The Boyfriend Goal (Love and Hockey Book 1)

Josie

Wesley parks outside Maeve’s place so I can get my things. “Be right back,” I say, cheery and upbeat.

I’m done with my brief bad mood over dinner. That was rude of me anyway. There’s no need to be sullen about Wesley not telling me he chased pucks for a living the night we met. Not when he has the thing I need most—a place to live in comfortably for the next three months. And dammit, I’m going to be the best roomie ever, just like I try to be the best second-born child ever.

I fly up the stairs to Maeve’s place, grateful she’s out at a catering gig so I can hustle quickly. Once inside, I grab my suitcase—pre-packed this morning, just in case. Then, I rush to the bathroom to check the shower—which I won’t miss. Then the vanity.

All good. I didn’t leave anything behind. I’m ready to go. I text Maeve on my way to the door.

Josie: I love you madly, and I am so, so, so grateful you let me stay here for the week! Also, we’re going to need a major debrief tomorrow. Like the biggest debrief of all time. For tonight, I am heading to…

Josie: Wait. I think I’ll make you guess!

Maeve: Admit it—you love that I track you.

Josie: You weirdo.

Maeve: Um, check your weirdness at the door, girl who left on her tracker for five days. Anyway, can’t wait for the debrief.

I do like the tracking. Maybe because no one cared that much about my whereabouts when I was younger. I still haven’t turned it off.

I grab the doorknob but my gaze catches on Prick. After snagging the cactus I named, I hold it gingerly then head downstairs, lugging my suitcase, and avoiding the wobbly step. Won’t miss that either. When I hit the first floor, I march as fast as I can to the door. Wesley’s leaning against the car, looking relaxed and, well, climbable.

Shame.

He’s wearing his post-game suit, which I appreciated far too much during our dinner. But he’s shed the jacket already, so now he’s lounging against the car in tailored burgundy slacks that hug his strong legs, a creme button-down and no tie. The cuffs of his sleeves are rolled up, revealing a hint of ink on his forearms—the line drawing of the dog and the edge of a music note.

He’s holding his phone in his hand, listening to music presumably, giving me a few seconds to think about the real weirdness.

I’m going to live platonically with the guy I tried desperately to see again. Hell, I implored Frieda the Witch for his last name. She might have even told him I practically begged, bribed, and bought art for that last name. But I’ll deal with that another time. For now, I have a place to stay, and so what if it’s with a man who saw me naked once?

Wesley clearly just wanted a one-night stand, and that’s fine with me. I wanted the same with him. Well, I did at the time. But it’s not like I’m going to let on to him that I wanted more once it was over. He might think I’m clingy or worse—a stalker. Trying to track him down again at an art gallery is kind of a lot. My stomach churns at the memory from last night.

When Wesley makes eye contact with me, he hits stop, then pops out his earbuds and sets them in his pocket as he trots up the steps to grab my suitcase. “Let me help.”

“Thanks,” I say brightly, shifting into Super Roomie mode as he hoists my luggage easily into the car even though it weighs fifty metric tons. Once he’s shut the trunk, I thrust the cactus at him. “Here you go! I got you a housewarming thank you present.”

His brow pinches. “Already?”

“Well, Christian said he’d find me a place,” I say, then I want to kick myself. I’m re-gifting the plant to a guy who’s been generous enough to open his home to me. Real classy. “But it’s okay. I can get you something else. What do you like? I mean, besides ice cream and records?”

And giving me orgasms.

“Plants are cool,” he says, but it’s like I’ve handed him a baby when he’s never taken care of one.

“They don’t need much. It’s a bunny cactus. Just a little water. I call it Prick though. Since it attacked my chest last night. Made me bleed,” I say, and wow, what a great gift, girl.

His lips twitch. “Prick?”

I wince. “I’ll get some ice cream tomorrow.”

He curls his hand around the little terracotta pot, shaking his head. “Prick is perfect.”

He sets it gently on the floor of the backseat, then holds my door open for me. Once inside, a new reality hits me as he starts the car and eases into traffic. “I don’t have anything besides my clothes and books. You said you had sheets, but do I need to get anything else? Towels? Toilet paper? Hangers?” I wave a hand. “I’ll just go to Target tomorrow. I can take the bus.”

As he buckles in, he smiles, the confident, in-control kind of grin he gave me the other night. “Josie, it’s furnished. And I have all those things already.”

Of course it is. “Right, right,” I say. “The decorator. You mentioned a decorator.”

He scratches his jaw. “Decorating’s not my thing.”

