Page 39 of Offside Devil

Zane and Aiden are waiting in the living room when I’m ready. Aiden is holding onto his Spiderman water bottle like he’s afraid it will disappear if he lets it go.

“Good morning, Aiden!” I chirp, giving him a squishy-faced smile.

He quickly looks down at his light-up shoes, but I swear he’s smiling, too.

Zane snatches his keys off the coffee table and turns to the door without looking at me. “Let’s go.”

I expect to take the elevator down to the parking garage, but Zane pushes the button for the main level. We walk through the lobby and onto the sidewalk. It’s early, but the day is already warm. I’m glad I opted for the dress over jeans.

“We’re walking?” I puff. I have to take two steps for each one of Zane’s to keep up. When I’m basically at a jog, I give up and slip back into Aiden’s slower pace.

“You didn’t cite ‘keen power of observation’ as one of your skills,” he drawls over his shoulder. “You undersold yourself.”

Zane is not a morning person. Noted.

I stay quiet until, two blocks later, Zane comes to a stop in front of a dinky corner diner. A weathered sign above the door reads Cam’s.

“Here?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice.

Zane waves me in with an impatient hand. “Once again, nothing gets past you, Mira.”

I stomp through the door and into a diner that clearly hasn’t been renovated since the Seventies. Dusty fake plants hang from the walls and the air smells like the cigarette smoke of decades gone by.

It’s not until we’re all three standing in the doorway that I realize I’m out in public with Zane Whitaker. At the condo, he’s my boss and the star of my frequent, uncontrollable fantasies.

But out here? He’s a famous hockey star.

I expect all eyes to be on us, but the middle-aged hostess barely even looks up as she passes three vinyl menus to Zane over the beat-up podium. “Seat yourself, dears. We’ll be around to take your order.”

Zane grabs Aiden’s hand and leads him to a corner booth. I follow behind, trying to quash the butterflies that flutter in my stomach at the way Zane helps Aiden into the booth and gets him settled with crayons and a coloring book he pulls out of his backpack.

“Do you two do this a lot?” I ask.

“Only when we get sick of cereal for breakfast. I’m not the best cook.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have a personal chef like Taylor. The only reason I touch all my food groups every week is because Taylor feeds me her leftovers.”

I wouldn’t usually tell a man I’m interested in that I eat like Buddy the Elf when left to my own devices—but then again, I’m not interested in Zane. At all.

“I never felt like I needed one. I ate out a lot before. But now…” He glances at Aiden. “I don’t like taking him out in public too much. It can be a lot.”

It’s easy for me to sympathize with Aiden. I know what it’s like to lose a parent and be forced to grow up all in one day.

What I keep forgetting, though, is that Zane’s life was just thrown into chaos, too.

“How many people know about the… ‘situation’?” I ask, tipping my head towards Aiden. “Do you have to worry about being spotted with a kid?”

“I’m keeping it under wraps for now, but that’s why we come here. Everyone is a regular and they don’t give a shit who I am. All they want is bacon and free coffee refills.”

One glance around the restaurant tells me we are the only people in here not getting the senior discount today.

“Is that why you brought me here? Because no one will see us together?”

Zane grabs the carafe of coffee on the edge of the table. He fills my mug and then his, taking his time. He wordlessly offers me a pink packet of sugar, but leaves his black. Finally, he looks up at me and I realize it’s the first time he’s met my eyes since I opened my door this morning.

My heart does a stupid jump in my chest.

“I brought you here because I thought you might be hungry and I don’t have shit to eat in my fridge. And, as my girlfriend, you should know my favorite breakfast spot.”

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