“Well, you’re stuck with French,” he returns and scoops some grounds from a fancy French roast coffee bag into the press. “In more ways than one.”
When the coffee is ready, he fills two cups, adds the amount of half and half and sugar I request and gives me one of the mugs before taking my hand and leading me toward the wall of windows on the front of the house that gives an unobstructed view of the water. There’s an incredibly long, low, tufted couch in front of it. He sits at one end, his wide bare back positioned against the arm, and I move toward the other end, but he still has me by the hand and he pulls me down so that his chest is my backrest.
“By the way,” he murmurs against the shell of my ear, “you look fucktastic in my team sweatshirt.”
I almost snort coffee through my nose at that comment. Fighting off a coughing fit and struggling to swallow, I glance down at the sweatshirt I grabbed and realize it’s got a giant white Winterhawks logo in the center of it. I manage to swallow and choke out, “I look like a puck bunny.”
“Puck bunnies wish they looked like you.” He laughs and I’m debating pulling the thing off my body, but I’m so comfortable against him, and he’s got his arm wrapped around my waist holding me in place, so I decide to just ignore it and sip my coffee again.
“I have a flight at one thirty this afternoon,” he says after a few minutes of comfortable silence. That news comes as a surprise.
“Where are you going?”
I swear orgasms kill brain cells because as soon as he says, “Playoffs,” I realize I’m an idiot. Round one starts tomorrow. If the Winterhawks are starting the series somewhere else, it means they’re playing a team that is seeded higher than them.
“Who are you playing?”
“The fucking Thunder,” he replies, and I feel him heave a heavy breath. “I fucking hate those douchebags. They knocked us out last year.”
I nod and sip my coffee. “So you’ll be gone for four or five days?”
“Yeah, but I’ll call and text…I just need your number.” I smile at the stupidity of this. He doesn’t even have my phone number. This is nuts. Seriously, the way this whole thing happened between us—it’snuts. If there’s a path to true love, we’ve thrown away the directions and are careening down it in reverse, blindfolded. He squeezes me tighter around the waist. “So can I have your number, Shay?”
“Do you have any other siblings?” I ask. “Besides Stephanie?”
“Umm…two stepsisters,” he explains. “My mom remarried a couple years ago and he has two daughters.”
“When did your parents divorce?”
“When I was ten.”
“And you grew up in Quebec?”
I feel him shake his head behind me. “Mostly. But I was born in New Brunswick. I’m technically Acadian French. My great-grandparents actually settled in Maine from France and then my grandparents moved to New Brunswick. Then my mom and dad moved to Quebec for my father’s job when I was three. We stayed there after the divorce, until I was sixteen, and then I moved back to New Brunswick because I made a junior team there. I lived with my grandparents until I was eighteen and entered the draft.”
I stare out the window at the calm water as he speaks. When he’s done with his story he leans close to my ear again. “So? Do I pass whatever weird background check you’re putting me through? Do I get your number now?”
I laugh. Man, he must think I’m a nutjob. He slips out from behind me and walks over to the console table where he dropped his wallet, keys and phone last night. As I scoot back to nestle in the corner of the couch he vacated, he tosses me his wallet before picking up his phone.
“You can verify my name, age and date of birth, write down my DL and do an official background check if you want, but I’ll take those digits now.” He’s grinning again, holding his phone up ready for the numbers.
I give him my phone number and glance down at his wallet where it landed open on my left thigh. His driver’s license is glaring up at me. He’s a Leo. He’s almost two years older than I am. And…“Holy shit!”
He smirks and puts down his phone, finished entering my information. He knows exactly what I’m gawking at. “I know. It’s a lot of names.”
“Sebastian Gabriel Maxim Louis Deveau.”
“I think my parents knew they weren’t having any more kids so they just dumped all the potential names on me.” He shrugs. “What’s your middle name?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Nope? That’s worse than Shayne,” he teases and I flip him my middle finger. He pretends to be offended. “Come on, I just vomited my life story.”
“I’ll tell you anything. Just not my middle name.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is, in fact, worse than Shayne.”
