Page 29 of The Pucking Wrong Man

“Thank you.” This time her angelic voice was directed at me…and I melted.

“Camden,” I blurted hopefully. “Camden James.”

I looked for any spark of familiarity, but her smile was formal, stiff, the kind you gave to a person on the street that you’d never seen before.

Not a hockey fan evidently.

Well, that was unfortunate. But…fine. I’d just have to impress her with something else.

Freddie reached for a sub sandwich, and I lunged toward the pile and grabbed one too. We both held out our hands to her. I looked like a fucking idiot…and I did not care one bit. Her clear blue eyes flicked between us, confused.

Freddie turned to me with a grin. “She likes turkey, bro,” he announced proudly as he gave her a different sub.

I filed that away. Turkey over ham. I’d never make that mistake again.

“Anything else you like that I should remember?” I asked, trying to put a little flirt in my voice, distract her from the fact that I’d thrown a cookie at her plate and shoved a six-inch sub into her face. I was usually a lot more smooth than this. But she was perfect…and all that perfection was making my brain malfunction.

I mean, I was so interested in this girl I might as well have a neon sign over my head that said “pick me, choose me, love me,” like I was an intern on Grey’s Anatomy.

Except, she didn’t seem to be picking up on that at all.

“She doesn’t like lemonade,” Freddie answered for her. “Who doesn’t love lemonade? Very suspicious, Anastasia.”

“Lemons aren’t supposed to be sweet, Freddie,” she teased. “That’s literally the whole point of a lemon.”

“I agree,” I said, even though I loved lemonade. One of my earliest memories was sipping lemonade out on Grandma James’s front porch.

For her I could hate lemonade, though.

She eyed me curiously, and I stood up straighter. Give me a sign, I was pleading. Lust after my body at least. Fuck.

Nope. Nothing. She didn’t even look at my biceps or anything.

My angel girl just said thank you again before scurrying away. She went too fast for me to even think of what else to say to her.

I’d fucking blown it.

“That was embarrassing, James,” Freddie snorted as we watched her weave away through the throngs of people in the room, heading to a table against the wall. She slid into a chair elegantly, her posture perfect. Her chin up, her head held high.

Alone.

“Indeed,” I said.

I handed him my tongs. “Cover for me, will ya? I need to make some...rounds.”

He laughed at me as I marched past. I made a detour to say hello to some of the other regulars first. Didn’t want to make it too obvious that I’d left my station immediately to go talk to her.

But I couldn’t help but sneak glances at her as I said hello to everyone. Anastasia’s perfect posture had slumped and now looked a bit defeated. Her face held the kind of sad look that had me wanting to punch something because it didn’t seem fair that such a perfect being could look like that. I wanted to know what was wrong, to know what was going on inside that head of hers. I also wanted to stride right over there and tell her to let me fix it.

But, I held myself back, hitting up Sean’s table first where he proceeded to walk me through the entire first period of our last game before I could drag myself away.

Then Ms. Nesbitt and Mr. Thompson and then…

I sauntered up to her table, coming from the side so that I didn’t scare her. I knew a lot of women had triggers about that—especially here.

“How’s that turkey sub treating you?” I mused, wanting to drop kick myself in the face because why was my voice coming out that deep and weird sounding?

She nearly dropped the sub in question at the sound of my voice—the first semi-ungraceful thing I’d seen her do. Her eyes were wide and confused looking, and she glanced around as if she thought I wasn’t talking to her.

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