“Why does Xander call Ryker Georgie?” I ask Camden.
“Hockey habit. We call each other by our last names or a nickname based on our name. Ryker’s last name is St. George.”
“Oh. Right.” A second later, it clicks. Bashers. Hockey. Camden and his friends play for Denver’s professional hockey team.
I gasp. “Wait, you guys are professional hockey players?”
My cheeks heat. That’s probably really embarrassing that I didn’t recognize any of them.
But Camden just chuckles. “Yup.”
His teammates don’t look the least bit offended. They just laugh and go back to their card game.
“I should have known you’d grow up to play hockey. You were great at it when you were a kid,” I say.
Camden was always the best player on the teams he played for. I went to a few of his games, and he was always the fastest on the ice and almost always scored a goal.
That confident smile doesn’t budge from his face. He’s clearly unbothered that I didn’t know this about him.
“I was into a lot of stuff as a kid,” he says. “It was anyone’s guess what I’d end up doing for a living.”
He’s right. He was also a really good figure skater. I remember he did that because it helped his skating when he played hockey. He also swam in the summer and played soccer sometimes too.
I paint a golden unicorn horn in the middle of his forehead. “Incredible at hockey and figure skating and soccer and swimming. You were good at everything.”
His cheeks flush pink under the white paint on his cheeks. “Not everything. I was bad at school, remember? I’d always come over to your house and ask you to help me with my homework.”
I smile at the memory of Camden coming over almost every day after school.
“You did well on our solar system project in fourth grade,” I say.
“Because of you. I thought they named the planet Pluto after the Disney character.”
My head falls back as I laugh.
“I’m not much of a thinker,” he teases. “I’m a dumbass who can’t tell the difference between a party princess and a stripper, remember?”
I’m laughing so hard now, I almost drop the brush in my hand.
“Everyone has their own talents. You’re good at hockey,” I say. “Which means you’re good at skating fast and hitting pucks and…not falling on the ice and…”
Camden smiles as I struggle to come up with other hockey-related things.
I shake my head and laugh. “Sorry, I don’t know anything about hockey. Or any sports, really.”
“It’s okay. You were more into music. Do you still play the piano?”
Warm tingles gather in my chest at how he remembers.
“Not as much as I’d like to with how busy I am these days, but at least a couple times a week I play on my keyboard,” I say. “How about you? Do you still play?”
“Sometimes. Same thing though, I’m so busy that it’s hard to find time.” He nods at Sam. “I played piano for his proposal though.”
Sam grins and says that he proposed to his fiancee by recreating a musical scene fromThe Big Bang Theory, their favorite show.
“Camden knocked it out of the park with his stellar piano playing skills,” Sam says.
I playfully tap Camden’s arm with my free hand. “Look at you using your musical talent for romance.”
