Chapter 19
IT’S A WHOLE THING
Aubrey
I latch onto Ledger’s last comment. It can take you a while to figure it out.
Like I did last night at the diner with Dev, I wonder again if Ledger’s speaking from experience. I don’t know much about Ledger’s marriage, only that it was short-lived and ended about a year ago. I’m gentle when I press, asking, “You feel like your ex-wife tricked you?”
I wouldn’t be shocked if Ledger shuts me down. He’s scrubbing a hand across his stubbled jaw, clearly working through something, then he says, “I don’t want to make this about me. I was just saying I get it.”
This poor man. He’s clearly got walls up. “I asked you. And guess what? Not everything has to be about me. Plus, you know all my stuff now.”
That’s not entirely true. But they know enough.
With a heavy exhale, Ledger gives in. “She cheated on me with her personal trainer. This guy Ben, who she begged me to hire for her. The best personal trainer in the city,” he bites out, sarcastic, but masking real hurt.
The sound I make, low in my throat, surprises me. It’s protective. Animalistic. Angry. “That’s awful,” I hiss.
“Especially since she was always saying I wasn’t available for her. I was hardly around. I was either at the arena, or on the road, or seeing the team trainer, or doing yoga. Or something. And she wanted to stay busy, she claimed. She stayed busy all right, screwing her trainer.”
The edge in his voice makes me want to march over to Marla’s place and give her a piece of my mind. “What really hurts is that you wanted to believe in her,” I say.
When Ledger looks up, there’s vulnerability in his blue eyes. “I did,” he says, then he’s quiet for several seconds. “But I’m fine,” Ledger says, resigned perhaps to his romance fate. “I haven’t had the best of luck with relationships. But that’s the past. I’m over it. The point is…”
He runs out of steam, then laughs, dragging a hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t fucking know what the point is.”
That must be Dev’s cue to jump back in. “The point is—relationships are hard, people get hurt, and thank fuck for hockey.”
In one sentence, that tells me multitudes about Dev.
Despite his sunny attitude, he’s got his own baggage, too, and hockey is his salve.
I don’t know much about Eva, his last girlfriend, except that he was involved with her at the start of the last season, maybe even the one before.
Part of me wants to give him the space to offer up that story on his own, but I’ve learned in the last few years of running my booth at the salon that people often want to talk but few want to go first. Few want to “inconvenience” others with their emotions.
Most of us want to be asked so we can either decline or open up.
“Did hockey get you through your breakup?” I ask him.
Dev seems to give it some thought, but the answer must come easily since he’s nodding sagely. “Yeah, it did. Especially since I thought everything was going well. But then, bam. It wasn’t and I just mainlined hockey after that.”
“She ambushed you, man,” Ledger says, his jaw ticking.
“And can you believe it, she did it right before Christmas too. Which is my second-favorite holiday.”
“What’s your first favorite holiday?” I hope he doesn’t say April Fool’s Day.
“National Grilled Cheese Day,” Dev says, eyes glinting like a cartoon character lusting after a leg of turkey. Yup, he’s back to light-hearted. “Whoever invented that deserves a prize.”
“You’re not wrong,” I say as I stay in this light zone with him, since that’s clearly where he wants to be. “But do you even eat cheese? Maybe, since it’s not a carb. But I’m doubtful.”
Dev scoffs. “I like cheese.”
“But do you eat it?” Ledger presses.
“Sometimes,” Dev mumbles. “Like on National Grilled Cheese Day, and when the team captain takes us out for pizza. So there.”
I give an obvious glance to Ledger, pointing my thumb at Dev. “We should take him out for National Grilled Cheese Day. Let’s pretend it’s sometime this week.”
Ledger’s grin is devilish. “I’m in. You in, Ryland?”
Dev stretches his neck back and forth, like he’s hemming and hawing and mulling it over. “Fine, we’ll have grilled cheese as part of our Ambushed by Exes club.”
“It’s a plan,” I say, and I leave the relationship talk at that, not pushing into how he’s doing now. But the door’s been opened at least.
We settle into a comfortable silence, and I glance around the small restaurant.
There are only a dozen or so tables at The Green Pantry, and we’re pretty much closing the place down.
A couple at a table in the corner is paying their bill.
He touches her arm as he signs the check, and she angles closer to him, a soft smile on her lips.
There’s a sensual energy between them, so I look away quickly.
Soon, we’ll have to deal with the honeymoon bed. “This place was good,” I say, delaying the inevitable. “Did you guys like it?”
Ledger eyes his empty plate. Then Dev’s. “Was it not clear that we liked it?”
“Finishing isn’t the same as liking something,” I say.
