Page 17 of Your Pucking Mom

She gave me a slow smirk, and redness painted her cheeks. “I’m grumpy too.”

I was actually shocked. “No.” I couldn’t believe it.

She threw her hands up in the air as if that would further prove her point. “Maybe not a grumpy person, but I work a lot and then take care of different…family members…” The last words came out deliberately. “It makes me exhausted a lot of the time.”

I could understand that. “You’re a caretaker?” I pressed.

“Something of the sort.”

She focused back on her sushi. The conversation was obviously taking a turn she didn’t want to go with.

“But this is supposed to be about me,” I said.

She smiled down at her plate. “Yeah. Come on, big guy, tell me about yourself.”

“Big guy?” I questioned.

“Don’t tell me you don’t notice your hands are the size of small puppies.”

The laughter broke freely, and we clutched our chests as if trying to catch a breath. “I’ll make note you like my hands, Sunshine.”

“Go on,” she encouraged.

“Ah, I was born and raised in a small town in Southern Illinois, the only child to two doting parents…” I inspected her every movement and couldn’t help but notice the small twitch in her eyes as I told her about my family.

“I loved hockey, and after college at a D1 school, I was able to…” Shit, I didn’t want to tell her I was a player. I was trying to avoid that, but talking to her was so easy and freeing. “I got the opportunity to work with the Chicago Ravens, and here I am.”

“What do you do with them?” Goddamn it. I couldn’t tell her the truth, yet.

Try to think.

“I work with the players.” It was a straight lie. I hated that I was lying to her, but I just didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

“No girlfriend?” Her eyes darted around the space.

“No girlfriend, Sunshine. What about you? Is that why you said no to a date?”

“Ugh.” She sighed and popped off her stool. I didn’t move to get her; I wanted to see what she was going to do. She walked toward the living room, then turned on her heel quickly and walked back to me.

She was pacing. “I just. It’s not that I didn’t—Argh!” She threw her hands up in the air while walking back and forth. I just watched as she tried to unravel whatever it was in her head, and gave her the space she needed physically, and maybe emotionally, to go through what was inside her beautiful mind.

She stopped and inhaled deeply, and I gave her a soft smile of encouragement. “It’s not that I didn’t want to date you, but it’s the…”

“Caretaking?” I guessed.

She nodded furiously. “Yes, exactly.” She stopped, then walked, not paced, toward me. “I want to be able to say yes.”

I searched her eyes for something. A kernel of truth. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “Not at all.”

It was the truth. She sounded human. Maybe she was wounded, but she was honest, raw, and real.

She wasn’t a puck bunny waiting for me after a game just because I was the captain. She wasn’t like the girls from random blind dates that Alex set me up on, who focused on materialistic things like my apartment or car.

No. She stood in my living room in nothing but my shirt, eating sushi with me while her clothes dried…after she’d rejected me. Maybe it was because I hadn’t told her exactly what I did with the Ravens, but she…fit here.

Holy shit.

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