Chapter 10 Evie #3
“Is it stripping if I still had my pants on, or just really bad dancing?” He smiled. It was subtle, but I caught his eyes tracking up and down my body.
“What are you looking at?” I said.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but what’s with the clothes?”
I looked down. I was wearing a black turtleneck and black jeans with chunky gold earrings. It was my favorite outfit. I felt like a minimalistic Parisian woman when I wore my all-black ensemble. “What do you mean?” I double-checked to make sure that I hadn’t spilled beer down my front.
He grinned. “Nothing is flashing or dinging, and there’s no reflective material. I almost didn’t recognize you tonight.”
Our encounters flashed in my mind. Nick had seen me in my grandmother’s book club outfit, the inn’s milkmaid uniform, and a vintage snowsuit from the eighties. Did he think that I was wearing all of those clothes…unironically?
I must have taken too long to reply. Nick stammered. “I mean, you look beautiful tonight.” He flinched as the words came out. “I mean, you could wear a garbage bag and look beautiful…Oh God. I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?”
Instead of giving him a hard time, I rested my hand on his.
“Those were all GJ’s clothes. I was dressed up for her book club, the uniform is, well, a uniform, and today, that wasn’t my snowsuit.
I can’t believe you thought that those were my actual clothes.
” I could hardly get out the last sentence, tears were streaming down my face from laughing, but then I realized something.
Nick Tinsel thought that I was pretty. He thought that I was beautiful when I was wearing a light up brooch and a granny sweater. Nick didn’t care what I was wearing, he saw…me.
“You made that sweater look good.” He pumped his eyebrows.
“You just wait and see what I can do with a lace shawl.”
It was flirting, there was no doubt about it. I had no idea what I’d do with a lace shawl. But, instead of a quip back, he stared into the last of his beer. “I should get home. It’s game one tomorrow. Coalman will murder me if he finds out I was out drinking the night before an opener.”
“Nick. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
His brow knitted. “Figured what out?” He finished his beer and pushed the glass to the middle of the table.
“It’s Chance Rapids. Coalman already knows.”
“Right.” He sighed. “Just when this town was starting to grow on me.” His smile was weak. “Can I walk you home? Or do you want to stay with your friends over there?” He jutted his chin toward Charlotte’s table.
I turned and my new friends whipped their heads back around. “If we leave together there will be rumors.”
“There are going to be rumors anyway,” he said.
I understood where Nick was coming from, but I wondered why it mattered so much.
As though feeling my confusion, he laced his fingers together on the table in front of him and stared at his fingers. “I shouldn’t say anything, but the owner of the team warned me about getting involved with anyone in town before the Christmas Classic.”
“This town. All they care about is that damn game.” I finished my beer and then put on my jacket. “Can they do that?”
“Do what?” He was playing dumb.
“Tell you who and when you can…?” My voice trailed off.
Nick rubbed his chin. He started every day with a clean-shaven face and by the time the evening rolled around, he had a five o’clock shadow.
“He’s the owner, it’s a big game, and I’m new in town.
It’s obviously important to him and everyone here.
Chaser also told me that there has been drama with other players sleeping with the daughters of their billet families. ”
“I heard those rumors. I wonder if they’re true.”
“Evie.” He reached across the table. I thought he was going to grab my hand, but then he retreated.
“I don’t want you to be the subject of any rumors.
I know that nothing is going on between us.
You know that, too, but I would hate to hear stuff about you going around town.
You’re one of the good ones, you don’t deserve that. ”
“God forbid they find out we’re sharing a room.” I forced a laugh.
“We can keep that between the two of us. As long as GJ and Eddie don’t say anything we should be good.”
“All right then.” I reached my hand across the table in a business handshake position. “Thank you for the drink. Have a nice evening, Nick.”
He shook my hand. “Thank you for helping me keep my pants on.”
I laughed. “See, if anyone overheard that, we could quash any rumors.”
His lips smiled, but his eyes looked sad. “Good night, Evie.”
“Good night, Nick.”
It was the smart thing to do. That’s what I kept telling myself. Did I want to snuggle into Nick on the walk home? Yes. Did I wonder what his lips would feel like on mine? Absolutely. Was I terrified that those things would feel so good I wouldn’t want him to leave? One hundred percent.
We both stood and there was an awkward moment when we had to pass by each other, we bobbed and weaved the same way. He grabbed my arms and his eyes met mine. The bar noise disappeared again and the only thing I could see was him.
“Nick.” I think I whispered his name.
He leaned, his breath hot on my cheek. “See you at home, Evie,” he whispered. Then the chaos of the bar returned, louder than ever.
“Wait, what?” It took me a minute to process his words. Was that an invitation? Was it goodbye?
The door to the tavern opened and Nick’s puffy blue jacket disappeared into the night.
Even though I was confused by everything, I wasn’t going to cry in the Last Chance.
Faces whirled around me as I stumbled through the crowd into the bathroom.
The door slammed behind me and I rushed into a stall, resting against the door as I fought back tears.
They weren’t the sad kind, they were frustrated tears.
I leaned my head back to stare at the stained ceiling.
It was probably for the best. I wasn’t ready to fall for someone.
The scars from Brad hadn’t even scabbed over yet, but it didn’t matter.
Even if I wanted something to happen with Nick, his coach and this town had already made sure that it wasn’t going to happen.
“What are you waiting for?” A woman’s voice startled me back to reality.
“Excuse me?” I swiped at the hot tears on my cheeks and opened the metal door.
Charlotte was leaning against the sink. “Hi.”
