“Oh shit. Are you injured?” I walk toward him knowing full well being injured at the start of the season would totally suck for a hockey player. Especially one who wants to get back out there and both enjoy and defend his Stanley Cup win.
He glances down at his wrist and lifts it up as he looks back at me, tugging the Velcro on the brace-free. "Nope. I was last year, at the end of the season. Had a quick surgery and lots of physiotherapy over the summer."
He pauses and our eyes meet and damn I don’t want to smile. But I do smile and he smiles back and this little moment passes between us and I don’t know what it is. I’ve had boyfriends before but I’ve never had this level of chemical attraction to someone. Maybe because he’s the only man who has ever been inside me? “Anyway,” he starts, bringing me out of my dirty thoughts, “I lied and said it was still bothering me, so I could skip the pressers and schmoozing VIPs after our first preseason game a few weeks ago and go find you. So now Coach and our trainer want me to wear this off the ice. Just in case. I put it on after practice, after my shower so they would see it, and I forgot to take it off.”
Me. He faked an injury and bailed on his commitments to the team to find me and try and get me to sleep with him again. There’s no way to not be flattered by that. “So,” he continues, “are you meeting someone? Like a date?”
“No.”
“Thank God because I’d be insanely jealous.”
Did he just… I lock eyes with him, and he smiles, but it’s not cheeky like he was kidding, it’s confident and there’s a glint of a challenge in his hazel eyes. Strong ‘what are you going to do about it?’ vibes.
"I was going to go to the beach to watch the sunset, but I just realized I hate walking around after dark by myself and I would have to walk back here alone… so… do you want to come with?"
“Go with you? To the beach? To watch the sunset? It sounds uncomfortably romantic.” He looks down at himself and back up. “Maybe I should put on a shirt to make it less awkward.”
I laugh at his stupidity. Crew disappears into the townhouse. I glance in through the big living room window and notice boxes everywhere. He must be moving soon and I don’t like that I don’t know where he’ll be going even though I don’t have a right to know. He appears on the front porch again in a simple, pale blue t-shirt and slides on his feet similar to the ones every male in my entire family wears, because hockey players love slip-on shoes. The wrist brace is also gone. He shoves on some sunglasses and pulls his door closed.
“Let’s go Fireball.”
Is he always this confident and cool? I mean a random girl just shows up at his house and he rolls with it. I don’t roll with it when Tenley invites me to brunch spontaneously. I know for a fact my mom rolls with anything so…
“You think a lot, don’t you?”
“You don’t think?” I counter as we walk the crumbling sidewalks of Venice toward the beach.
“I think a lot too,” Crew admits with a sheepish, fleeting smile. “But I don’t overanalyze things. That trait went to the other twin. But thinking, yeah, I do that. I’ve been thinking about our night in the hotel a lot. Like all the time. Almost non-stop.”
I glance up at him, but I don’t know where he’s looking because of the sunglasses he’s wearing. I decide to throw my own on because they’re big round things that will hopefully hide the hue of my skin when I inevitably blush if we keep talking about this. “It’s definitely a fond memory for me.”
“Fond?” he repeats as the light turns and we start across the intersection. “A fond memory is something you make over Thanksgiving with your grandparents. I don’t want it to be a fond memory for you. I wanted it to be a life-changing one. Something that you think about when you’re ninety-nine, on your death bed, and it still makes you wet.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my mouth from hanging open. My mom wouldn’t be stunned by that. I fight the blush wanting to take over my complexion. I try to channel my mom and say something confident and sexy. “I guess fond was an understatement. And if I’m still lucid at ninety-nine, and remember my own name, perhaps I will remember that one crazy birthday I spent naked in a suite at Chateau Marmont. Perhaps.”
He laughs. “Well, Fireball, I’m going to ask for one more night so that I can really cement the memory. I’m not liking the use of the word perhaps.”
“Oh my God.” I can’t fight the blush now. “You really don’t have anyone else to proposition?”
“Sure I do. I have tons of options. But you’re the one that showed up at my house,” he reminds me as the wind takes a few strands of his drying hair and pushes them over his cheek. He shoves them back again. "I'm freshly showered, horny, and well… feels like fate. And to be honest, I think you want to do it again too. There's lots of other places to park in Venice."
I don’t respond because I’ve been busted and there is no way to talk my way out of it. Yeah, I could have paid for parking anywhere else. Deep down I was hoping to run into him. We walk another block. The famous Venice boardwalk and the Pacific Ocean are visible now.
“You’re thinking about it,” he murmurs confidently.
“Yeah well, I think a lot, remember?”
“Touché.”
We don’t talk again until we’re sitting in the sand, the famous outdoor gym and boardwalk behind us, and nothing but the blue-gray Pacific Ocean and a warm golden ball of light slipping lower and lower in front of us. That's when I find my words.
“Since you know my big secret, that I was a geriatric virgin, tell me some big secret of yours,” I request and dig my fingers deeper into the warm sand as I lean back on my arms.
“I’m divorced.”
“I know. You’ve mentioned that. Tell me something I can’t Google.” He looks hesitant so I add. “It’s only fair and you can trust me.”
“I don’t trust women.”
