Caroline leans over the table, her face glowing in the dim candlelight. It’s not that she’s not pretty, but seeing her eyes closer up, it looks like she has a goal in mind for tonight.
To bag a hockey player?
If this woman turns out to be a puck bunny, I’m going to be pissed.
“I play for the Black Diamonds.”
A glass of wine is set down in front of her and she takes a hearty sip. It makes me feel like this isn’t going well at all.
My eyes drift past her shoulder to the woman staring at me from the bar.
Bexley.
Her arm is casually draped over the back of the leather stool, one leg crossed over the other.
“I know that. What’s it like?” Caroline brings my attention back to her. Her fingers are tracing a pattern in the dark wood of the table.
“It’s great most days. Except when we lose. People can get shitty when we lose.”
“I don’t really watch much hockey,” she tells me.
“Really?”
“The puck going back and forth is too hard to follow for me.”
I smile at her. This. Hockey. Hockey is something I can talk about without turning into an idiot.
“For me, it’s all about the strategy. Where that person is going to go. Trying to read their every move as they fly down the ice. Are they going to pass the puck? Keep it for themselves? Sometimes, you can sense where they are going to go. Othertimes, you have to trust your gut and hope you make the right move. The puck can go over your shoulder into the goal in the blink of an eye. I love it.”
Caroline’s eyes glaze over the more I wax on about hockey.
Shit. Maybe this isn’t going so well. The one thing that doesn’t make me nervous and I’m losing her.
“Sorry. You don’t like hockey.” I fidget with the napkin sitting under my glass. “Sometimes I can get carried away. Why don’t you tell me about yourself.”
“Well, I’m a massage therapist during the day, but an aspiring influencer in my spare time.”
I blink, hoping not to look like an idiot.An aspiring influencer?What the hell does that mean?
“What does an aspiring influencer do?”
My voice sounds steady to my ears. Thank God, because I wouldn’t want her to think I’m being judgmental. But honestly, I don’t even know what an aspiring influencer does.
“God, you sound just like my ex.”
I wince, leaning back in my chair. “Sorry. I just don’t know what they do.”
“I influence people to buy things.” Caroline tosses her long red hair behind her shoulder. “Then I get paid for it.”
“And what kind of things do you sell?”
“Well, I don’t sell them. Companies send me stuff for free to try and then I give my opinions for others to buy and then I make commissions off them.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t sound excited by it.”
“Sorry, I’ve just never met anyone who does that, and I don’t know much about it.”
