“See? Karlya thinks I’m a delight, too.”
He huffs out a breath. “You are. You’re also an epic pain in my ass.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Karlya tips back her beer before nodding to someone beyond us.
At the end of the row stands a little boy, head-to-toe kitted out in Raccoons gear. He’s holding a notebook and a marker.
“Be nice,” I warn.
“What do you mean, be nice? To whom?”
Jerking my head in the direction of the kid, I touch Tate’s thigh. “You have a fan.”
“Something you might not know about me, Pitstop, I have lots of fans. Some people think I’m a delight too.”
I recoil, eyes wide. “No way.”
“I know, right?” He winks at me, and shuffles out of the row past the people at the end who throw him a dirty look.
Look, I’m all for people staying in their seats during play, but if you choose to sit at the end of the row you kind of do this to yourself.
We still have a few minutes before the puck drops, so Tate’s fine to say hi and sign the little kid’s book. As much as I try to pay attention to the rest of the arena and not stare, I can’t help myself.
Tate crouches down next to the hockey kid, he holds out his hand, and the kid shakes it, staring up at his idol like he hung the fucking moon.
At the top of the steps stands a woman in a UCR shirt, she’s hugging an oversized stuffy that has a Raccoon’s shirt on its body and is holding a hotdog in her free hand.
Fuck. Now I want a hotdog.
Tate talks to the animated kid while the clock ticks down to the next period, the stands have filled in a bit more, and I’m starting to feel my toes. That likely has little to do with the arena, and more to do with the warmth spreading through my body at the sight of Tate hanging out with a little boy who adores him.
Tori knocks my leg with her knee. “Ovaries in overdrive, am I right?” She leans closer to me. “There’s nothing hotter than a man being cute with a kid. Nothing. It’s the best aphrodisiac there is.”
The crowd erupts as the team steps onto the ice, and Tate guides the boy back up to his accompanying adult.
My mouth is dry, my skin hot, and Tori’s right, my ovaries are doing some kind of baby-making-dance inside my body.
When he returns, Tate drops onto his seat, casting me a wary glance.
“What?” I shift in my seat.
“Nothing.” He turns his attention to the ice where Scott seems to have lost his shit at someone from the opening puck drop of the period, gloves are strewn across the ice, helmets and sticks, too. And they’re laying into each other.
I say laying into, Scott’s going to fillet his opponent and stick him on a skewer if he’s allowed to continue. He’s not normally this aggressive, which makes me wonder what the fuck the other guy said to him at the faceoff to set him off.
For as big and tough as hockey players are, Dad used to tell me that sometimes it was the most stupid of things that set them off on the ice.
Curiosity about why Tate is staring at me and not the ice, tickles my insides.
“What?” I repeat.
“Nothing.” He repeats. After a longer pause, he says, “You really don’t want to try wearing UCR green? It’d look good on you.”
“What did the little boy say?”
The fight on the ice has broken up, but Scott’s still chirping at the man he fought. Scott looks relatively untouched, but his opponent has blood trickling from his nose and mouth.
“What?” Tate’s eyes haven’t left the ice, but his hand has meandered its way onto my knee, then migrated from my knee to my thigh where it’s resting while he watches the game.