“Hi…What do you mean, what am I waiting for?”
“Listen, Evie.” Charlotte draped her arm over my shoulder.
The base of her wine glass hung above my chest, condensation threatening to drip onto my black jacket.
“I recognize chemistry when I see it. When you’ve got a connection like that, you can’t let it slip through your fingers.
I let Logan get away when I was eighteen and we lost so many years together. ”
The irony of what she was saying wasn’t lost on me. “There’s nothing going on with me and Nick. He can’t even walk me home because everyone in this town will jump to conclusions.”
“I get it, Evie. I really do, but you shouldn’t let the Chance Rapids gossip train run your life.” Her lips narrowed and she got a faraway look. There was definitely more to Charlotte and Logan’s story.
“I’m not letting the gossip train run my life. It’s your husband. He told Nick that he couldn’t get involved with anyone in town.”
Charlotte’s brows shot up. “Logan told him he couldn’t be with you?”
“Not me specifically. Anyone. Nick doesn’t want to rock the boat with the team’s owner.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “What the hell is Logan thinking?” She seemed to be asking herself, not me.
I washed my hands even though I hadn’t used the toilet. “Apparently, he wants to avoid another billet scandal. Apparently, some of the players were sleeping with their billet’s daughters.”
She dumped her wine down the sink. “I can’t believe I brought that in here.
” The bathroom looked like it hadn’t been updated since GJ was a teenager.
At one time the tavern must have been grand, but now burn holes spotted the vanity.
“I might be overstepping here, and I’m sorry about that, but if you want to see where things could go with Nick—do it.
Don’t let that stupid team rule, one that doesn’t actually exist, I might add,” she shook her finger at me, “stop you.”
“It’s more than that.” I sighed. “I’m not sure I’m ready to trust another man—a hockey player at that.” Charlotte was a new friend, and I was definitely oversharing—but I couldn’t stop. I had to talk to someone about how crazy I was feeling about Nick.
Charlotte’s eyes softened. “I understand. And Evie, I knew your mom—she looked out for me. Now I want to return the favor. Back then the Chance Rapids community was a lot tighter.”
“Thanks.” I sniffed. The tears I’d fought to conceal threatened to make another appearance. “That means a lot.”
Charlotte went into a stall and rolled off some toilet paper, wadded it up, and handed it to me. I dabbed at my eyes. I’d always heard that the friendliest women in the world were the drunk ones in the nightclub bathrooms, and Charlotte was proving that theory correct.
“Men are men. There are good ones and bad ones—it doesn’t matter if they’ve got skates on their feet or not. Don’t let the hockey player thing get in the way, but if you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”
The wastepaper basket’s lid squeaked as I tossed the ball of toilet paper into it. “Timing is everything, isn’t it.”
“It is.” She smiled.
“I’ve only known Nick for a few days.”
“I know.”
“I’ve never felt a connection like this with anyone.”
“I can tell.”
“I’m scared.” There it was.
The door opened and Meghan, Charlotte’s friend, walked in. “There you are.” She looked between the two of us and then took a step backward. “Am I interrupting?”
“No.” Charlotte waved for her to join the drunken bathroom therapy session. “Nick left without Evie because Logan told him to stay away from all the girls in town.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. You mean, you two aren’t a couple?”
Charlotte raised her brows. “Tell Evie why you moved to Chance Rapids and what happened.”
Meghan smiled and leaned against the row of sinks. “My husband and I were trying to have a baby. Then I found a picture of an ultrasound in his gym bag. Unfortunately, it didn’t belong to me.”
“Oh my god.” I clapped my hand to my mouth.
“Yeah.” Meghan crossed her arms. “He was a real piece of shit. But at the time I was devastated. Charlotte let me stay at her place up on the mountain. I met Josh the first week I was in town and…” She spread her arms wide.
“Here we are, shacked up in a little house with a baby and a white picket fence.”
“How did you trust again, after that kind of a betrayal?” I thought that having a cheating ex was bad, but Meghan’s ultrasound discovery trumped the text messages I’d found in Brad’s phone.
She shrugged. “I made the decision that I was going to trust. It sounds basic, but that was it. It didn’t hurt that Josh was the hottest man I’d ever met and we were trapped in a cabin in a snowstorm.”
“That sounds like a movie.” My heart had started to race. If Nick wanted to kiss me, and I wanted to kiss him, why the hell was I letting my history with that dirtbag Brad and that stupid not really a rule from Logan stop us?
Meghan’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “It still feels like a movie.” She turned to Charlotte. “What’s up with Logan cockblocking players on his team?”
Charlotte pumped some soap onto her hands and washed them in the sink. “Remember that whole debacle with the billet and the player?”
“Ohhhhh.” Megan’s eyes went wide. “I do.”
“So it’s true?” I said. “Players were sleeping with their billets’ daughters?”
Maybe Logan’s rule made some sense after all.
“Kind of.” Charlotte glanced around the bathroom and nodded to Meghan.
She seemed to know what Charlotte was asking and pushed open all the doors to the stalls. “All clear.”
The two of them looked like they were about to spill the secret codes for a nuclear launch. “It is true, but it wasn’t the billet’s daughter. It was the billet’s wife.”
I blinked. The Bobcat players were all in their late teens and early twenties. “That’s…”
“Scandalous,” Charlotte said. “And tonight, you pulled the new goalie from her claws.”
Leopard Print.
Perfumed hand soap wafted over me as Charlotte draped her arm over my shoulders. “If you’re not a little scared, you’re not doing it right. Go after that man.”