Page 78 of Rookie Recovery

“Nope.” I pulled back a few more inches. Keeping contact, but not pressing into him. “I’m starving. You want to grab dinner?”

Chapter 10

Bowie

I couldn’t decide whether this was a punishment or the biggest swindle of the century. On the one hand, I was missing out on training camp with the other lads from my team.

Well, technically not missing out. Coach had ‘gifted’ them the afternoon off to rest their aching muscles and ice their many bruises and pop ibuprofen like skittles, but I would have given my right bollock to be beside them, to be included in their little TC-club. To join in with practice instead of watching from the side of the rink and quietly weeping.

Yet, on the other hand, they weren’t here with me. And Jamie. In the glorious September sunshine. With a blanket spread out on the sandy banks of the lake.

He’d brought a blanket, for fuck’s sake. And I’d brought breaded-chicken wraps and a salad, and a couple of slices of brownie. I’d cooked, because these days, I had someone to cook for, and it felt good. It felt right.

But it also felt like I was cheating the system somehow. That any minute now, Coach Turner would poke his beaky nose in and split this up. “No, no, no, no. This isn’t how you recover a rotator cuff. A fucking picnic? What’s next? A hot-air balloon ride? Champagne? Chocolate-covered strawberries? BJs?”

I side-eyed Jamie, who took a bite of his wrap, and leant back onto his elbow. His muscular legs stuck out in front of him. The breeze from the lake rippled the cotton of his forest-green Henley over his twenty-four pack. He had his shirt-sleeves pushed up again. A glimpse of a bear’s head poked out from underneath the fabric. Long, thick veins corded his forearm, tracking down to his wrist.

Okay, BJs were definitely getting added to the list of things that would aid my recovery.

So far I had met Doctor Jamie, and Drill Sargeant Jamie, and Drunk Jamie, and Fleeing for his Life in a Cart Museum Jamie, and Ex-Pro-Hockey Jamie, who was badass as fuck, but this Jamie, the one I was quietly sharing a blanket with under the mid-afternoon sun, was my favourite.

Chill Jamie, or Relaxed Jamie, or Just Jamie, exactly as he was. Just him. No distractions, no motives driving his decisions, no bits of my body to fix or flap over. No other people.

Me and him, and the glittering lake water, and the dappled sunlight sweeping over us, and the gentle autumn breeze, and bloody good food.

“Are we on a date?” I asked, biting into my wrap.

“Of course not. It’s Wednesday afternoon. We’re both on the clock.” Typical Jamie answer.

“But you are going to kiss me again, aren’t you?”

The kisses, both of them, but especially the one when Jamie wasn’t completely wankered, when he pushed me up against the side of his truck and made every single nerve ending in my body feel as though it was on fire, was incredible, amazing, wonderful, yada yada.

Yeah, it was great. It was just … over too soon. If it were up to me, I’d wear away the skin on my face snogging him all day. Scratch it up against his perfect five o’clock shadow. I never wanted to not be kissing him.

I’d spent the past few days in his office being touched by him; in the weights room, being pretzelled by him; and a couple of times on the ice since Saturday, being watched like an uber-vigilant hawk by him; but not kissed. Never kissed. Because we were at work. His work.

So I'd suggested the lake again, for, you know, all its exercise potential, and because I didn’t want to hang around HQ if I wasn’t needed there. Jamie agreed instantly, and he seemed much more at ease. My plan to snatch another kiss was working.

For one, he was wearing a Henley and not a button-down. Serious Jamie had been left at the office.

And two …

He leant forward, threw an arm over my shoulder and dragged me closer to him, planting his lips on mine. I melted into him.

I never felt solid when Jamie touched me. Either flammable gas or molten liquid, but never a whole human, with substantial parts. Nor reasonable thinking capacity.

He placed a series of tiny butterfly kisses on my upper lip, and my arms broke out in goose pimples.

“That’s also a no.” Jamie rubbed his thumb along my jaw and pressed his mouth against the pulse in my neck. “No plans to kiss you today. None at all,” he said before easing back into his reclined position.

In the distance, a couple of Canada geese landed on the glittering horizon. Jamie was quiet, staring out at them, his half-eaten wrap held in mid-air.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

He paused. “That what I don’t understand is how there was an area of the museum called Trolleys of the Great Depression, when that guy …”

“Phineas Robertson?”

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