Page 6 of Triple Pucked
“What diagram…oh,thatone.” I blush.
Eden keeps his gaze on his cards. “I don’t want to know.”
Shay wets his lips, studying the Guide. “You do a little bit, Dee.”
The Guide is more than our Hockey Kama Sutra. It has become a symbol and chronicle of our love, holding Shay’s music playlists, Eden’s reasons for loving me, and D’Angelo’s favorite cocktails.
It holds the photographs from our first Christmas together.
Our wild first New Year’s Eve.
Eden started the tradition of writing notes in it to me, when he was too overwhelmed to say things out loud.
I dreamed last night that we were in Alice’s Book Café bookshop together. Then we bought Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for our son. And he had your eyes.
The others have takenup the same tradition, for example, D’Angelo before Christmas:
Remember that thing we did after the game in Boston? I can’t stop thinking about how good you’re going to feel when we do it again…
Or Shay yesterday morning:
I ate the last of your strawberry ice cream. I’ll order more along with Eden’s chocolate ice cream tomorrow. Sorry, love.
Shay may have confusedthe Guide with the type of notepad you keep on your fridge.
But his messages still make me smile.
D’Angelo elegantly lounges on the floor next to the Guide, as if he’s in a cocktail bar rather than a forest.
He swirls his finger suggestively over the stickmen. “Don’t they appear to be having a good time…?”
“You’re distracting me.” I sit straighter at the realization. Then my gaze slides to the diamond cufflinks that D’Angelo has taken off to bet. “You bet the cufflinks first because they’re your tell. You fidget with them three times when you’re bluffing.”
“Do I?” D’Angelo’s lips quirk. “I guess that you won’t know because you can’t read my tell anymore.”
Eden shoots D’Angelo a look filled with dark respect.
Does D’Angelo have good cards?
Shay whistles. “You’re brilliant, darlin’. Can I play on your team?”
D’Angelo snorts. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the same exhibitionist streak as you do. I prefer to keep my clothes on in public.”
“Who taught you to play so well?” I ask.
For a moment, D’Angelo’s expression clouds. “Someone who taught me to play the player and not the cards.”
My brow furrows.
Who does he mean?
Even having known D’Angelo since college, there are parts of his life that I still don’t know.
I wish that I did. But I can’t rush him.
“Dad taught me,” I say, quietly. “When I was a teenage, he would invite over his friends and play every Wednesday night for beer caps. I was so excited to be allowed into his world by staying up and playing with them.”
Dad is Austin McKenna and coach of the Bay Rebels. A man who has far too much control over all our lives.
