Just Don't Fall (Sweater Weather, #1; Appies, #1)

by Emma St. Clair

No—my crush on hockey’s beautiful bad boy began on a typical Tuesday night fifteen years ago when he shared a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie with me and told my brother to stop being a jerk. I was ten. Logan was fourteen. I guess you could say it was crush at first cookie.

She smells like cinnamon and cookies and something familiar that hits me hard. The word that comes to mind is home. She smells like home.

Hockey reflexes, man. Not a thing to be trifled with!

I could star in the sequel to How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days—How to Lose a Guy in Ten Seconds.

For ninety-nine-point-nine nine percent of twenty-five-year-old women, this whole concept would be a no-brainer. Kissing Logan Barnes would be a fantasy happily lived out. Unless you’re me. Don’t get me wrong—kissing Logan is absolutely a fantasy of mine. One I’ve had for more years than is healthy. The issue is that up to this point, kissing anyone at all has remained a fantasy. And only a fantasy. Because I haven’t kissed anyone. Ever. Not a peck. Not more than a peck. Zero making out at all on my relationship resume.

The biggest reason I should have said no has nothing to do with Brandon or my teammates or anything else. I should have said no because I wanted to say yes. And wanting Parker is perhaps the most dangerous thing I can think of.

He didn’t say pretend, a naughty little voice in my mind says. Not pretend or fake. Just … boyfriend.

“If you were my girlfriend,” Logan says then, his voice gravely and low, “there would be a lot of physical contact.”

As usual, Parker is the sun banishing even my darkest clouds.

So, I decide to play a little dirty. Who cares if we don’t have pads? It’s not hockey without hitting. That’s what I’m thinking when I try to slam Logan into the wall. Try being the operative word. He barely budges, and I almost eat it, falling forward on my skates. Logan gets a wicked gleam in his eye, and the next thing I know, I’m the one being slammed—a gentle slam—against the wall. My stick thwacks against the plexiglass as Logan’s body presses into mine. Holy hockey, Batman.

“What about you? I don’t want to mess up your reputation or anything.” I snort. “I should be so lucky. With a little investigative journalism, they’d quickly find that you’re way too good for me, Pete.”

“You’re, like, twenty-thousand leagues out of my sea.”

could be bad for me.

“You’re not a pawn, Parker.” Be still, my swooning heart. I think I need to raise the bar for what inspires swooning. Not being a pawn should be the baseline of common decency.

Awesome. Now Aaron Wagner is going to ruin Ed Sheeran for me forever. I pull my arm away from his just as a warm hand slides around my waist, gently maneuvering me backward into a firm chest. I know this chest! And I know this scent. More than either of those things, I recognize the immediate sense of peace I seem to feel in Logan’s presence.

smoooootthhhhh

It is in this moment that I realize I might be a little bit in love with my fake boyfriend.

“Because if you were mine, I’d be sure everyone knows it. There would be no question in anyone’s mind.”

Hockey players in uniform? Excellent. Hockey players shirtless? Extraordinarily good. Hockey players in tailored suits arriving for a game? Simply … epic.