoidance. We needed to hash this out. I wanted to go back to how it had been the first night, our conversation flowing easily. Not this stilted, cautious treatment where we couldn’t be ourselves.

“I drove by the bakery today on my way to physiotherapy. You’ve got a nice place.”

Carter’s praise wrapped around me like a hug. Even so, his words were almost impersonal. Safe. For now, I’d go along, sticking to neutral topics.

“Thanks. With luck, the contract with the Fliers will boost business and turn things around for me. Is the club still using Ari for physiotherapy?” As a teenager I had babysat Ari and her siblings, but we had become friends since I moved back. Ethan had been to see her a couple of times for injuries, and I saw her sister, Cindy, whenever I wanted a massage.

“Yeah, today was my first session. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting much in a town the size of Red Rock, but she’s impressive. My hip feels better than it has since the accident. Still not a hundred percent, but really good.”

Carter tossed the salad as I plated our sandwiches and put them on the table. Once we were seated and had eaten the first few bites in silence, I couldn’t wait any longer; the tension was making dinner feel like sawdust in my mouth.

“I—how much trouble did you get in for the fight and viral video?” I would talk about what had happened, but first I wanted to know what Wally had done about the video. Going viral for this was bad. If Carter had already faced discipline, maybe I could delay our conversation until a better time.

Carter chuckled. “Wally reamed my ass out about it, but it was all for show. The Vancouver club didn’t have a problem with it, but Wally wanted to use it as a teachable moment for the kids on the team. So I took a tongue-lashing, the kids learned a lesson, and that was it.”

Relief rushed through me. Chad could have cost Carter everything last night. At least Wally and Vancouver had seen the truth. He might still stir up shit, though . . .

“I hope that’s the end of it. I haven’t heard anything, but I’m betting Chad is furious. That video made him look like an idiot.” I had to admit, I had watched the video more than once just for giggles. It was always nice to see my ex made a fool.

“Chad made himself look like an idiot. Whoever Abbey is just added an excellent voice-over.”

Carter’s sexy smirk made me want to do very dirty things with him, and I smothered that urge. The whole point of this was to go back to being friends. Wanting to jump my friend every time he smiled was not the direction I wanted to go.

I forced myself to take another bite of my sandwich, chewing slowly as I once again mentally rehearsed what I planned to say to Carter. I didn’t want him to think I read anything into what happened. Emotions were running high. Nothing actually happened. We could ignore it and move past it, and everything would go back to normal.

“About last night. We need to talk.” I pushed my plate away.

A pink flush stained Carter’s cheeks, but he met my gaze and didn’t look away. “Okay.”

I twisted my fingers together under the table, trying to hide my nerves. I did not want Carter to know how much I’d wanted to kiss him.

“I thought you were going to kiss me last night, before my phone rang. But the more I thought about it, the more I think I was reading too much into it. I was taking care of your eye, and I got closer than I normally would. The whole thing was a silly overreaction on my part, and I don’t want it to affect our friendship. I’d like to pretend it never happened and keep being friends. Can we do that?”

I squirmed in my chair, a little freaked that I’d just shared everything I’d been thinking. What if I’d ruined everything, and Carter wasn’t willing to go back to the way things had been before?

Carter

Jane didn’t think I’d wanted to kiss her? I bit back my instinctive denial. I’d wanted to kiss her more than anyone in a very long time. But if she wanted to be just friends, I would do that. I was not the type to force myself on any woman. I’d rather have Jane as a friend than not have her in my life at all.

“I want us to be friends.” Which was the truth. We might have drifted apart after I got traded from Texas, but Jane had been a good friend back then, and the easy way we’d been able to renew our friendship had made my transition here much easier.

“If I did anything to make you uncomfortable last night, I’m sorry. I appreciated you taking care of my eye.” Telling her I’d wanted to kiss her would only make this awkward, so I’d keep that information to myself.