Last night, I’d logged twenty-two minutes of ice time, which was high for me. My knee had started bitching at me in the third period—nothing serious, just the regular aches and pains that came with being a guy in his thirties who'd spent years of his life speeding around on razor blades.
“How’s your knee?” he asked from the other side of the island.
“Fine.”
“That’s what you said after the Ottawa game.”
“That’s because it was also fine after the Ottawa game.”
“You were limping when you got home.”
“No I wasn't.” Did I sound like a petulant brat? Yes. Did I care? Not a bit.
He tossed me a look that said he wasn’t buying my bullshit. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
“It’s fine, Seb. Really.”
He set down his spoon and wiped his hands on a dish towel before coming around the island to stand in front of me, his hands braced on his hips.
“You need to keep it elevated,” he said, bending to add a second pillow under my knee.
The ice pack slipped off, and he caught it before it hit the floor, turning it over in his hands. What used to be solid was now floppy and sloshy.
With a put-upon sigh, he said, “This isn’t even cold anymore. You need to tell me when you need to swap it out.”
Sebastian would balk if someone described him as a natural caretaker, but he definitely was. Always had been—at least when it came to me. Back in college, when I'd torn my abdominal muscles, he'd futzed over me for weeks, making sure every little thing was taken care of, and he was doing it again now. I probably shouldn't enjoy the Mother Hen routine as much as I did, but it gave me a secret thrill.
“Stop treating me like a baby,” I groused, just to get a rise out of him.
“Stopactinglike a baby and I will,” he said, turning back toward the kitchen, blowing me a kiss over his shoulder as he went.
A minute later, he was back with a fresh ice pack, which he draped over my knee. “Dinner’ll be done in about forty minutes.”
“Smells good. What are we having?”
“Mushroom risotto with grilled chicken.”
“How very bougie of us.”
“It’s literally just chicken, rice, and mushrooms.”
It turned out to be really fucking good chicken, rice, and mushrooms, served with a mountain of freshly shaved parmesan and a drizzle of truffle oil.
Sebastian had grown up with a private chef, something I’d teased him about back when I first found out, but I wasn’t teasing him now. Between all the fancy meals he was cooking for me, I’d never eaten so well in my life.
When I looked up from scraping the last of the rice from the bottom of my bowl, Sebastian had pushed his empty plate aside and was turned slightly toward the dark window, his wine glass loose in his hand. I didn’t think he was looking at anything in particular, but he wore that inward, focused expression he often got when he was working something over in his mind.
“What’s up?”
He took a sip of wine, then refocused his attention on me. “My parents asked me to join them for Thanksgiving. They have someone they’d like me to meet.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. Ah.”
“What’d you say?” I asked, trying my damnedest to keep my tone neutral and mostly failing. He was well aware of where I stood on this particular topic.
“I said I was busy. I also said I was seeing someone and that they need to stop trying to set me up with every single blonde woman who crosses their path—though I do have a preference for blonds.” He looked at me pointedly, his mouth hitching to the side.
