Page 98 of What If I Knew You

“Right. Layken is your best friend.”

“Yes.”

“I met her earlier.”

“So she told me.”

“She knew who I was the moment she saw me.”

Corrigan cringes slightly and then nods. “Yeah.”

“She’s known this whole time?”

She cringes again. “Yes.”

“Can I ask you something?”

She closes one eye as if she’s preparing for a painful blow. “Is it going to make me feel extremely guilty?”

“I just wondered what your best friend thinks of…you know, us?”

Corrigan opens her eye, her face softening before she smiles. “She told me I should have just come clean after the night we met, but she also gets why I didn’t. She knew you had been very vulnerable with me and that you trusted me and she knew I didn’t want to betray that trust.” Her face contorts slightly as she watches me, the small lines of worry appearing on her forehead. “Does that upset you?”

I push a few of her curls behind her ear, playing with the ends of her hair between my fingers. “Not in the slightest.”

“Can I ask you something now?”

“Anything.”

“Do the guys on the team…” She swallows. “Do they know about me?”

“They do now.” He huffs out a light chuckle. “I mean they knew I was talking to a girl and meeting with her, but they had no idea that girl was you until?—”

“Until I walked into Harold’s with my father.”

I nod my head slowly. “Yeah. Sorry, but seeing you there threw me for a fucking loop and I didn’t exactly react in the smoothest of ways. The guys gave me a hard time about it when you left and then I told them what was going on. They were…” I huff out a laugh. “About as shocked as I was and they had a feeling you knew most of the time. They agreed that you know a lot about hockey and probably know their stats better than they know themselves.”

She covers her face with her hands. “They’re probably right about that. Shit, I am so unbelievably sorry, Bodhi. I was just scared to tell you. I really was trying to protect your anonymity and your feelings.”

“Don’t apologize. The time for feeling sorry is over,” I tell her, kissing her softly on the forehead. “Unless you have regrets about what we just did.”

Her eyes grow large. “No! Never. Do you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m lying in my bed in my apartment after having the most incredible sexual experience I’ve ever had with the prettiest woman I’ve ever met. I don’t regret a damn thing.”

“So, the fact my father is your coach doesn’t scare you?”

“Oh, it scares the living shit out of me.” I laugh and pull her tighter against my chest. “But that’s not going to stop me from wanting you. My feelings for you aren’t going away just because of who your father is, Corri. I promise you that.”

She wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace. “Good. Because I really, really like you, Bodhi.”

“What do you think your dad would say?” I ask her. “If he knew?”

I feel her body deflate against me as she sighs. “I want to tell you that he knows I’m an adult and you’re an adult and therefore he would let us do our own thing. I want to tell you he would be happy for me because he knows you’re a good guy and I want to say he would be happy for you because he knows the kind of girl you would have supporting you and cheering for you and encouraging you...”

“Buuut?”

“But he always had this rule with me that I wasn’t to fraternize with his players. I think it’s always been more of a protective thing with me since I was a teenager. Then when my mom passed away he had this feeling…or more a fear, that I would fall for one of his players, because I was around so much, and it wouldn’t work out and then I would never want to come around anymore. That he would essentially lose me too.” She’s silent for a minute and then adds, “It’s crazy, I know.”

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