What is your thing? Besides saving half-naked women with clothes and now saving fully-clothed women with homes?

“Well, I’m excited to see it,” I say, playing the Super Roomie role perfectly, since he’s clearly a Super Landlord. Which brings me to another point—something I should have asked Christian. “What is the rent?”

Wesley scoffs.

I wait for his answer.

But he’s silent.

“Seriously? What is it?” I ask again, hoping it’s affordable. I’m sure it is—that was the point of me asking Christian for help. Still, I want to know.

“Josie, I’m not charging you rent.”

“I can pay. I have a job. It’s only for three months, but still, I have one. How about I pay whatever I was going to pay for the short-term rental?”

He shoots me a quick look before he changes lanes. “How about you don’t?”

“Wesley,” I plead. This man is so generous. But I can’t keep taking from him. “I want to pay. Something.”

“Josie,” he says, his voice as stern as it was when he told me to bend over the bed. “I own my home. Outright. I only want you to be a guest.”

Now is clearly not the time to argue with this bossy and generous man—and that’s a lethal combo. Lethal to my panties. “I’ll find a way,” I say, and maybe I can plant some seeds for the next time this comes up. “I can cook, I can make coffee, I can water plants, I can help…and I can shelve books according to the Dewey Decimal System.”

“How about you do your own dishes and keep things neat, and we’ll call it good?”

I can tell that’s as far as I’m getting, so I drop the topic, saying, “I won’t miss the spring on Maeve’s couch.”

He tosses me a look as he slows at the lights on Fillmore. “The one that was going to stab you in the ass?”

I groan privately. I told him about the evil spring the night we slept together. Way to move on, Josie. “Yes. That one. And it definitely attacked me. I have the bruise on my butt to prove it,” I say, and that probably doesn’t help either—all this butt talk. I quickly pivot. “So, if you don’t have black sheets, are they…Sea Dogs colors?”

“They’re navy.”

“That’s in the same family as Sea Dogs colors,” I point out as he drives.

“The Sea Dogs color is royal blue,” he says.

Okaaaay. This isn’t awkward at all, discussing the precise hue of his team colors instead of the attack spring. “Right. Of course,” I say, then hunt around for safe topics. Not hockey. Not Sea Dogs. Not the other night. What do roomies discuss? House stuff. “So you have a room under the stairs? Is it like a cupboard?”

He shakes his head. “No. It’s a room. It sort of extends past the staircase. It even has a window. And a nook.”

My mouth waters. “A reading nook?”

“I guess you could use it for that.”

“What else would someone use it for?”

He shrugs as he drives past shops I’ll want to check out soon, like An Open Book and Bling and Baubles. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t use it. Honestly, no one has even stayed there since I moved in. Guess it’s a virgin room.”

That doesn’t make me think of sex either.

He flicks the turn signal and turns onto Jackson Street, full of modern homes with Scandinavian designs, square-like structures in cool shades of gray, with metal and wood accents that give them a modern, minimalist feel. Every yard is well-kept, every porch is pristine, and every home screams money.

I hate that Christian was right, but this area is the opposite of the one the short-term rental was in. Wesley pulls into a tiny driveway, then hits a button for a sleek garage. Once inside, I step out of the car into a neat, clean space. Is Wesley neat and organized? I’m dying to know simply because I want to know him.

But I shouldn’t want to know him. He’s just a roommate—that’s all. He pops the trunk, then grabs the suitcase from the trunk before I can. I snag the cactus from the floor of the backseat as he punches the code into the door and swings it open.

“After you.” He flicks on a switch. Everything is light and airy. Clean and quiet.

We head up a short flight of stairs to the main floor, where he sets my bag down. “Let me show you around.”

I try not to gawk. Really I do. I’ve seen nice homes before. My brother has a nice place. But Christian’s five years older and he’s always felt twenty years my senior. Wesley feels like my generation, and it’s strange for someone my age to have a place this upscale.

“How old are you?” I ask, instantly wishing I could take it back. I’ve been trained not to ask people’s ages. You’re not supposed to do it at work. I shouldn’t do it with Wesley. Even though I could find all his info online since he’s a pro athlete.

“Twenty-seven,” he says, saving me from Google as I set down the cactus on a table in the foyer. “I grew up in Denver. I was drafted at eighteen. Played in college. Then in New York for four and a half years. Was traded last season in February. I studied marketing in school,” he says, then shrugs. “Yeah, it’s the jock major, I know.”

But I wasn’t going to say that. “I don’t think it’s the jock major,” I say earnestly.

