Chapter 6
CUPCAKE PAYMENT
LAKE
After a long road trip, I’m more eager than I usually am to get to work. Because I want to get on my skates? Sure, I always want that. But maybe I’ll finally run into Remy again. Haven’t seen her since that night. Haven’t heard from her since the plant delivery when she sent me a thank you text.
I grab my phone from the kitchen counter and swing into the living room to find my dad where I almost always find him—at the puzzle table.
“Do you need anything before I go down to the city? I’ve got time if you want to go into town and get a sandwich or something,” I say, asking gently as I pose the same question my brother and sister ask him nearly every day too.
Sliding his reading glasses down his nose, he scrunches his brow, like he’s really considering it. I wish he were considering leaving the house. But then he shakes his head.
“I’ve got one thousand problems, and not one of them is getting a sandwich,” he says, pushing up the glasses and sorting through a pile of pieces in the corner of his puzzle table. “Gavin and Mira picked up the groceries for me.”
“Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” I’m half tempted to say we could go back to that puzzle store in the city, but there’s no point.
Maybe he even knows it since he whips off his glasses, and a smile spreads across his weathered face. “Don’t worry about me, kid. Just get to work. You’re having a great season. I’ll be watching the game tonight.”
My heart twists. It’d be selfish of me to say I wish you could watch it in person. I pat his shoulder. “I’ll see you during warmups,” I say, then tap my left shoulder twice on my midnight blue suit jacket. It’s the sign I always flash to the broadcast booth, but really to him.
He taps his shoulder, too, mirroring me.
I take off, heading through the front door and outside the home, sprawling on several acres at the edge of Cozy Valley.
I have an apartment in the city too—sometimes it’s just easier to crash there after games.
But I’m here as much as I can to help with Big Steps Ranch.
It was my dad’s passion—he’s a retired physical therapist, and he specialized in equine therapy and adaptive riding.
My brother and his wife—also therapists—do the hard work of running it.
I help out sometimes with the bird sanctuary on the edge of the property, though mostly I help by making sure we have enough funds to run it when times are tough.
I hop into my car, then swing by Miller’s house a few miles away to pick him up. “Picture this,” he says, the second he slides in. “A giga-coaster.”
He chats the whole way about a magazine story he listened to about extreme experiences at theme parks, and the race now to unleash scarier and steeper and faster roller coasters. I don’t have to say much, since Miller can hold a lot of conversations solo.
I just offer a word here or there as my thoughts drift to Remy. Will she be working today? Did that prick and a half ask her to make his dating profile?
I stew on that till we reach the arena. As we’re heading down the corridor toward the locker room, Miller regales me with a tale of an exa-coaster that’s taller than the Statue of Liberty when my phone buzzes.
Her name flashes on the screen. Heat shoots down my spine. So annoying.
Remy: Hi!! Do you have a few minutes to talk before you start warmups? I have an idea I’d love to run past you. Maybe we could meet by the plant wall on the concourse? I have something for you too!
The plant wall—a section of the concourse covered in foliage native to Northern California—is out of the way.
Which tells me this idea of hers probably doesn’t involve a promo event.
Is it about the dating profile? The fuck it better not be.
She should just, I don’t know, not ever date again. Or date me.
Except…no. She’s too good, too kind, too upbeat.
I’d ruin her.
“Catch up with you in a minute,” I mutter to Miller, but he’s already joined up with Riggs as they turn into the locker room, telling him about the one-hundred-twenty-miles-per-hour speeds on the coaster.
I hustle down the corridor as I try to think of a response that doesn’t reveal I’m scheming to halt her access to all dating apps. Is that possible?
Not without being a morally gray dickhead.
If the shoe fits.
I settle on a safer reply.
Lake: As long as it doesn’t involve me doing a promo video about the plants.
Remy: What do you have against plants?
Lake: Nothing. It’s the videos I don’t like.
I bound up the stairwell to the concourse level, where vendors and concession stand staff are prepping for the game.
Maybe I’ll tell her we can meet up later to work on her dating profile. That’d buy some time, right? Or, hell, I could even volunteer for some promo thing after all. That would distract her.
But maybe not. She’s smarter than that.
The plant wall is on the other side of the arena, so I don’t have to pass Jameson’s beer stand on the way.
That’s probably for the best for him, since I’m clenching and unclenching my fists right now.
