Page 32 of Puck to the Heart
“You kissed me,” I blurted. “What does that mean?”Seriously, what is in the air in this car—SHUT UP, ME.
“It means I wanted to kiss you.” Ash said it like it was obvious.
The intermittent orange light from the highway lights created a weird, flickering backdrop as we drove toward my apartment. The sun was fully down, but the sky still held onto navy blue at the edges before it shifted into the deep grey of a night in the city.
“You kissed me,” I said again.
“I did. Did you like it?” Amusement wrapped around the baritone of his laughing response.
“It was very nice.”
“I need to work harder if it was just ‘very nice’.” He didn’t snap, exactly, but there was an edge to his words that pulled at my senses. All traces of humor disappeared.
“You don’t have to work harder for me.” Flooding memories flicked through my brain, chasing each other in a painful rush. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wished on a million stars that I could keep my damn mouth shut, hoping he wouldn’t question the accidental admission.
“What do you mean?” He spoke slowly, with a control I’d never heard from him, like he knewexactlywhat I meant.
His control pierced right through me, and I couldn’t stop the ache of those old memories from resurfacing. “Nothing. I—it’s nothing. It was probably the best kiss I’ve ever had.” Even though the statement was meant to deflect, it was still true, and somehow the truth both annoyed and amazed me. “Everything with you has been the best. Except for that first dinner.” Again with the truth bombs. Shit.
“I put my name in the running for captain,” he blurted, and maybe I wasn’t the only one with an out-of-control mouth tonight.
“Ash, that’s amazing.” I supposed that explained the cleaned-up look.
“Yeah, no. I’m not sure it is.” Where he gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles whitened, squeezing so tightly the leather creaked.
“Why not?”
“It was sort of an impulse, and I’m not sure I can do it.”
I blinked at the vulnerability I never would’ve expected from anyone, much less this gorgeous, athletic Adonis of a man before me. “Clearly, after attending two games, I am a hockey expert, and I think you can.”
The sound he let out was somewhere between a scoff, a laugh, and a snort. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”
“Why don’tyouhave confidence in you?”
“Remember what you thought of me when we first met?”
Another pulse of pain in my chest, remembering how awful I was at first. “I’m sorry, Ash. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“Don’t be sorry; I get it. But that’s why. It’s what everyone thinks.” And oh, how defeated he sounded before he even began.
“You won’t know if you don’t try, right? You can prove them all wrong.”
“I like that.” He grinned, it was tiny and still a little melancholy, but his spirits seemed lifted. “Doing the right thing out of spite.”
“Exactly. Be a menace, but in a good way.”
Both of us slipped into our thoughts as he drove. I needed to talk tosomeoneabout this, but my two options were currently Polly, Ash’s grandmother, and my dad, who was still after me to let him meet Ash. A sounding board would be nice, someone helping me figure out how to navigate these new waters, trying to decipher where we stood.
I nearly made up my mind to ask him as we pulled into my parking lot, but bravery evaded me. I was afraid his answer would be the one I wanted to hear. The moment the car was in park, maybe even a little before, I leaned over to press a featherlight kiss to his cheek, unbuckled my seatbelt and threw myself out the door, calling, “Thanks for tonight,” over my shoulder, leaving a bewildered Ash behind.
A messagefrom Ash offering a ticket for tonight’s game came in at the perfect time. The mass spectrometer finally did its thing and all I had left was to record the day’s numbers. If I hurried, I’d make it on time.
When I presented my ID at will-call, the clerk paused, checking a note on the desk.
“I’ve got something else for you, hold on a sec.” They walked away for a moment and came back with a jersey and the envelope with my ticket.
Putting Ash’s jersey on almost felt like a declaration, but by him or me? Either way hundreds of other people in the arena wore the same one, so it probably meant nothing. The white fabric slipped easily over my head; the added layer of warmth would be nice once I found my seat, which the attendant told me would be on the front row, as close to the ice as you could get without beingonit. Armed with a hockey crash course Polly gave me, I had a better grasp on the game this time, though I lamented my lack of a book.
