Page 29 of Offside Devil

I take his hand and shake it. “We have a deal.”

14

MIRA

I never hire movers.

First, because they’re expensive. Obviously.

Second, because the only thing worse than chit-chatting with strangers is letting them riffle through your belongings and punt them down a staircase for an hourly rate.

I lay out these reasons to Taylor for the third time in the last hour. She’s sprawled on my bare mattress, one hand thrown over her sweaty forehead, the other still clutching a roll of packing tape.

“All I’m saying,” she pants, “is that I would let a whole line of college guys take a peek in my panty drawer if it meant I didn’t have to move another box.”

I expertly seal a box of books closed and kick it across the vinyl towards the door. “No one said anything about peeking in panty drawers. I’m worried about them stealing stuff.”

“What stuff? You have nothing to steal.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t be so tired.”

She raises herself on her elbows. Her shirt is sticking to her chest with sweat. “That’s the weird thing. You don’t own anything—no furniture, a pathetic wardrobe, no knick-knacks to speak of. Yet look at all these boxes! Where is all of this coming from?”

“Well, that one is books,” I say, pointing to the box I just sealed. “That one over there is shoes. The box under the bed has my boxing mitts and dumbbells.”

She groans. “A box full of literal weights. I can’t, Mira. You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Lucky for you, I’m actually leaving the weights. Zane’s building has a really nice gym. I won’t need them.”

I haven’t seen the gym in person, but I looked at pictures on his building’s website. After I high-tailed it out of his apartment last night, I finally did that intensive research I should have done before I went to the interview.

I did my best to skim past all of the salacious headlines and gossip sites. Zane made it clear he isn’t proud of his past and he has changed. Until I have a good reason to read up on all of his pre-recovery antics, I won’t.

But I did fall into a rabbit hole of hockey highlights. Seeing him hurl his body at other men while effortlessly gliding across the ice did weird things to my insides and I had to bury that information in the already way-too-crowded Cemetery of Inappropriate Thoughts.

One video in particular keeps rising from the dead no matter how many times I beat it down.

Zane slipped the puck right out from under the nose of two players from the opposing team. Before they could even realize what happened, he glided backward, spun around, and slammed it in the net. I don’t know a thing about hockey, but it looked impressive.

The thing I keep coming back to, though, is the look on his face when the camera zoomed in. They cut to him, and he was grinning. His entire face was lit up. I’ve never seen him like that before.

I couldn’t help it—I smiled with him.

Just like I’m smiling now.

“Who knows?” Taylor has rolled over onto her stomach and is watching me carefully, eyes narrowed. “Maybe you can skip the gym entirely and do some in-house cardio. I’m sure Zane would love to be your workout partner.”

All at once, the shiny memory in my head drops dead.

“I’m doing this to help him keep his son, Tay. And for the money. It’s a business deal. He’s just my boss.”

I knew I’d regret telling Taylor about this whole thing with Zane, but I didn’t have a choice. She would have realized something was up immediately. With her nonexistent work schedule, she is at my apartment more than I am some days. I couldn’t hide this from her.

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the front door. A second later, a familiar voice echoes down the short hallway.

“Mira?” Zane calls. “You here?”

Taylor leaps off of the bed and grabs my shoulders. “He’s just the boss who shows up to help move you into his house?!”

---