My brow creases as I consider his answer. "Really?"
He slides his thumb upward, scrolling on the screen. From this angle, his Notes app is partially exposed, short lines of writing stacked in a paragraph on the open page. "Really," he says curtly.
"Why?"
He sets his phone on the bar and turns his body toward me. "I likemetime. I sit. I eat. I write." His hand slides to his phone mindlessly, and when he bumps the screen with his thumb, it lights up. "Then tomorrow, I am ready."
His words are blunt and rough around the edges, but they land. They seem out of place but are exactly what I'm hoping to get from tonight.
Making no effort to hide that I'm peeking over at his app, I scan the contents. "Is that… poetry?" I ask genuinely confused.
Alexei Petrov is known for a lot of things. He's massive, menacing, and manhandles opponents on the ice like they're flies he's shooing away.He's infamous for sinking pucks into the net from the top of the circle, and leading the league in assists. He speaks very little and grunts quite a lot, and I'm not sure I've ever heard him string more than a few broken sentences together, let alone a poem.
"I like it," he says without blinking. "Poems don't have to make sense to mean what you want them to."
Completely dumbfounded, I continue to stare at him, waiting for him to break out in a smile—for the punchline of his joke. But I'm met with nothing.
"Wait… you're serious?"
He wraps his huge hand around his phone and flips it over on the bar. "I am serious."
I nod to myself, genuinely impressed. "That's cool, man… really fucking weird, but cool, I guess."
Standing, he towers over me, bracing his heavy hand on the counter. "Please keep my secret," he says in a clipped, hushed tone. His voice is innocent, but his face tells me he'd crush my skull if I disobeyed.
Reaching up, I clap him on the side of his arm and can't help it when a laugh escapes my lips. "You got it, buddy."
Petrov grunts in his typical manner, throws a crisp hundred on the bar, then turns and walks away without another word.
I follow his exit, still somewhat confused, and suddenly needing to read every single poem written by Flames' starting forward, Alexei "The Storm" Petrov.
Still laughing to myself, I turn back in my seat and—
Holy shit.
It's her.
Sitting just a seat apart from Whiskey Guy, who is probably in his forties, is Mystery Girl.Mymystery girl. I freeze, stunned that she's here and shocked that my body didn't somehow already know that hers was this close.
Her head is turned towards the guy who is smiling back at her, eye-fucking her over the glass of his drink. My blood starts to boil as I watch the two of them interact, too far for me to hear their conversation, but close enough that her easy laugh hits a little too hard.
She's holding a glass of red wine in her hand, and I lick my lips, tasting it there as my mouth remembers her flavor even after all this time. With a quiet inhale, I turn back to the counter as the bartender approaches, and use the time to figure out my next move.
"What can I get for you, sir?" the woman asks. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun that looks like the ones figure skaters wear, her black pants and matching black button-up, both sleek and spotless.
"Water, please," I grind out, all the while avoiding the scene to my right.
The bartender nods politely. "And anything to eat?"
My jaw clenches assheshifts in her seat next to me.
What a loaded fucking question.
Anxiety builds in my chest as I consider that she may not remember me. Here I am, her presence shooting straight to my dick, losing my shit that she's here after thinking about her every time I wasinsomeone else these last ten months, and she might not even remember our night.
Or worse.
She may regret it.
