Page 97 of Romancing the Grump
“This probably sounds cliché,” he finally says, “but I really just love the game. Sometimes the world really sucks. It lets you down. It disappoints. It turns its back. But none of that matters in a hockey game. You always know what to expect. You know what the game promises, and if you play by the rules, it always delivers.”
I think about how comfortable Nathan seemed when he took me ice skating, and his answer makes total sense. “Even when you lose?”
“Sure. It isn’t just about winning. It’s about being out there.”
“Being out there…and losing teeth,” I add. “And getting beat up.”
“What happened to your lack of judgment?” He squeezes my side, and I let out a little giggle as I shimmy away from him. I sit up and take off my hoodie—snuggling with this man is basically snuggling with a campfire—and toss it toward the foot of the bed.
He reaches up and tugs on the hem of my shirt—his shirt.“Nice shirt.”
I lie back down, looping an arm across his middle. “You like it? It’s for this hockey team I know. Word is they’re pretty good, but I’m not convinced they’re worth all the hype.”
“They probably aren’t,” he says flatly. “I’d toss the shirt if I were you.”
“Definitelynottossing it.” I lift my head and prop my chin on his chest, looking up at him. “I’m keeping it. I hope you don’t have a problem with that.”
He lifts a hand, tracing his fingers across my forehead before tucking my hair behind my ear. He keeps his hand on my face, his thumb sliding over to the corner of my bottom lip. “I like you in my shirt.” His voice is low, his molten tone lighting my skin on fire.
I breathe out a shaky sigh of laughter. “Nathan Sanders, if you were not so sick right now, I would…” I shift so I’m resting my head on his chest again, and he chuckles, his fingers tracing a line up and down my bare arm.
“You would what?” he asks.
“I’m choosing not to answer that question for both our sakes,” I say. “Trust me. It’s better this way.”
“I’m notthatsick,” Nathan argues, his tone playful.
“Says the guy who literally collapsed on his bathroom floor less than eight hours ago? I don’t think so. You said yourself I needed to be careful, that I shouldn’t be so close to you.”
“And you said you didn’t care.”
I push up on my hands, facing him again. “You still have afever,Nathan. You really want to risk kissing me when you might have lingering barf breath?”
Nathan frowns. “Way to kill the mood, Callahan.”
I smirk, then collapse back onto his chest, ignoring the fact that we’re talking about kissing—real,not-for-the-publickissing—like it’s no big deal. “That’s what I thought,” I say.
We’re both quiet for a beat before I ask, “How old were you when you started skating?”
“Less than two,” Nathan answers. “Barely walking.” His voice is calm, contemplative. “My dad was big, then. A huge star in the NHL, and there were pictures all over the news of the two of us on the ice together, me holding onto his stick as he pulled me around the rink. Headlines like,Hockey star by day, star father by night.”
“He wasn’t though, was he?” I ask gently, thinking of our conversation in Eli’s backyard.
It takes Nathan a long time to respond, but I don’t regret asking. If I really do want something real with Nathan, we have to have this conversation.
“It wasn’t entirely his fault,” Nathan finally says. “He was on the road all the time. Once I was old enough to understand, I liked that his name had so much power. My hockey coaches and teammates treated me differently because of who he was. But in hindsight, I’d have given all that up to just…have adad.”
I swallow hard against the lump forming in my throat.
“I remember being glad when I found out he’d been hurt, thinking it would mean he’d be home more. Turns out it had never been about his schedule. He just didn’t want to be around us.”
I have so many questions. But the most important one doesn’t have anything to do with Nathan’s father. Regardless ofwhyNathan felt what he felt in the past, what matters more is how he feelsnow.Is his arm around me now simply because he’s sick? Because it’s easy to let me comfort him, to pretend there aren’t walls between us because we’ve been pretending for so long? Can we joke about kissing because we alreadyhavekissed? It didn’t mean anything then, so why would it mean anything now?
Or has Nathan changed his mind?
After everything we’ve been through, is he still against the idea of a relationship?
I slide my hands up Nathan’s chest, my fingers brushing through the soft hair between his pecs. “Thanks for telling me about your dad,” I say, because it feels like a good way to start the inevitable part of this conversation. Thefeelingspart.
