Page 9 of Replay

“Coffee’s ready.”

Okay, having a roommate with her life together wasn’t always a bad thing. I pulled out my Second Breakfast mug, dumped milk and sugar in the bottom, and poured coffee into the cup.

“No wonder you don’t care what kind of coffee you drink. There’s hardly any coffee in there.”

She sounded amused, and I refrained from giving her the finger. I liked my coffee sweet and creamy. Take me to Tim Horton’s for a double double and I was happy. But my roommate? “Do you even drink Timmy’s?”

She shuddered. “Sometimes it’s all I can get.”

I swallowed a mouthful of caffeinated goodness and did my best to keep my moan inside. Madeline bought expensive coffee and included it with the rent. She might ruin me for bad coffee.

With the caffeine hitting my veins, I began to qualify as awake. I tried a pleasant smile. “I want to apologize.”

“What for?” She was holding back a smile.

Damn it. She knew that this was about last night. “I’m sorry I messed up your plans for the evening.”

She waved her free hand. “Not a problem. He’s a little young for me anyway, and he was more interested in you.”

Well, it wasn’t because of how I looked, that was for damn sure. “I knew he was playing in Toronto. Anything he does is news back home, but I thought in a city of six million I’d be safe.”

She rested her hip against the countertop. “Safe? Was he abusive?”

“No, no. God no. I just didn’t want to run into him.”

“The odds of the two of you meeting up like last night were pretty low. But if you really want to avoid him, skip the Top Shelf, especially when the Blaze play.”

“That’s where you…” I wasn’t sure the right way to say picked him up.

“Yeah. I had a date there.” My mouth dropped open and she laughed. “Not Josh. It was a setup by a coworker. I wanted something short and sweet. But he told me he was looking forward to kids—lots of kids. So that wasn’t happening. I bumped into your hockey player at the bar, and he was cute. I asked if he wanted one night, and he was down for that.” She shrugged. “Wasn’t my night.”

“You’re not upset?”

“Why would I be? There are a lot more men out there.”

I felt like a country rube around Madeline. She was the definition of sophisticated. “I’ll make sure to be in my room when it gets late.”

“Don’t be silly. The place is yours to use. I’ll send you a text if I’m bringing someone back next time, okay? Maybe you can do the same if I’m in town.”

“Sure.” I hoped my cheeks weren’t red. This casual talk about bringing a guy home for a night wasn’t something I was used to. Until my senior year at Dalhousie, I’d lived at home, and there was no way I’d bring anyone back there. Even at university, I’d only slept with guys I was dating, and that just seemed so unsophisticated next to my roommate’s style.

Ah well, I was a geek. A math student with a Lord of the Rings obsession. Cool was not in my wheelhouse.

“And just to let you know, if you wanted to call Josh, I’d…” I’d what? Hide out in my room? Find somewhere else to stay for the night? Josh and I were so over but being in the condo while he and Madeline had sex would still hurt. Logically, I had no reason to feel that way. We couldn’t be more over, but I’d been with him longer than any boyfriend since.

She shook her head. “I don’t even have his phone number. I think I can survive without getting involved with my roommate’s ex.”

That was nice, but I didn’t want to set down rules for her.

She moved over to a stool at the island. “I’ve never met anyone who was close to one of the city’s hockey players before.”

If she thought I had some kind of connection to local athletes, I needed to set her straight. “We went to the same high school. I lived in the same place my whole life, but he was drafted to the city’s junior hockey team, and he and his mom moved to just outside Halifax. I was one of the smart kids, especially with math. My parents wanted me to concentrate on my grades instead of having a part-time job, but they were okay with me tutoring. Josh was already some kind of hockey prodigy, but he was struggling to keep up in class. It just happened that I became his tutor.”

We had nothing in common—I wasn’t athletic, and he wasn’t a keen student. But as we spent time together, we found common ground. He loved Star Wars, I was a Tolkien fan, and we were willing to share each other’s interests. For a long time he made me believe I had more to offer than my brains.

Oh well.

“Then we started dating, until he broke it off. That was hard. I really loved him. I refused to go to school and see him with Rhonda, or anyone else. I planned to homeschool myself to finish the year. My parents finally sent me to my grandmother’s for the rest of senior year. I was moping around like my life had ended, and the school near Gram’s place had a good AP program. They were distracted with some stuff going on with my older sister, so it worked out.”

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