Page 11 of Puck Happens

“You’re probably tired after me pushing you for twenty laps… oh wait, you only finished like eighteen, right?”

“Get this woman a microphone. She’s a comedian,” I said, and slid the drink in front of her. She reached for the small purse she had strung over her shoulder and I touched her hand, stopping her. Her skin was soft. “On the house.”

“Well, thank you. You sure know how to welcome someone to Calico Cove.”

“We’re a friendly group up here,” I said. “You enjoying our little town?”

“It’s really something special. Good people. Good food. Super competitive beer league hockey players.”

A couple walked behind Liv and I held my breath. Pretending to just be a local has-been hockey player couldn’t last forever. If anyone was going to ruin it, it would be Sheriff Bobby Tanner, who was a bigger gossip than hockey analysts.

“Hey, Heart,” Bobby said.

“Bobby, Mari,” I said.

“Good luck this season,” Bobby said and then Mari pulled him forward. She waved at me over her shoulder and I waved back.

“People take their local hockey around here pretty seriously,” Liv chuckled, as she sipped her drink.

“Something like that.”

“Heart? Is that your last name?”

“Yep.” It wasn’t exactly lying. I just didn’t mention the French translation. Because the truth was, I liked her not knowing me. Right now, I was just a guy, flirting with a girl, wondering if he might get laid.

Trust me, I wasn’t usually that guy. Even remotely. I wasn’t a monk, but I didn’t like random hook ups because you never really knew how that shit was going to go down. You only had to wake up once in a strange house with a girl taking pictures of you sleeping to know you never wanted to do that again.

And relationships, right now, were a no-go for me.

I was taking the Derek Jeter approach to life. Play my sport to the best of my ability for as long as I could, and when I was done, I would settle down and do the family thing.

Basically the opposite of my father’s approach to life when he married my mom. And that had blown up in four people’s faces.

So, I had to work in careful, short term, no strings affairs, when I could. Which was never easy when the woman knew who I was. They wanted all the strings.

But this. Maybe?

If she liked me.

“You going to be at the rink again tomorrow morning?” I asked her.

“I am. Why? You want to get your ass beat? Again?”

Yeah, she liked me.

The way she leaned forward on the bar. How that smile played on her lips and her lashes fluttered over her eyes. They were gray, not blue, gray. Like the sky at dawn.

Damn, they are beautiful.

“That sounds kinky,” I said, leaning on my elbows, just a little into her space. She didn’t back up. “I was just thinking we might race again, but if you want to go there…”

“Someone get this man a microphone,” she quipped, parroting me.

I was smiling. She was smiling.

Yeah, this was on.

Her eyes caught on something over my shoulder and widened. “Holy shit, is that…Mon Ami?”

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