Again, I brought my thumb to her lips, quieting her this time. “If I was taking you on a date in New York, we would start off at my favorite place to have drinks. It’s this little bar in the West Village, close to where I used to live. The place is really cool, not at all pretentious. Just really interesting drinks and a comfortable atmosphere. And they have a little patio out back with tons of those string lights overhead. It’s a nice place to sit outside in the middle of the city.” I reached out my hand for hers. “I arranged to have their signature cocktail brought up. If that sounds good to you.”
She shook her head, eyes shining. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Is that a yes on the drinks?”
She laughed. “Yes. It’s a yes.”
The server was mixing our drinks when I led her outside to the balcony. I heard her intake of breath as she took in the view, the lights of Manhattan stretching off in every direction.
“Wow,” Gracie murmured, walking straight to the railing.
“Not bad, is it?” I asked, coming up to stand next to her.
“It’s gorgeous.” She leaned into my shoulder. “You must miss this.”
Before I could answer, the server cleared his throat and I turned to take our drinks. “There are two more servings in the shaker,” he told me, nodding to the silver canister on the cart. “Will that be all?”
“That’s great, thanks,” I told him, handing Grace her drink so I could reach into my pocket for my wallet. I pressed a fifty into his hand.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “They’ll bring dinner up in fifteen minutes, if that works for you?”
“Fifteen minutes is great.” Part of me wanted more time to stand there with Gracie, sipping our cocktails but I was starving. I’d had a sandwich before leaving the arena, but playing hockey burned a hell of a lot of calories.
After the server left, I rejoined Gracie at the railing. “Do you know what we’re looking at?” she asked. “I don’t know New York geography.”
It took me only a moment to orient myself. “We’re facing downtown,” I told her. “That strip without lights there is the Hudson River. And that’s New Jersey on the other side.”
“And where did you live?”
“We’re actually pretty close,” I said. “About twenty blocks that way.”
“Twenty blocks is close?” she asked.
I chuckled. “In New York? Sure. That’s only two or three subway stops.” I pointed to a tall building. “That’s the Rockefeller Center. Josie and I used to go skating there every winter. It was always crowded as fuck. I would tell her she could skate with me at the arena, but she insisted it was more fun.” I swallowed, suddenly missing my little girl with an intensity that threatened to steal my breath. “You can’t see it from this angle, but Central Park is just up there. We’d go every Saturday when I was in town, rain or shine. She loved the Children’s Zoo and the carousel.”
“I can see why she’s been homesick,” Gracie said quietly. “But you didn’t answer my question about whether you miss it.”
I took a sip of my cocktail, thinking about it. “I do and I don’t,” I finally told her. “I have a lot of good memories here, especially with Josie. And with the team. This is where I started my career, you know? Where my little girl grew up. So there’s a certain amount of nostalgia. But the past few years…” I shook my head, not wanting to talk about Chloe right now. “It was a lot harder, after the divorce,” I finally said. “And I think that makes it a little bit more difficult for me to look back at my time here with rose-colored glasses.”
“I get that,” she said. She was quiet for a moment but I sensed there was more she wanted to say. “I feel like that when I think about Minnesota,” she finally said. “There are still good memories there, but so much of it is wrapped up in my mom and the way we grew up. It’s hard not to think about that stuff whenever I remember home.”
“Do you ever go back?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t been back since I moved here.”
“I used to hope I would run into you,” I admitted. “Whenever I was home from college. Or later, when I’d bring Josie to visit my parents.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Your family were probably the only people from that town that I would have liked to see again.”
I leaned down to kiss her just as a loud knock came from the room behind us. “Damn,” I whispered, straightening up. “That’s probably dinner.”
She smirked. “You better get it then. Don’t think I haven’t heard the way your stomach has been growling.”
I smacked her ass as I passed her on the way to get our food and her squeal made me want to do it again—and so much more. But first, I would feed her.
Continuing on with the theme, I arranged to have food brought in from one of my favorite restaurants in the city. If I’d been free to take Gracie out, Vic’s is definitely what I would have picked. “Josie and I would go to this place all the time,” I told her as we tucked into our pasta dishes. “It’s this tiny brick building down in Little Italy, run by the same family that opened it seventy years ago. The whole street looks run down and you would never guess how good the food is from the exterior.”
“It better be good,” Gracie said. “Seeing as how you ordered enough for the entire Sting starting line.”