Ledger’s blue eyes sparkle. His lips curve into a slow grin. “Might have to disagree with you there, honey,” he says, his voice shifting to a bedroom husk.
Dev picks up the baton of the conversation, his raspy tone hitting the same sexy, innuendo-laden notes. “I definitely like finishing.”
I shake my head as heat tinges my cheeks. But I glance at my plate, where several forkfuls of my dish remain. “I didn’t finish, but I liked it. A lot.”
Dev keeps his gaze locked on me, his green eyes bright with dirty delight. “Things you wouldn’t say with us,” he says.
Us.
That word clangs, rekindling my desires. Would they share me? Are they trying not to think of me as much as I’m trying not to think of them?
I shouldn’t, but I search their eyes for answers—first Dev’s, whose gaze glimmers my way, then Ledger’s. His blue eyes don’t stray from me, either, and neither man seems bothered that the other is checking me out.
My mind floods with a fresh wave of images. Hungry kisses, curious hands, questing mouths determined to make me finish, maybe many, many times.
That’d be an adventure, for sure.
But what would happen in the morning? We’re three lost souls, wandering around this desolate, post-relationship landscape, trying to figure out what’s next.
Thirty-six hours after a failed I do is not the time for me to say make it a double.
I swallow, trying desperately to reroute to Platonic-ville. I fiddle with my napkin and fold the linen neatly on the table. “I’d heard great things about The Green Pantry when I was planning. It’s a woman-owned business, and I try to support ladies when I can…”
I’m not rambling at all.
“Like Beverly’s diner,” Ledger points out.
I smile. “Yes.”
“That’s why you should root for the Golden State Foxes over the Sea Dogs.
We’re a woman-owned team,” Dev says, and I picture Jessie Rose, the badass billionaire boss lady behind his team.
Ivy’s not only the mascot for the team, but she also does some work for Jessie as a personal stylist and has said how much she looks up to the tough and brilliant team owner.
Ledger stretches his arms across the back of the chair. “But when you’re thinking about who to root for, don’t forget I’ve won two cups.”
The smug smile says try to best me.
Dev glowers a moment, then he straightens his shoulders, game face on. “And I’ll fucking play till I claim one too.”
More solemnly than I expect, Ledger offers a fist for knocking. “You will, bro. You will.”
“I will,” Dev seconds, and his faith in himself is admirable too. I imagine you need that steely faith to strap on skates for eighty-two games a year, to train every day, to keep your body in tip-top shape.
The moment remains solemn until Ledger yawns. An unstoppable yawn that has me laughing, and Dev rolling his eyes. “C’mon, old man. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Fuck you. Not old,” Ledger grumbles.
“But it is late,” I add gently. “So let’s go.”
Ledger doesn’t protest as we leave. We walk back along Main Street. I take a certain amount of personal pleasure in the fact that neither man glances twice at one of the pie shops Aiden wanted to check out for competitive intel.
At the corner, Dev’s attention snaps to the local convenience store we passed on the way here, the one with a wooden sign on its door advertising McDoodle Goods and Stuff.
He stops right in front of a postcard rack by the door, like he’s helpless to the lure of the brightly colored pieces of cardboard.
“Guys, go ahead. I’ll catch up,” he says, then heads inside the shop.
As we keep walking, I reach into my pocket for my lip gloss, my room key slipping out too, then falling to the ground. “Shoot.”
I bend to grab it from the sidewalk, but Ledger’s faster, kneeling to grab it and handing it to me in no time.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Welcome,” he says, but he winces as he rises.
After I slick on some gloss, I swear I see him favoring one leg over the other for a few steps. I furrow my brow. “Is your knee injury acting up?”
“It’s nothing,” he says, shutting that down.
But is it? I rack my brain, trying to replay his recent career history.
He didn’t have an injury that I’m aware of.
I’m pretty sure he played regularly on the Sea Dogs last season, but a couple years ago he had a slight tear that took him out for a few weeks.
Garrett mentioned it when he took me to a game that Ledger didn’t play in.
Maybe the knee still barks now and then?
I’m about to suggest he use the hot tub when he snaps his gaze to me, saying quickly, in a surprisingly cheery tone, “You said on the way to the ferry that you want to hike, visit a ghost town, go grape stomping. You up for hiking tomorrow? That’d be a fun start. ”
“Sure,” I say, going with his one-eighty.
“Let’s do it,” he says, upbeat once more.
“Okay. Sounds fun.” It also sounds decidedly friendly, and I suppose that’s for the best. What’s sexy about a hike, after all? It’ll be the perfect platonic honeymoon activity.
He spends the rest of the walk to the hotel chatting about hiking trails.
One thing is clear—this is the end of the knee conversation.