Okay, time to intervene. “I’m sitting right here,” he replied gruffly.
“Then tell us about the mysterious woman who awakened your dormant sexuality.” Leon waggled his eyebrows.
“Alvarez,” he stated calmly, narrowing his eyes. “You like to shove your private life into the world’s face. I don’t. I’m focused on the playoffs — and Fox is talking crap. There was no woman. There is no woman. So, just keep talking about it and you’ll end up with a fist in your face.”
Leon shrugged. “All right, man, calm down.”
“Yeah, a guy who just won the Innocent Cup should look happier,” Anna agreed, and when he whipped his head around to her, she smiled sweetly at him.
His jaw cracked. The woman was irritating him. God, he needed space.
“I’ll pay for the drinks,” he muttered, standing.
“But the evening isn’t over yet!” Alvarez shouted. Lucas ignored him. Just ashewould have liked to be ignored by the others.
“Man, Moreau, what socks are you wearing?” Dax called after him, laughing. “They’re pink and green and they don’t match.”
Melody had picked them out for him this morning, and she liked colorful things.
“Oh, his socks are always different,” he heard Anna say, amused.
His shoulders tensed because if he were Dax, he’d be asking…
“How the hell do you know?”
Yep, right.
Fuck. He gritted his teeth. Should he stay where he was? Turn and make up some stupid excuse or just disappear to the bar?
“I’m a doctor, Dax,” Anna said lightly. “I’m observant.”
Right. She’d provided the stupid excuse, so he could take the bar.
He kept walking, rubbing his strained neck, which not even two hours of physical therapy had helped. This evening was exhausting, more tiring than explaining to a five-year-old girl why it was okay to eat chicken eggs but not hamster poop even though both came from an animal’s butt. He smiled at the thought of Melody giving him that know-it-all,You don’t know anything, Lu!look he usually received when he asked why she wasn’t eating her broccoli.
He leaned over the bar and told Carl, the owner of the Ice Lounge, that all the Hawks’ drinks were on him tonight. Since it seemed like a smart move, he headed toward the exit to get some fresh air and buy time. He wanted to avoid sitting back down across from Anna for as long as possible.
He ignored the groupies blowing kisses and the fans yelling at him not to screw up the playoffs this time because, in his experience, avoiding drama was incredibly simple: Just keep your mouth shut when it mattered.
Neither his parents nor Laney had ever managed that, but they had also loved drama and sought it out. Not him. Except for that one time…
Warm May air and cigarette smoke blew in his face, and with a sigh, he waved it away. He walked around the next corner where he was no longer visible and leaned against the wall. It was quiet, but that didn’t mean he felt at peace. That hadbecome…impossible. He had too many things to worry about: Melody, the playoffs, his contract extension, his parents…
There had only been one place where he could breathe a sigh of relief and that had been in Anna’s damned bed. Then she had to go and ruin it with her lies.
As if he had conjured her up with his thoughts, Anna stepped around the corner at that moment. He smelled her before he saw her. The wind carried her sweet scent. It was almost as familiar to him as that of an ice rink. In the beginning, she’d always apologized for reeking of disinfectant, but he’d only ever smelledher.
“So, are you hiding?” she asked with a broad smile. “Because if so, I have bad news for you: You’re not very good at it.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, but didn’t reply. Anna didn’t like silence. She grew restless when no one spoke for too long. And if she wanted to provoke him…
She sighed heavily. “No one has as much silent charm as you, Lucas,” she said theatrically, leaning against the wall next to him.
Oh, he could be charming. He just preferred not to use words.
“You know, I was given the task of finding you. Leon wants to play truth or dare and thinks you shouldn’t be left out. He says he’s fed up with you always being so secretive and he wants to change that.”
He snorted. She sounded like Fox. “I’m not secretive.”