He shrugs casually. “It’s cool. It is. At least it was at my school. And I took rocks for jocks, dinosaurs for jocks, planets for jocks, and so on.”

I feel terrible now. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to give me your CV. It’s just really nice—your home. I’m not used to that from people my age. I’m twenty-six.” Since we’re both course-correcting from the other night, I add more. “I have a master’s in library and information science. My undergrad was English. And hey, I took physics for poets,” I say, and that makes him laugh as he leans against the doorframe leading into the living room. It’s a good look. One I cannot, should not, and will not linger on. “And English was the nerd major.”

“Your words.”

“I like words. And nerds. Which I am obviously one of,” I stage whisper.

Wesley holds my gaze for a long beat, his eyes going darker, his lips curving the slightest bit, almost like he wants to say something, but then must think the better of it, since he says, all businesslike now, “Let me show you around.”

He walks me through the living room. There’s a huge U-shaped couch, a flat-screen TV with a game console, and a record player on a table. We head into the kitchen, which is man-magazine-style worthy. I can’t resist. “Hey, it is black and chrome,” I tease, rapping my knuckles on the marble counter.

“Yeah,” he says, scratching his jaw, like he’s taking it in. “But I don’t mind. I don’t use it a ton.” He strides to the Sub-Zero fridge, so gleaming it could double as a mirror. Patting it, he says, “I’ll make some room in the fridge for you. It’s full of prepared meals right now.” He sounds apologetic, but whether it’s for the meals or the lack of fridge space, I don’t know.

“You cook in advance? Because I can definitely help with that,” I offer, hoping, truly hoping, he takes me up on it. “My aunt taught me to cook. And I can do healthy stuff too, like you had tonight.”

He gives a quick shake of his head. “I have a meal service.”Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“Oh. Okay,” I say, a little defeated, but I’ll find some way to help. “That sounds fun too.”

“My dad set it up. The meal service,” he says, lowering his voice, like it embarrasses him.

He mentioned his dad that night. That he’d sent him to the art gallery. I’m about to say something along those lines to show I paid attention, but I think the better of it since I don’t want to bring up Frieda and maybe summon her somehow. She’d probably descend in a black cloud of vengeance and Chanel and tell Wesley I’ve been creeping on him, so I say, “Sounds cool.”

“It’s whatever,” he says, and that whatever is doing a lot of work in telling me how he feels about his meal plan and perhaps his father. He guides me down the hall, gesturing to the staircase leading to the second floor. “I’m up there.”

“Got it. The main bedroom suite,” I say, then playfully—or so I hope—add, “I’ll stay away from it.”

His jaw ticks briefly, then he moves on and says, “And there’s a room at the end of the hall. It’s a gym.”

“Makes sense.”

“But I usually work out with friends instead.”

“Cool.”

He turns around and opens the door under the stairs, and I moan in pleasure. The cutout-style white door leads into a cozy room with a peaked roof. He gestures for me to go first and I head inside, whimpering in happiness as I look around. There’s a dove gray area rug with cute geometric shapes in different colors on it, and a full-size bed with a navy comforter. The best part, though, is the window seat. It’s covered in white and blue pillows, and my heart does a jig. “It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” I say, bringing my hand to my chest.

“Yeah?”

“It’s so cute I could cry,” I say, then impulsively, I fling my arms around him. “It’s the first thing that’s gone right for me since I arrived,” I say into his neck, where I catch his scent. It’s the way he smelled the other night. Like the forest trees from my little town in Maine, and a mountain stream. I save these details in my Wesley file. He has a favorite cologne. Maybe even a lucky one that he likes so much he keeps it at home and at work.

I draw a furtive inhale and once again, he’s my sexy stranger. The man who plus-oned me into an art opening simply to help me, who took me shopping so I wouldn’t feel foolish without pants, who bought me ice cream on our date, who rented a hotel room to fulfill my wish for a one-night stand.

For a second, he seems unsure what to do with my hug, then his strong arms wrap around me. His muscles mold to my body. Images flash wildly through my mind.

His arm locking me into place when he fucked me hard the other night.

His hands on my ass when he went down on me.

His lips coasting over every inch of me, including my belly button ring.

When he breaks the embrace before I do, his eyes drift over my body, stopping at my stomach. Is he remembering my belly button piercing too?

He clears his throat, but he looks…blank, almost stony, as he says, “There you go. Good night.”

He’s gone. Leaving me alone in this room. It’s only when I sit down on the bed that my last words echo.

It’s the first thing that’s gone right for me since I arrived.

I groan. I’ve already insulted my new landlord. I’m the prick.