Page 24 of Punchline
“I don’t know.” I half-shrugged. “I kind of think Marek deserves a public spectacle.”
That made him smile and blush again. “Yeah. Yeah, he does.”
I chuckled and elbowed him. “You are such a sap, you know that?”
“I wasn’t before I met him, I swear.”
“Eh, neither was he. You guys just turned each other into sappy dorks.”
He pursed his lips. “I can’t really argue with that.”
I laughed as we moved forward in line. I thought a bit more about his proposal. “Do you know how to ice skate?”
Carson wobbled his hand in the air. “Marek’s tried to teach me. I can stay on my feet, but there’s no way I can keep up with him.”
Smirking, I asked, “Are you sure it’s not just that you lose your balance from watching your gorgeous boyfriend skating?—”
“Oh my God, shut up.” His deepening blush gave him away, though.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Yeah, yeah. Why do you ask, anyway?”
“Well, I was trying to figure out what the options are for ‘on-ice.’ If you can’t skate, then we can’t, like, dress you up in goalie gear and surprise him.”
Carson’s eyes went huge. “Dress me up in—seriously? You think we could do that?”
“Maybe? I’m pretty sure we can talk one of the goalies into letting you wear his gear. If you’re game for skating with fifty pounds of crap strapped to your body.”
His eyebrow flicked up. “Is that, like, hyperbole fifty pounds? Or fiftyactualpounds?”
I barked a laugh. “Oh, my sweet summerchild.” Shaking my head, I moved forward with the line. “You really are new to hockey, aren’t you?”
“Oh fuck. It’s fifty actual pounds, isn’t it?”
“Mmhmm.” I shot him a look. “But your man is worth it, right?”
He stifled a groan. “Oh God… ”
“Don’t worry.” I clapped his arm. “We can do a few practice sessions. Especially so you can get down on one knee without falling on your face.”
The response was a melodramatic sigh. “Why did I ask you for help with this again?”
“Because Marek is worth all the fuckery you’re going to subject yourself to in order to propose to him.”
“I… can’t really argue with that.”
“No, you can’t.” I flashed him a grin and took out my phone. “I’ll text Cantwell to see if he’ll let us use his gear.”
“Oh, fuck my life… ”
By the skin of our teeth, we made it back to the owners’ box before warmups. The fifteen minutes we’d been gone—not to mention all the plotting and scheming for Carson’s increasingly elaborate proposal—had, in fact, been enough to distract me from all my nerves and pull me back down to earth.
One look at Jake, though, and I was back to square one.
Holy shit, you’re cute.
Miraculously, I managed to get into my seat and arrange our newly acquired snacks without dumping a beer or flipping the enormous plate of nachos onto Jake’s lap. It was especially miraculous given the way his eyes lit up at the dense heap of sour cream, cheese, jalapenos, guacamole,salsa, taco meat, and about eighty-seven other things piled on top of the tortilla chips.
