Page 17 of Puck Happens

“Geesh, it’s just after six,” I grumbled. “Plus, you’re a bartender. You should hate the morning.”

I always liked to be the first one on the ice and I suspected he was the same. He slid in beside me and again I thought of The Hulk on skates and laughed.

“What?”

“You make me feel like I’m skating next to The Hulk,” I told him.

He pumped up his chest and beat it with his fists.

“Okay, that’s King Kong, not The Hulk. Get it right.”

“Guess you’re used to being aroundfigureskaters,” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t disparage. I know male figure skaters who can lift and hold their weight above their heads while skating close to twenty five miles per hour.”

“Twenty-five miles per hour?” he asked, grudgingly impressed.

“That’s how fast the fast ones go,” I told him.

He grunted in exchange. “Hey, I know you don’t want to…race.”

I gave him a side eye, because he dropped his voice several octaves on the word race.

“But it’s wing night at the Gull tonight,” he continued. “All you can eat for twenty bucks and there is a contest-”

“A contest?” I perked up.

“Yeah, who can eat the hottest wings.”

I snorted. “No contest then.”

“You can’t handle hot wings?”

“No, the opposite. My grandmother on my dad’s side was Mexican. I grew up with her cooking and jalapenos were her love language. There is no level of heat I can’t handle.”

“Wow. Those are some big words.”

I shrugged. “Just a fact.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you tonight?”

Stupid, Liv. So stupid. I’d basically walked right into that.

“Maybe,” I said, even though I already knew I was lying to myself. “Now are we going to chit chat or are we going to skate?”

“Me, Hulk. Me skate,” Dillon grunted. “You, Jane. You follow.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s Tarzan, doofus.”

His dimples flashed like the joke was on me and he sped off, all but daring me to chase him.

* * *

“So I’ll see you tonight?”Dillon pressed as we left the rink. The sun was out and humidity had jumped a couple dozen degrees since I’d gone in. We both slid sunglasses down over our eyes. I had changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top and took a little satisfaction in the way he kept checking out my bare legs.

“I said maybe,” I insisted.

“You said yes with your eyes.”

---