I nod. “I heard you.”
She goes up my porch steps ahead of me, two stairs up, and she puts her hand on the doorknob like she’s been doing it for days. The door opens. She steps inside. I follow her into my own house.
Chapter 14
Aspen
I step intotheHawthorne House, and the smell hits first — coffee, a little laundry detergent, a five-man house. It’s not as messy as I thought it’d be, but it’s lived-in enough to be honest about it.
From the outside, it’s a five-bedroom rental identical to mine. From the inside, it’s somehow both bigger and emptier.
Stanley closes the door behind me.
“Your boots are fine.”
I wasn’t going to take them off.
He leads. I follow him around the corner into the kitchen.
Gavin’s at the island with a mug. He looks up and sees me. His whole face changes — not into surprise, into delight, like he’s thrilled to see me.
“Aspen Linwood. In the Hawthorne House kitchen.” He’s already standing. “I’m getting this framed.”
“Hi, Gavin,” I say.
I don’t let my voice do anything in particular. Stanley moves past me to the coffee maker. I set the cup I brought down on the island and hold it loosely.
Gavin ignores Stanley’s existence as his eyes stay on me. “How are you?”
“Good. I’m good.”
“You look good.”
“Thank you.”
At the counter, Stanley doesn’t turn around.
Gavin keeps it friendly as he asks, “Are you still going for the Sharks job? I remember that being the whole plan. You used to talk about that. The Sharks were the dream.”
I pick up the cup I brought, set it back down after a sip. “I’m working for an NHL club already.”
Gavin’s face does a small, immediate adjustment. He didn’t know that.
“Yeah? Which one?”
I tell him.
He blinks once. “Oh.” He thinks. “That’s — that’s a good gig, Aspen. I’m surprised your dad didn’t just get you in where he’s at.”
The kitchen narrows half a degree. I don’t look at Stanley. I can hear that Stanley has stopped what he’s doing at the coffee maker.
“I didn’t want him to.”
“No?”
“I wanted to earn it.”
Gavin nods, slowly. He still hasn’t connected the team I work for to the man whose son is standing six feet from him. He’s reading my face for whether he should be impressed or careful, and he’s picking the wrong one.
