Page 25 of Playoff

“No.” He shakes his head. “I loved you. I just needed time to grow up. And I hated hurting you. But I desperately needed to find myself, figure out what else there was. I don’t just mean women either. Life. Hockey. College. I felt smothered, and under so much pressure, but it wasn’t about anything you did wrong. I hope you know that.”

I shake my head. “I do now. I mean, I think I always knew I was going to lose you to hockey, so I tried my best to hang on. I should have given you space and taken time to find myself too. But I guess we both got there, even if we did it the hard way.”

He gives me a wry grin. “Neither of us ever did anything the easy way.”

“No, we didn’t.”

We look at each other for a long moment, and I’m suddenly sixteen again.

Completely enamored with those incredible blue eyes.

Infatuated with everything he said and did.

Totally in love.

My heart stutters with that same excitement, same chemistry, same everything.

And for one crazy minute I would do anything for him to touch me.

Then the insanity passes and I realize it’s nothing but a teenage fantasy.

“What were you thinking just now?” he asks, his eyes boring into mine.

“Nothing. I was just remembering.”

“How much fun we had?”

“How great senior year was.”

“Prom.” His eyes glitter with amusement.

“You mean when you promised that no matter what happened, if we were still single at thirty, we’d get married?”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Yeah. That and the best blow job of my life.”

For some reason, I blush.

“You’ve probably had way better since then.”

He shakes his head. “Nope. That was the pinnacle of all blow jobs.”

“Seriously?” I’m not sure if I want to tell him how inappropriate this conversation is or ask him why.

“Well, yeah. It was prom. We were in love. The back of a limo. The ice cube. It was fucking amazing. What could be better?”

I swallow.

That’s a great memory, one I relish as well, even though I’ve tried to put it out of my mind dozens of times.

“Why do you look so uncomfortable?” he asks. “I’m still me, you’re still you. We were friends, then we fell in love like only teenagers can…can’t we find a new way to be friends now that we’re adults?”

“I’d like that,” I whisper. “I just don’t know if it’s possible.”

“Can we try?”

It takes a long time for me to make up my mind, but finally I do.

And I nod. “Yes. We can try.”

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