“Any other instructions?”
“Have fun, be yourself, and call me tomorrow with every single detail, or I will come to your apartment and extract them surgically.”
“Love you, Mia.”
“Love you, too, pepper pants. Now go sweep that hockey player off his feet.”
I hung up and sat in the parking lot for a long moment, both hands on the wheel, two pies riding shotgun, and a grin on my face I couldn’t have suppressed if I’d tried.
Tomorrow night.
Seven o’clock.
I’d wear a green shirt, untamed curls, and see a man who kissed me like I was the answer to every question he’d been asking his whole life.
God, I couldn’t wait.
Chapter 22
Skyler
Ichanged my shirt four times.
Four.
Which was three more than I’d ever changed for any date in my entire life, including prom, including the time I’d taken a model to a charity gala, including every single dinner with every single woman I’d ever been interested in.
Was it normal for a guy to worry over his shirt—a T-shirt, no less—like a crazy former hobbit obsessing over a ring?
But this wasn’t a date with a woman.
It was a date with Jacks.
It still felt strange calling an outing with a guy “a date,” but I’d resolved to normalize this as much as possible. It gave my jittery nerves some sense of comfort to ground whatever we were doing in language I already understood.
Guys went on dates with other guys.
Didn’t they?
Fuck me if I knew. I wanted to see Jacks again, to touch his face and kiss him like we did last time. I’d dreamed about it the whole time we were out of town. Every time I laced up my skates and hit the ice, I looked into the stands hoping beyond hope to see him smiling at me through the glass. That part was ridiculous for two reasons. First, we were on a road trip and he was nowhere near whatever town we were in. And second, he’d never even been to one of my games—not even our home games.
Still, I couldn’t stop looking around, scanning the crowd, hoping to see messy dark curls bouncing across a perfectly shaped forehead.
Jesus, I’ve turned into a thirteen-year-old girl who just had her first kiss.
And apparently, Jacks had also turned me into the kind of person who stood shirtless in front of his closet at 6:15 p.m., agonizing over fabric choices like they contained the secrets of the eternal life.
The first shirt—a fitted navy henley—felt too casual, too “I didn’t try.” The second—a crisp white button-down—felt too formal, too “I’m trying to impress you.” The third—a vintage Lightning tee—felt too on-brand, too “I have no personality outside of hockey.”
I settled on the fourth: a soft gray pullover that was somewhere between dressy and casual, the kind of thing that said, “I put in effort, but I’m not weird about it.”
At least, I hoped that’s what it said.
Clothes spoke on dates, didn’t they? God, I hoped mine would . . . unless they had a big, rude mouth and threw me under the bus. I needed help, not an archnemesis made of cotton and whatever other shit they put in a pullover.
On reflection, they said, “I own a gray sweater.”
Which was fine.