My dress shoes echo on the concrete as I pass monster-sized posters of me and my teammates.
Finally, I spot the chestnut-haired beauty standing by some dark green ferns and evergreens.
My pulse spikes.
Remy is stunning, dressed like she usually is on a game day.
She wears trim pants that make her legs look impossibly long, and shoes with some kind of strappy little—I don’t know—strap across the top of her foot.
She’s holding a pink box, and I think it’s from the bakery that my teammate Corbin opened with our general manager’s sister.
My mouth waters at the sight of it. And at the sight of her, since Remy’s got on some kind of sweater that shows just the tiniest bit of shoulder—she wears that style a lot, and if I kept a gratitude journal, that sweater type would be listed every day.
A rumble works its way up my chest. The things I want to do to her shoulder with my mouth. The ways I want to run my tongue across her pale skin, bite down on her collarbone.
But I try to clear the haze of want from my head. I should not be thinking of her that way. The woman just had her heart broken. She doesn’t need a hockey player with a black heart wanting to do bad things to her.
Or any other guy, for that matter.
Like a lane opening up on the ice, the confusion clears, and I’ve got my strategy. If she asks, I’ll tell her it’ll take a few weeks. Insist on a bunch of meetings to discuss dating profiles.
Stall.
I’m fucking brilliant.
I fight off a grin when I reach her, cutting to the chase. “What’s your proposition? Is it about writing that dating profile?”
“Actually, no.”
Hallelujah. “Good,” I say before thinking the better of it.
She tilts her head. “Is it? Good?”
“Yup. Studies say it’s best not to get back on the apps right away,” I say shamelessly. I’m an athlete—we have to improvise.
She arches a pretty brow as her lips curve up. “I had no idea you were so familiar with research on dating apps.”
I double down. “All the experts say it’s best to avoid them for a good, long while.”
“And to avoid dating in general for a good, long while?”
I carefully hedge my bets. “Just apps. On account of their being soul-sucking, mind-numbing and demoralizing.”
“Oh. Wow. All three?” she asks, clearly amused, a little challenging.
With good reason. But I’m all in so I cross my arms. “Yep. Experts even suggest going cold turkey on the apps forever.”
A small laugh gusts across her lips. “That’s really good to know. And for the record, I’m totally not crying in my cereal over him. I’m moving on,” she says, bright and upbeat. Don’t know if she’s just trying to sell it, but either way, that’s good news.
“Good. He’s not worth your tears or cereal.”
“Words to live by,” she says, then goes quiet for a beat when her gorgeous chocolate eyes stray to my chest.
Oh, well isn’t that a plot twist? She likes what she sees.
Good. Let her enjoy the view.
She must collect her thoughts, since she continues a few seconds later in a professional tone, “About my idea. Now I know you already helped me the other week, and it was amazing what you did. So I hope this isn’t too much, but since I promised that I wouldn’t lean on Jameson to start a profile, I thought I could request something of you,” she says with a bright smile.
I have no clue where she’s going with this. But color me intrigued. “Go on.”
“My sister’s getting married next month. She has a bunch of events leading up to the wedding, and I was supposed to go to them all with Jameson,” she says with a wince.
Say no more. “I’ll be your date.”
She blinks. “You don’t even want to hear about it?”
Honestly, I’ve heard enough but I humor her. “Sure, you can tell me.”
“My sister has a show on Webflix called Live the Life You’ve Imagined.
It’s kind of like an advice show, and she has a sponsor now for all of her wedding content—the event itself, but also a pre-wedding picnic, a shower, a dress fitting, and so on.
Since I’m the maid of honor, I’m going to all of that.
Jameson will probably be at a lot of those too, since he’s the best man. ”
This wedding sounds like hell.
“Why would anybody want all this shit?” I ask, despite knowing I should keep that thought to myself.
“Some people think it’s fun,” she says with a sexy little shrug and a smile that slays me.
I take it some people includes her. This woman seems like the type of person who enjoys everything.
Who loves her daily latte, the cute little hummingbird that stops at her feeder—because I bet she has one—and the sun that peeks through the fog.
I stay stoic though. “Well, I’ll do it.”
She studies me quizzically. “Are you sure you want to do all that?”
I don’t want to do any of it. But if it means helping her out and sticking it to her ex, I’m the man. “Yes.”