Romancing the Grump (Appies, #4)

by Jenny Proctor

before I can thank Felix and Gracie for dinner and say goodbye, a knock sounds on the door, and Gracie hops up to answer it. I swear under my breath. Blake’s texts distracted me, and now it’s too late for me to escape. “I assume you’ve all had the chance to meet Summer?” Gracie says as she shuttles her toward the kitchen table. Summer scans the room. She looks at Gracie and lifts her eyebrows. “So, when you said you made enough soup for an army, you really meant for an entire hockey team?” “Not the whole team,” Gracie says. “And I promise I saved you some. Do you know everyone? Do you need names?” Summer props her hands on her hips. “Actually, I’ve been studying the player roster, so let me see if I can do this by myself.” She makes a show of pointing at each guy, listing off his jersey number and position. Finally, she turns to me. “And you’re Nathan Sanders,” she says. “Number…?” She wrinkles her forehead like she’s thinking and purses her lips to the side before she says, “Twenty-three?” I nod my head in acknowledgment, hating that my number was the only one she struggled to remember. Hating even more that I noticed. Summer raises her fists in a tiny cheer. “And you’re a left defenseman.” I nod again, and Summer turns, seating herself in the chair I vacated moments before. She’s wearing jeans now, more casual than anything I’ve seen her wearing at work, and a flannel shirt that makes her eyes look stupidly blue. She has on a tank top underneath, and every time she moves...