Page 64 of Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny

“I’ll see you after the game. Don’t do anything stupid before that.”

I refused to respond to that.

Dad stormed out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

The worried look Mom cast my way wasn’t as easy to ignore. Yes, she made me do the dance of the good little son for her campaigns, but when it came down to it, I believed she had my best intentions at heart, even if she didn’t truly know what would be best for me. “You know I wouldn’t be here—withhim—if I wasn’t concerned. Her mother already broke up my marriage. Don’t let her daughter ruin your career and all of that potential you have inside you. Don’t let them take away the man I know my son can be.”

Dramatic to the end. “I won’t, Mom. Like I keep saying, Lindsay isn’t like her mom.”

“I hope not, but I still want you to be careful.” She shot me her no-nonsense look, patted my cheek, and then walked toward the open door.

She abruptly spun around. “What your father forgot to tell you is that he was all set to leave me and start a life with Yvette.” A positively smug look accompanied her delivery of the last line of the story. “But she’d already moved on with one of his teammates.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Lindsay

I copied and pasted the email address into the send field, my fingers poised to write a stellar note. But my thoughts returned to Ryder again and worry took over. I hoped everything went okay with his parents. If he didn’t call by the time I finished up here, I’d call him.

I returned my attention to the email and attached the résumé I’d triple and quadruple checked for typos—applying for an editing position with a résumé that had a typo would be mortifying, and was pretty much my worst nightmare. I still beat myself up every time there was one in theHeights, even if it was a last-minute piece I’d assigned another person to edit.

But I’d been thorough. Working for theBest of BostonMagazine wasn’t my dream job, but itwasin Boston, and the editing position I was applying for had a modest salary attached.

I’d feel bad about dropping out of the internship in New York City for anything less than my dream job, but there were dozens of people who’d line up to take the spot and more money equaled more stability. And if that financial stability also meant that perks with my irresistible hockey player could still be enjoyed, how could I ask for anything more?

I opened my purse to grab my lip gloss, and the corner of the card Andrea Green had given me poked my finger, almost like it thought I needed a reminder it was there. My heart tugged me one way while my brain tugged me another.

It would be easier to get a job with a book publisher after I gain more experience… Say Ryder and I work out, that’s two years here in Boston.

I knew I was getting way ahead of myself, but if I was going to try out the optimism thing, I needed to think things all the way through.

Will Andrea even remember me after two years?

I ran my fingers across the edge of the card. Two years was a long time, and she probably attended several functions and handed out a lot of cards.

In two years’ time, she could be in a completely different job with a different email address.

So if I played out the scenario, and Ryder and I made it through the ups and downs of my job here and his hectic hockey schedule, not to mention the many outside forces that I didn’t want to think about because they overwhelmed me, he’d be looking at NHL teams after that.

What if I waited all that time to try to get my foot in the door with a publisher that would let me edit novels, and Ryder went somewhere else? What if he was drafted to an NHL team in the Midwest or West Coast?

Not every publishing job was in New York, but my odds would be better there, and I wondered if I could afford to even think about putting it off.

But the other option was accepting that in a little over a month, I’d simply tell him good-bye, and that’d be the end of us.

My heart knotted, growing tighter with each beat. What if I ended up walking away from the best thing that ever happened to me because I didn’t have enough faith in forever? The truth was, I’d felt lonely for so long, simply drifting through life and ticking off the days with nothing to look forward to. I knew all too well that someone like Ryder didn’t come along every day. Jobs came and went, but love…?

A mixture of longing and anxiety swirled through me.

Could I change my entire future for a guy who’d referred to me as a friend after I’d climbed him like a tree and kissed him?

He fixed that this morning, though.

There’d been a lot of ups and downs between me and Ryder—more than I liked and enough that it was hard to feel totally secure in our relationship and that it could handle many more hits. Part of me felt like I’d forgiven him a little too quickly last night, mostly because it made me feel like I’d completely lost control. But he’d overlooked the way I’d pushed him away again and again and willingly glazed right over my past with his teammates, something I could still hardly believe.

All that crappy stuff is behind us.He’d proudly introduced me to his parents this morning, and things were changing between us and growing stronger every day. Surely we were over the up and down rollercoaster and on our way to smooth waters territory.

Which meant it wasn’t absolutely ridiculous to consider staying in Boston for him, right?

---