“There.” He nodded to the sanded-down skirting to the left of him. “You’ll need this.” He poured more white paint in another tray and set it on the tarp covering the floors near me, then he hunkered down on his side and started again.
I squatted, dipped the small brush in the paint, and glided a lick of white on the smooth wood. “So hockey, huh?” I said, shooting him a quick look over my shoulder. “Always?”
“Yeah. Too much energy. It had to be spent somehow, and I was introduced to the sport.” Those deep blue eyes shifted to mine. “Do you—did you watch me play?”
I frowned at the way he answered me.Wasintroduced, notwhointroduced him.
“No, not you. But I did go to one game when I was a junior. Not a huge sports fan, I’m sorry,” I said with a wry smile. “Julian loves the game, though.”
“Who?”
“My stepbrother. He tried to bribe me to accompany him a couple of times,” I said, smiling, remembering how Jules would wheedle to get introvert me to leave the house with promises of book binge shopping—my one weakness. “So I caved and went with him once.”
War’s dark stare pinned me for the longest second, so I shrugged. “I can never understand the game though Julian explained. I mean, all the violence? I’m surprised you still have teeth.”
He shook his head, his tense features relaxing to one of tolerant amusement. “It’s a fast-moving game and can seem that way to the uninitiated.”
I snorted and ran more paint over the skirting. “Still risky when that puck is slammed and coming at you at what?” I glanced back at him. “Fifty, sixty miles an hour?”
“Depending on the power of the hit, sometimes at a hundred, maybe more,” he drawled.
“Seriously?” I gaped, stifling a shudder. “Ugh, no. Give me books, and I’m happy as a clam in a seabed.”
And that smile that made my heart trip crept over his lips. “What type of books?”
“Romance,” I said, waiting for something corny to fly my way.
Again, he nodded, surprising me.
“Well, I can’t seem to choose well from the living ones, so I make do with my fictional boyfriends. They’re perfect,” I said with a deep, exaggerated sigh.
His eyebrows drew together before he dipped his brush in paint and continued with sweeping strokes. “How so?”
“First off,” I said, running my brush over the wood, turning it to pristine white, “they see the girl, and they just know. Okay, sometimes, it takes a little while, and then that’s it for them. No one else exists.”
“That’s it?”
I glanced back and found he’d stopped painting, forearms resting on muscular thighs, and he was frowning at me.
“Yes, because then all the other things come naturally, wanting to spoil her—well, they spoil each other—just little things that say,you matter. And they don’t let their dicks guide them,” I muttered, tone hardening.
After several more frowning seconds, he went back to painting.
“So, hockey?” I said again, aware he hadn’t answered me. Ugh, my knees were starting to protest my squatting. I shifted and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Who introduced you to the game? Your dad?”
His mouth tightened as he dipped again. “No. My last foster father.”
About to coat my brush with more paint, I froze. Those few words said so much—hislastfoster father.
Then he was talking again. “I got into fights and always ended in the principal’s or counselor’s office.” He didn’t look at me, but the stiffness of his back, the granite jaw said so much. It hadn’t been a happy time for him. So I didn’t push, even though I badly wanted to know why.
“If you’re on a break now, from hockey I mean, why do you still train?” I asked instead.
A wry smile. “I like having a routine. It keeps me focused, and I stay in shape for the game. And during off-season, I prefer to get away from everything, the chaos, the noise, people. It’s why I bought this place. Here, I get to fish and surf whenever I want.” He cast me a smirk, rose, and moved further away to an unpainted section, then lowered on his haunches again. “Tomorrow, we’ll do that, go fishing for a few hours. We’ll leave before sun-up.”
Whoa—what? “Not if you value your hide.” I gave him a gimlet glare.
He chuckled. “Not a morning person, are you?”
