Page 15 of Hooking Up with the Hockey Player

He chuckles and shakes his head, glancing down at the menu. “I was brought up to do the right thing. Never let your teammates down, show up when you say you’re going to, that sort of thing. It’s ingrained at this point. I don’t think I could change it even if I wanted to.” Setting the menu back on the table, he mimics my pose, resting his chin on his fist. “You never told me if you prefer the berries or the sausage in your stuffed French toast.”

I roll my lips between my teeth at the memory of that unintentional double entendre. “Berries,” I manage to get out, my cheeks hurting from my attempt—a spectacularly failed attempt, I might add—to control my smile.

Eyes narrowed, Troy shakes his head at me, but he’s making no effort to conceal his wide grin. “You’re bad,” he whispers, and that makes me laugh because I’m just about the farthest from bad anyone could hope to be.

“Wanna know a secret?” I ask, pitching my voice low and leaning across the table.

His eyes dip to my chest, where I’m now ultra-aware that a bit of cleavage is exposed above the scoop neck of my tank top, then rise back to mine as he nods once, leaning in too.

“You’re the first person who’s ever thought that about me.”

His laughter lights up his face, and he sits back in his chair, eyes scanning me. “Somehow I find that difficult to believe.”

I shrug, looking at the menu again, though he was right earlier that I already know what I’m ordering. “Believe what you like.”

Some part of me is amazed at my ability to banter with this man. Am I … is this how people flirt?

He was checking me out, and while that normally makes me blush, at this point my blush is semipermanent with him, so that’s starting to feel almost normal. But I’m not used to attractive men checking me out. And he’s not pervy about it, so it feels … good.

“Can I get you two some coffee?” asks a perky voice. I look up to see a teenage waitress dressed all in black, her dark hair pulled back in a high ponytail.

“Yes, please,” Troy and I chorus together, and I giggle at the fact that we both spoke in unison.

The waitress seems amused, rather than annoyed, so that’s something. “Coming right up.”

Once she leaves, my giggle turns into a laugh, and Troy joins me. “I feel like that’s a good sign,” he says.

“That I drink coffee?”

He grins. “That too. But I meant about us answering at the same time.”

“And the same way. You’re very polite, Mr. Ex-Hockey Player.” His smile dims, and I sit forward. “I’m so sorry,” I rush out. “I didn’t mean?—”

He waves away my apology. “No, it’s fine. Don’t apologize. The ex-hockey player part is still really new. I still think of Nick and Dozer as my teammates, not my former teammates. It’s weird to think that I won’t be reporting to training camp at the end of the summer.”

“Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rub salt in the wound.”

Once again, he dismisses my apology. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Like I said, I’m still adjusting to the idea.”

The waitress returns with our coffee, and we both place our orders—berry stuffed French toast for me, and the sausage and egg stuffed French toast for him.

“Will you let me share a bite of yours?” he asks, eyes twinkling, once the waitress leaves.

I arch an eyebrow. “That depends. Will you let me have a bite of yours?”

He gives me a faux affronted look. “Of course!”

Smiling, I nod. “Then sure.”

His look turns assessing. “All about fair play, I see.”

I shrug one shoulder. “It seems best, don’t you think?” I’m not going to get into the fact that everything in my last relationship felt painfully unbalanced. Jared was always the most important, even though he acted like everything he was doing was for my benefit, somehow it always circled back to him in the end. What he wanted. What was best for his career. Adding people to our wedding guest list because it would help him impress some business contacts. Don’t ask me how that worked, because it didn’t make sense to me even at the time. And I can’t imagine that his not showing up at all impressed anyone, but that’s certainly not my problem anymore.

“Hey,” Troy says softly, bringing me back to the present. “Are you okay?”

Forcing a smile, I nod, blinking and sucking in a deep breath. I reach for the sugar packets, focusing on doctoring my coffee.

“A cream and sugar woman, I see.” Pausing in the middle of ripping open the sugar packets, I raise my eyes to his, arching an eyebrow in an attempt to recapture the playfulness we had earlier.

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