Page 41 of The Girlfriend Zone

She looks around, then says in a soft voice, “I read his lips when he was talking to you earlier tonight.”

My jaw drops. That is hot and impressive. “You did?”

But of course, she did. The look in her eyes is devilish pride, and deservedly so as she says, “Yes.”

“I am impressed.”

She gives a no-big-deal shrug of her shoulder. “Girl’s got skills.”

“You do,” I say. I knew generally speaking that she could read lips, but didn’t realize she was so damn good at it. As someone who loves learning, I’m fascinated with how people pick up different skills. “Did you set out to learn how or have you always been able to? I honestly don’t know how that works.”

“I don’t want to say it just happened. It was more like one day I realized that’s what I had been doing all along by watching people form words—you wind up learning the way lips move when they make certain sounds. It’s most helpful, though, to know the context of a conversation. But you’re not likely to pick up one hundred percent of a conversation just from lip reading—the movies kind of exaggerate that. When you read lips, you have to combine it with what you expect someone to say, their facial expressions, and so on. In the case of you and my dad, it was easy enough—putting two and two together for what he might be saying to you, and I could make an educated guess.”

I let out a low whistle. “You could be a secret weapon though.”

“Accurate.”

“Like reading things other teams say, plays they call.”

“I’m pretty sure sports teams have tried that before, which is why other teams cover their mouths when they talk.”

“True, true,” I say, taking a beat to just…look at Leighton. Her blue eyes are something else—deep pools that have me transfixed. It’s hard to look away from them but I do, only so I can take the rest of her in. While her hair mostly falls over her ears, I do catch a hint of silver above her long earring. I’m tempted to point out that she’s wearing the flower ones I gave her. But that feels dangerously close to flirting. Everything with her does. Mostly because of how annoyingly fast my pulse surges when I’m near her. Funny, how you can be burned from a past romance, but then once you meet the right person you’re ready to charge headfirst into a new one. What’s not so funny is that I met the right person, but I can’t have her.

Best to focus on the present then, and this moment since that’s all I can have. “Anyway, we’ll see what comes of the whole co-captain thing.”

“I’m rooting for you,” she says.

“Thanks. Here’s hoping for a good training camp and a good year. It’s an honor that I’m being considered.”

“I’m not surprised you’re being considered,” she says, in a cheery tone, a supportive tone, and I wish I could read her more easily. I wish I could read her like I could the day I spent with her.

Since then, she’s gotten better at holding back. I try once again to focus on this whole friendship thing. “Turns out, my brother was traded here too. Haven’t played with him in a long time. Feels a little surreal. But it’ll be interesting.”

“To play with him instead of against him?” she asks, getting it completely.

“Exactly. He’s been the enemy for ages.”

“You know what they say in hockey—keep your teammates close, and your family on the bench beside you where you can keep an eye on their every move.”

I laugh. “Exactly. Gives new meaning to my brother’s keeper.” I pause, scratch my jaw then add, “You think you got some good pictures tonight?” I just don’t want to stop talking to her. She’s not making a move toward the door, so I hope she’s feeling the same damn way.

“I do. I think I might make Asher and Maeve a surprise photo album or something. Or frame some of them.”

“Can I see them?”

She looks around at the servers cleaning up at the nearly empty coffee shop, sensing they probably do want to close this place down. “I can show you outside,” she offers.

I should probably keep my distance, but when the woman you can’t have—the woman who’s lodged front and center in your brain—offers to spend more time with you, you don’t say no.

“Let’s go,” I say.

“Let me grab my things.” She snags a box of chocolate from the counter, then a second box, dropping them into her bag, then we leave.

But it’s crowded outside in Hayes Valley, with people pushing past us along the sidewalk.

It’s a warm summer night, the kind that feels like it shouldn’t end too soon. I don’t feel like looking at her camera out on the street, so I nod to a bar at the corner. “You want to just duck in there?”

I have no earthly reason to want to look at photos of Asher’s and Maeve’s wedding party. But when Leighton says yes, I feel like I’ve won a game I barely realized I was playing.

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