Page 29 of King

“I was being polite.” She sniffs.

“It was an intrusive question.” It wasn’t, but I like poking at her.

Her eyes flash with a mixture of ire and amusement as she scoffs. “What are you… like eighteen or something?”

“Twenty-five,” I reply easily. “And you?”

“Now look who’s being intrusive.” She smirks, then ignores the question by concentrating on her food.

I watch her cut, load up her fork and take a bite. I wait until she’s chewing before I guess, “Without knowing anything about you, you look fairly close to my age… twenty-five. But since I know you went to medical school and residency, I’ll guess twenty-eight.”

Willa chews, tosses a thumb upward to indicate higher.

“Thirty?”

Thumb up again.Higher?

“Thirty-two?”

She swallows, wipes her mouth on the napkin. “Thirty-three.”

“It’s a beautiful thirty-three,” I say, shocking myself with the flirty tone. It’s usually not worth the effort, although I can be very charming when I want to be.

For some reason, I’m compelled to be now, with her.

Willa blushes and averts her gaze back to her plate. She clears her throat and asks, “Tell me how you got into hockey. I mean… your journey to play here with the Titans.”

I’d love to talk more about Willa, see if I can get her to blush again, learn more about this fascinating woman, but I appease her curiosity and share my history. “It’s not overly exciting, but I guess my parents and youth coaches would tell you I had a lot of natural ability when I was young. My parents really supported me and let me tell you, hockey is not an inexpensive sport. I played on high-level travel teams and then got recruited into one of the best junior leagues in the country at sixteen. Went and played on a team in Grand Rapids—”

“Wait… you left home at sixteen?” she asks, sounding both horrified and intrigued.

“You stay with a billet family. They basically provide a home for young players… like a surrogate family. I continued school and played junior hockey there. And well, my play was good and I got drafted straight into the professional league when I turned eighteen. I spent time down in the minors before getting called up to the Houston Jam, and then from there to the Titans.”

“Very impressive,” she says and lets out a wistful sigh. “I wish I could have done something like that.”

“How did you get to be so good then?” I ask before taking a bite of my sandwich.

“I lucked out into a very good coach in Buffalo and spent a lot of time at the rink. Hours and hours of practice, and I stayed long after everyone else left.”

And then it hits me… that wistful sigh. “It was an escape from your dad.”

Willa nods with a rueful smile. “It was an escape,” she confirms. “And it made me a very good skater.”

It’s fascinating how we were both athletes on the ice, mine cultivated by supportive parents who poured their hearts andsouls into letting me pursue my passion. Willa became good at what she did because she spent so much time at the rink to avoid the dysfunction of her home life.

The rest of the conversation flows easily and I learn more about Brittany and Izzy coming to live with her just recently. “Brittany and I share the same bad taste in men,” she says in a moment of candor. When I tilt my head in question, she explains, “Scott was verbally abusive, just like my dad. I always told myself I’d never be with a man like that, and yet… it’s exactly where I ended up. Brittany was the same, but she never married Jeff. I think she was slightly smarter than me.”

“We’re products of our environment,” I muse. “But you’re not with Scott anymore. You broke out of that relationship, and so did Brittany.”

Willa looks pained when she admits, “True. But I’m still mad at myself for getting into that position to begin with.”

“You can’t beat yourself up about it. You should celebrate where you are now, and besides… I think our greatest growth comes in learning from our mistakes.”

She appraises me over her empty plate, offering me a crooked grin. “Awful wise for a twenty-five-year-old.”

“Hardly.” I laugh. “But I’ve got a lot of common sense, or so I’ve been told.”

The waitress brings our ticket and I nab it, even as Willa makes a play. “My treat,” I insist.

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