Page 67 of Not A Chance

Because you never look at what you need, girl.

I wanted to open my eyes and distract myself with something other than the sensations Theo’s proximity was creating and the uncomfortable truths rolling around inside my head and heart.

“Are you sure you can’t give me a clue?” I asked in my sweetest voice.

“Only a minute more. I promise, Rocky.” He chuckled, not at all affected by my persuasion attempt.

He stopped for a moment, the cold, damp, late-November Toronto air weighing down the molecules surrounding us like a warning that winter was coming. He guided me to the side slightly, and I felt a blast of heat, which meant we were heading indoors. Less than a minute later, I felt a familiar chill wash over my skin, accompanied by an ever-present scent of industrial cleaners and dirty hockey gear.

My eyes flew open, and I looked at Theo’s smiling face.

“You brought me to… work?” I squeaked in surprise.

I scrunched up my nose, confused.

“Baby, we’re here to right a horrible oversight and check something off that list of yours at the same time.” He grinned.

Shock zipped up my spine at the thought of him reading my life to-do list that lived its rumpled life in the inner pocket of whatever bag I was carrying. It was super embarrassing that he knew how much I’d missed out on in my childhood.

“When the heck did you see my list?” My cheeks heated.

It was only the deeply ingrained sense of control I’d honed through years of rigid social training throughout my childhood that stopped me from stomping my foot like a toddler. Or worse, crying from the cringe feeling of wanting so badly to be “normal” that I’d made a list to try to achieve it.

“Hey. Hey.” Theo’s hands gently grabbed both my shoulders, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t need to be embarrassed. It fell out of your bag when I was rifling through your kitchen looking for painkillers when you were sick. I wasn’t snooping… much. But I’m not sorry that I found it.”

“Hmnph.” I crossed my arms, not wanting to admit that I may or may not be pouting slightly. How did Theo get me to drop myguards like this?

“That list is about the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Theo continued. His smile was sweet.

Apparently, I’d been having more of a moment than I thought, seeing as I hadn’t noticed Theo move from my side to right in front of me.

“But… skating isn’t on my list!” I blamed my slow processing of the situation on the minor humiliation I was experiencing. I may have been drunk when I wrote it back in college, but I’d read it over so many times when I was feeling down that I knew it by heart.

“It is,” he argued.

“Is not,” I shot back, just barely refraining from sticking out my tongue at him.

“Check again.” He grinned, confident in his position. He moved his hands off my shoulders and nodded at my bag as if I didn’t know the exact location of my own list.

When I didn’t move, he crossed his arms and gave me a wry smile. “Humor me. Please?” His posture suggested that he would be willing to wait me out.

Geez. Maybe I was rubbing off on him or something. Why did he care about this so much?

Keen to settle this, I opened my bag and retrieved the list.

I held the familiar wrinkled paper in my hand, scanning down my handwriting until I got to number twenty-four, where the penmanship changed.

Scribbled in a different color were the words:

24. Learn to skate with the best (and hottest) teacher in the world.

My god, he’d written his own item. Gah.

I looked up under my eyelashes and gave Theo a sweet smile. “You’re right. It’s on there.”

When I didn’t say anything else, Theo tilted his head like thoseconfused puppies that go viral on social media and smiled warily back at me.

“That’s it?” he asked.

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