“So I’m guessing since you didn’t crawl into the apartment until almost one, and you had no shirt or shoes on, things went well last night?”

Leaning on his stick, Vaughn made sure the flex was good before he shot hard at Dylan, Jensen’s backup. Looking back at his best friend who was sprawled out on the ice, stretching his hips, he grinned. He swore the smell of her perfume was still lingering in his hair, and he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed by it. “More than good.”

“So it’s a go?”

“It’s a go,” he said, letting out a big exhale. “Scared shitless.”

Jensen laughed as he arched his back, really digging his hips into the ice. “I’m sure, but that’s great, man. Super proud of you.”

“I got a girlfriend, Jenny. I’m not getting married.”

“Eh, I mean, you haven’t picked anyone in over ten years, so she must mean something.”

Hell yeah, she meant something, but even admitting that gave him a little bit of a panic attack. “Yeah, I just don’t want to fuck anything up.”

“Well, you can’t walk on eggshells, dude.”

“She wouldn’t let me.”

Jensen laughed. “Nope, she’d call you on that bullshit quick.”

Shooting another puck, this time against the boards, he let out a breath. “She wanted me to stay the night.”

Looking down at Jensen, Vaughn saw that he was staring up at him with an expectant look as he stretched his knee back. “Well, son, after you make love to a woman, there is cuddling—”

“Shut the fuck up, you know I know that. I just haven’t done it in a long time.”

“Okay?”

“What if I fart in my sleep?”

“Well, you’re going to fart. It’s natural, and you know, she farts.”

“Ew, she does not.”

“Do you know that woman are like men?”

“Shut up,” he said, skating around him. “What if I toss and turn, roll over on her and suffocate her?”

“We’ll throw a beautiful funeral for her.”

“What if she wants to cuddle? You know I get hot when I sleep.”

“I’m pretty sure she just wants to feel you there. She isn’t clingy, dude. She’s damn independent as hell. Someone who can take your crap, throw it back and then some, isn’t some weak lady.”

He knew that tenfold, but it scared him. He didn’t want to chase her off. “What if I snore?”

“She probably snores. She has a short torso since she’s a borderline midget.”

Vaughn poked his stick at him. “Don’t talk about my woman like that.”

As Jensen laughed, his voice carried through the rink. No one was out yet except for Dylan, who was warming up the trainers. Vaughn always got to practice early with Jensen, so he was often on the ice first and usually the last off. He wasn’t as good as he was because of talent. He had that, but he was also a workhorse. “My bad, but really, I’m sure it won’t be a big deal.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s part of a relationship.”

Rolling his eyes, Vaughn went down on a knee and stretched his quad. “We had one date.”

“And banged like crazy for like a week. Plus, you guys have been flirting for months.”

Leaning his head to the side as he thought that over, Vaughn switched legs. “What if she gets to know me and doesn’t like me?”

“What’s there not to like?”

Vaughn paused, a grin playing on his lips. “That was nice.”

Jensen laughed as he rolled over, laying his arms above his head as he stretched. “Don’t get sappy on me, but everything that people don’t like about you, she’s already been a victim of. She’s dealt with all the shit, the shell you live in, and all that. She got you out of it, and she still likes you after you probably cried all over her about Hazel—”

“Um, I don’t cry, especially over that whore.”

He may have had, like, one tear, but he was not admitting to that. With a dry look, Jensen rolled his eyes. “She made her point. She’s in it to win it, and I don’t think you can scare her off.”

“But what if I scare myself off? These feelings, like, here,” he said, pointing to his gut, “are weird and freaky.”

Shaking his head, Jensen stood before dropping down into a squat and then back up, doing it as he spoke. “That means you like her.”

“Well, I get that. I’m just scared that she may stop liking me, and I don’t want to do anything stupid or hurt her again or anything like that.”

“Then don’t.”

“Jenny, it’s me.”

“Yeah, and when you love someone, you love hard.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who said anything about love? Shut your dirty mouth.”

Laughing hard, Jensen fell over onto the ice, leaning on his hand as he looked up at Vaughn. “You know that’s how relationships work. You fall in love.”

“Um, yeah, like in a year or something.”

Rolling his eyes, Jensen sat up on his knees. “You know I fell for Wren in two seconds.”

“’Cause you’re a puss.”

“Whatever,” he said, flipping him off as he stood, skating to where Vaughn was standing. “I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“And now you’re going to tell me?” he asked dryly, and Jensen nodded.

“I sure am,” he said, squirting some water into his mouth, and then he squirted it on the ice, a little grin on his face. “It was the summer we were building NateWay One. I had always thought she was a beautiful girl, and I had a sickening crush, but I didn’t think of her as the one—”

“You think of Wren as the one?”

Jensen shrugged. “Yeah.”

“But you won’t tell her that.”

“She isn’t ready.”

Scrunching up his face, Vaughn murmured, “You’re an odd fuck, you know that?”

Thinking that over, Jensen nodded. “Maybe. But anyway, we were building the frame to one of the houses to the left of the main house. I asked her to hand me a hammer, and she looked at me and said, ‘So you can bang the hell out of that nail?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s what you do.’” He paused to laugh, and Vaughn rolled his eyes. “And she laughed and laughed, and then goes, ‘I was trying to be suggestive, Jenny, come on.’ She walked away, her shorts way too short and too tight, but I knew, right then, I would love her for the rest of my life.”