She shivers again, and I chuckle as I kiss her neck, and then I do release her because I will get a hard-on if I don’t.

The waitress arrives with our beers and I give her a twenty, tell her to keep the change. I hand Jules her—gag—Bud Light and take my Molson, where I hold it out to her and say, “Cheers.”

She taps her bottle against mine with a grin. “Cheers.”

“So, Jules,” Garrett says conversationally, and she turns to face him. “Just curious what you see in this big dork.”

I roll my eyes but then turn to Jules curiously, because I’m wondering what she’d tell my friends about me when put on the spot. While I notice her cheeks turn a little pink, she looks at Garrett and simply says, “He’s my hero.”

Typical funny man that he is, Garrett makes a gagging motion, but grins at her with bright eyes. Olivia and Vale give dreamy sighs and Hawke just looks appraisingly at me, almost as if he’s trying to find the super hero cape I’m hiding.

My chest though fills with pride, hearing Jules say that, and I drop my hand to her lower back and just press it there to let her know that touched me.

Garrett immediately goes in for the kill. He leans in conspiratorially to Jules and says, “Did Max tell you about that time he got drunk in Los Angeles after a game and locked himself out of his room wearing nothing but his underwear?”

Jules’ eyes get big and she cranes her neck to look at me with a cocked eyebrow. She then turns back to Garrett. “No, he didn’t tell me that. But I think you should.”

Everyone laughs, including me, because fuck it’s hilarious and so uncharacteristic of me. I decide to go ahead and take the wind out of Garrett’s sails as I tell Jules, “Let’s just say I may have drunk some bourbon that night and it didn’t agree with me.”

“How did you get back in your room?” she asks curiously.

“Walked down to the lobby,” I say.

“Stumbled,” Garrett adds on.

“Stumbled down to the lobby,” I agree with him. “And just walked up to the front desk and asked for a replacement key. Of course, I had no ID on me and the clerk didn’t recognize me so they refused. They finally had to get the manager to let me in, and I just hung out in the lobby in my underwear until he came and rescued me.”

“Oh, good God, Max,” Jules says in mock dismay. “You’re an embarrassment to humanity.”

“Right?” Garrett adds for emphasis.

“Well,” Hawke says dramatically, with an evil grin aimed at me, and I cringe because I know what that fucker’s getting ready to tell Jules. “Not nearly as embarrassing as Max getting nominated as one of America’s hottest sports bachelors by Sports World magazine.”

I groan and close my eyes, but I can feel Jules’ gaze on me. I open them up and see her staring at me in astonishment.

“Really?” she asks.

“I was going to tell you tonight,” I mutter with embarrassment. “My agent sent me a text just before the game. I have to do a photo shoot next week or something.”

“The winner will be announced next month and that hottie will grace the cover of the magazine,” Hawke adds on with an even broader but no less evil grin.

“How will the winner be chosen?” Jules asks me curiously.

I groan again, because I am not enthused about this. Not any way I could decline though, because as my agent explained, press coverage in any form is crucial to keep me relevant to the sporting world. Even if it is for a special issue that will draw in female fans so they can ogle.

Hawke answers with a lecherous smile aimed at me. “The readers will vote online, and I can tell you . . . I’m totally voting for Max. He’s so dreamy.”

“Fuck off,” I mutter as I pop him in the chest with my fist. Not hard enough to really hurt but enough to get his attention. “You’re totally ruining my hero image with Jules.”

“Nothing could ruin that, babe,” she says as she leans in, peers up at me and wraps an arm around my waist.

And well, that warrants a kiss. So I give it to her, completely uncaring that four sets of eyes are pinned on us. I give her my mouth and she gives me hers back. I vaguely hear Olivia and Vale sigh again, but surprisingly, no gagging noises from Garrett. When I pull back, I shoot him a look and he just winks at me and I know despite his teasing—because that’s the way Garrett is—the fucker is happy for me.

A quick glance over at Hawke and I see the same on his face.

“So what did you think about your first Cold Fury get-together?” I ask Jules as we drive to my house. We discussed briefly going to her apartment but immediately discarded it, because her bed is too small and her neighbors too loud.

“It was great,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “Most everyone was so nice, and I really like Olivia and Vale.”

“Most everyone?” I ask, my hackles rising that someone would dare to not be nice to my Jules. We weren’t pinned to each other’s sides all evening so I must have missed something.

She gives a husky laugh. “Just once in the bathroom . . . that woman Cassie was in there with her sister, Allie. At least I think that’s what Olivia said their names were.”

“She say something to you?” I practically growl.

“Not to me,” Jules says. “But she was doing her makeup and talking to her sister, and talking about boning that player she was with . . . what was his name, Mikkel?”

“Yup,” I acknowledge.

“Well, it was just crass,” Jules says with a slight hint of disgust. “And she said that he was just a stupid Swede and wouldn’t know what hit him by the time she was done with him.”

“She’s a bitch,” I tell Jules point-blank as I turn into my neighborhood. “And her sister is too. There’s a few associated with the team that are like that, but you just have to ignore them. They love the attention, even if it’s negative.”

“I never did understand women like that.” Jules laughs. “It’s an embarrassment to our gender.”

“See,” I tease her with a quick glance her way. The interior is dark and I can just make out the glow of her in the dashboard lights. Just exquisite. “I told you that you were one in a million, and that’s why I snapped you up.”