Page 4 of Puck to the Heart
“I will. And ah, try not to fall in love with me on ourdate,” he quipped back.
“Not a chance, buddy.”
After dodgingreporters and lingering fans through the parking lot, I found Nana waiting in the car for me. Maybe it was shitty of me to say I had a lady waiting, when really, I meant my grandmother. I could’ve chosen anything else, but sometimes the asshole in me ran deep.
Nana asked about the winner, so I explained. This raffle…date…thing was a new attempt by the marketing team to drum up fresh engagement. Of course, they’d used my “heartthrob status”, their words, not mine, to sell me off. At least it was a drawing this year, and not the highest bidder. Someone paying a lot of money would expect thefullBasher experience, no matter what I wanted…or didn’t want. Ask me how I know.
That wasn’t the case here. It was clear this woman was more interested in the food, and I preferred it that way.
I told Nana how much the womandidn’twant to go out with me. How she didn’t care who I was. A smile lifted Nana’s cheeks, the expression more to herself than me. It seemed wise to skip the part about how my pride might’ve stung, just a little, at the woman’s blatant dismissal, hence my ribbing her. I wanted to get under her skin the way she got under mine.
* * *
A rare nightoff during hockey season should’ve been fun; I should’ve been going out with the team or cooking with Nana, or hell, literallyanythingother than what I was doing.
Instead, I had to go out with this woman who wanted nothing to do with me.
Maybe the food would be good, but I didn’t have high hopes for that, either. Not even perfectly buttery Chicken Cordon Bleu would lift my mood.
I fiddled with my hair, not bothering with product. It was long enough to always be unruly, and tonight, I didn’t care enough to tame it. Normally, I’d wear a hat out and about. Somehow, the “disguise” usually worked, and people rarely noticed Asher the Basher among them, but the point of this stupid PR stunt was “positive optics”, so hiding wasn’t an option.
If they were going to force me into this farce, at least I would be comfortable. I refused to wear the suit they suggested; instead, I chose my favorite formerly-black-but-so-faded-it-was-gray-now henley with frayed, stretched sleeves. The worn fabric dragged against my skin, slowly hiding the tattoos twining their way down my forearms. As much as I loved them, I rarely let people see their crisp lines. They were far too personal for that.
I finished with worn jeans and my oldest boots, and a ring inherited from my grandpa. It gave me something to do with my hands when things got too weird.
On the way to the kitchen, I paused outside my favorite room in the house— the library. Nana and I both had large book collections, and we even had similar taste. Sometimes. I knew the woman liked to read, and I wondered if bringing a peace offering from my own shelves would get her off my back.
Probably not.
Nana threw her hands up in disgust when I found her in the kitchen. “Ifthisis what you wear on a date,” Nana said, glaring through a cloud of steam from the stove, “I’ve lost all hope of ever having grandchildren.”
“I’m only doing this because I have to,” I pouted, pointedly ignoring her statement. “It’s marketing.”
Nana leveled me with a light brown gaze and a no-nonsense flick of an eyebrow. “You’re not even a little excited?” Instead of answering, I snagged one of the fresh rolls from the tray and shoved it into my mouth.
Nana did her best to shoo me away. “Hmm. What’s her name?”
“I have no idea,” I mumbled around the bread.
“Asher Stephens Wilder. You’re going out with this woman, and you didn’t even ask her name?”
“First of all, I am notgoing outwithher. Ihaveto…go out…with her. It’s different. Besides, she stormed out before I got her name.”
The mischievous glint in Nana’s chocolate eyes intensified. “Even better.”
“I already told you, Nana. She hates me.”
“I’ll remind you of this moment at your wedding. It should be sooner rather than later if you want me to attend. I’m gettingso old and decrepit, you know.” An affected, breathy old lady voice made her sound about a second away from needing a fainting couch. It fizzled out when a wicked half-grin tugged on her mouth, and I laughed, realizing where I’d learned the same disarming expression.
I knew better than to argue with her, though she was probably in better health than I was. At seventy-three, Polly Lorne attended yoga and Pilates classes religiously, drank green smoothies daily, and used a skincare regimen twenty-year-old influencers would kill for.
If the first person to reach the age of one-hundred-fifty had already been born, I was certain it was Polly Lorne.
Nana thought I should be excited, but that emotion didn’t come to the surface. Nervous wasn’t a word in my vocabulary, and yet… here I was, sitting at my kitchen island, ripping another piece of bread to shreds and hanging out with my grandmother instead.
“Your car has arrived.” Nana’s words brought me back to the present.
Gravel crunched outside. Time to face the music.
