“I think the word casual needs to be banned from the rest of this discussion. Can you please explain what you mean?”

“So, like, what if we’re doing what we were doing, but with feelings.”

“Most people call that a relationship, Randy.”

He bites a nail. He looks like a cornered animal.

“If you can’t even say the word, it’s not something you’re ready for.”

“I can say it.”

“Then do.”

“Relationship.” He’s still chewing on his thumb, so it comes out all garbled.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. My stupid eyes decide for me and start to water. I hate crying. “I can’t—” I reach for the handle.

“Wait!” Randy grabs my wrist. It’s the first time he’s touched me since I got in the vehicle. His skin is warm and rough. It’s still electric. My heart aches so badly, and my magic marble is going crazy.

He licks his lips and swallows hard, eyes darting to me and away. “Look, my whole life everyone’s compared me to my dad. How I look, how I talk, how I act, how good I am at hockey—I’m just like him. And he ruined my mom with all his dicking around. She’s never gotten over it and my sister moved halfway around the world to get away from him. I don’t ever want to do to someone else what he did to them, and to me. I don’t want to put anyone through that.”

The pain this has caused him is clear in his eyes, in the rigid set of his shoulders, in the tremor in his voice. This man, so confident on the ice and in bed, is floundering in the face of feelings.

I sweep my thumb across his knuckles. “You don’t have to repeat the same mistakes, Randy. You’re your own person. You control your actions.”

He says quietly, “I haven’t been with anyone but you since we fooled around in the summer. No one.”

“No one?” I’m kind of stunned. Okay, I’m a lot stunned.

“There was that one girl at the bar who kept touching my arm, but all I could think about was you, and then you showed up. I was so relieved and terrified at the same time because I knew I was your rebound. I think I wanted it to be something else even back then; I just didn’t realize it yet. Or I didn’t want to see it.” He exhales a long, slow breath. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did when you brought up how things were getting intense, but you said you’d say something if it got to be too much, and you didn’t, and neither did I, and I panicked.”

“I see that now.”

“I don’t know if you still have those feelings, or if what I said made them disappear, but I still want you. I mean, I want to be with you—and not just for sex. If this is moving too fast and you need this to not have a label, we can do that.” He pauses, his eyes wide, and then he shakes his head. “That’s not true. I want a label. I want to be in a relationship with you.”

“A relationship?” I sound like an idiot. I’m still reeling over the fact that we often went more than a month without seeing each other, and he wasn’t screwing bunnies. I mean, of course I’d hoped he wasn’t with bunnies, but I didn’t expect exclusivity, what with it being casual—or not, apparently, on either side.

“Yeah.” He nods once.

“You haven’t been with any bunnies since the summer?”

“Not one.”

“Why?”

“Because I only wanted you. Sorry, I mean want, present tense.”

“Wow. You went weeks at a time without pussy.”

“I jerked off a lot.”

“I bet.” I glance down at his crotch. He’s definitely got some happy going on down there. He’s still holding my wrist, and his thumb brushes back and forth over the skin, soothing, warming. “So you want to date me?”

“No, I want you to be my girlfriend.”

“You’re going for the big-gun label, eh?”

“Go big or go home, right?” He tugs me toward him. “So? You want to give it a shot?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

His smile makes my heart all melty. I don’t realize he’s coming in for a kiss until his mouth is almost on mine. I slide a hand between our faces so he gets my knuckles instead of my lips. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

“I don’t really care.”

“My mouth tastes like cheese dick.”

“How do you know what cheese dick tastes like?”

“You’ve seen Benji. His beard matches his balls.” I’m pretty sure I ruined what’s supposed to be our first official couple kiss by talking about my ex’s ungroomed ball sac.

Randy pulls a face. “That’s fuckin’ nasty.”

“Sorry, pretend I didn’t say that.”

“Too late.”

He pulls a pack of mints from his pocket, pops one out, and pushes it between my fingers and into my mouth. I chew it a couple of times, rub all the little minty bits over my tongue and swallow. Water would be good, but since I don’t have any, I’ll have to manage. I drop my hand. “’Kay. Ready.”

Randy gives me that sexy grin that makes my panties want to crawl off my body and into his pocket. Except I’m not wearing any. All my girl parts get tingly as soon as he cups my face in his palms. He smoothes his thumb along the contour of my bottom lip, wiping away a mint crumb. Then he leans in.