“Yeah. I was pissed about it. They were both staying with me at the time and I didn’t realize they were hooking up behind my back. But Ben’s a good buddy, and a good guy, so once I saw they were both serious about each other, I got over it.” He shrugs. “Mabel had been through a rough time and she deserved a good guy.” His eyes shadow and the slopes of his eyebrows dip downward.
“You look… sad. Is it your sister?”
“Yeah.” He dredges up a smile. “She’s good now, though.”
I can see how much he cares about her, which is sweet. “That’s good.”
Our food arrives and it takes up nearly the whole table.
“This looks like a lot.” I survey our dishes.
“You said you were hungry.” He gives me a wicked little grin.
“I’ll do my best. It looks really good.”
We dish up onto plates and pick up chopsticks. I take a bite of a pot sticker and it’s so good. “Mmmm.”
We talk more as we eat, about all kinds of things. He’s so easy to talk to. He listens with his head tilted just slightly, with genuine interest. And he teases me about how much I eat.
“You can really eat for a tiny little thing.”
“I can.” I grimace. “It’s not a good thing.”
“I like to eat, too. It’s a struggle for me to keep weight on sometimes.”
I make a face. “I wish I had that problem.”
“You’re perfect.”
I laugh and give him a deliberate up and down look. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Not so bad, huh. I’m not sure if I should be offended.”
“No.” I grin. “You know damn well there’s nothing wrong with your physique.”
“True,” he admits modestly. “I’m not sure you can properly judge right now, though. I think you need a closer look.”
I drop my chin and give him a look. “Nice.”
“For real, I could be hiding a lot of muscle under these clothes.”
Heat washes up into my face, but I don’t back down, letting my gaze wander again, then meeting his eyes. “It would be… interesting… to know if that’s true.”
Heat crackles in the air around us.
Wow. This is… unexpected.
We finish most of the food and talk more. I hear about his hockey friends, I tell him about my two homes, one in New York and one in Los Angeles. I tell him about growing up on Long Island and he tells me more about his twin sister. And somehow, hours pass. In Vegas, it’s hard to know what time it is. The skills competition didn’t end until ten, so now it must be… I don’t know.
I should go. I should get to bed. I need my sleep. I need to follow my routine.
That’s the voice inside me that’s been drummed into me since I was a teenager.
Tonight… I don’t care.
“Do you get nervous singing in front of a crowd?” Marek asks me.
“Of course.”
