Page 84 of The Wingman

I exhale hard. “Yeah. They’re… really pretty.”

Her gaze lingers on me, eyebrows pinching with worry. “You’re quiet tonight. Everything okay with hockey?”

“Everything’s great.” My grin is confident and flirty, but her eyes narrow like she sees right through me.

“Do you like playing offense?”

“I do,” I admit. “I still don’t feel like I’m where I need to be, though.” Even with Miller’s dumb trick to motivate me, something’s not quite right. Discomfort lodges in my chest like a sharp kernel. At least it’s gotten the media heat off me and Ward, though.

“Something changed around your game with New Jersey.” Her head tilts as she looks up at me. “Your average assists went down, but you started scoring more goals.”

My smile feels more genuine, because I love it when she lets her math brain out. I bet she knows the exact percentages, too, but she’s holding back because she doesn’t want to seem like a dork.

I like it when she’s a dork, though. Darcy makes math look hot.

“Oh, yeah?” I arch a teasing eyebrow at her. “I don’t think that’s quite right.”

Her eyes flare with determination. “Your assist rate dropped 29 percent, but your scoring average increased 32.4 percent. If you continue like this into next season, you’ll be one of the top three scorers in the league.”

A satisfied grin stretches across my face. “Gotcha.”

She rolls her eyes, smiling. “You tricked me.”

“I love it when you talk math to me, baby.”

She snorts. “You’re supposed to be coaching me on how to pick guys up, not scare them away.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t talk stats with other guys,” she says, like it’s obvious. “It’s boring and weird. I sound like a robot.”

My gut hardens at the phraseother guys. “Talking about the things you love is hot, Darce. You should always talk about stats on dates.”

The worddatestastes like sand in my mouth.Only dates with me, I’d love to add.

“You’re different.”

A string plucks in my chest.

She sighs. “Other guys don’t want to hear about it.”

“Other guys being Kit?” I ask before I can stop myself.

She shrugs, which is enough of an answer for me.

He never bragged about her having a stats degree. The few times I witnessed him introduce her to people at events, he’d call her his girlfriend, and that was it. Nothing about how she was an actuary or had a math degree or loved fantasy romance or was the reigning bowling champ among the three of us.

He didn’t treat her like her own person.

“Hey.” I stop walking and catch her wrist.

The sun is setting, and the golden hour light gleams off her pale-purple hair. Under my hand, the bracelet I gave her slides between us. She wears it every day. I feel a hit of possessive male pride, followed by the urge to buy her more jewelry.

“You should talk about stats on dates. If he thinks it’s weird, he’s an insecure loser, okay? Real men aren’t threatened by a woman with a big brain who knows her way around a graphing calculator.”

Her eyes close and she laughs silently. Under my fingers, her skin is so soft. “I haven’t used a graphing calculator in years.”

“Yeah, but you could, couldn’t you?”

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