Embarrassed, I pushed the bottle toward him. “Thirsty?”
“You would not believe.” He took the bottle and downed a couple of gulps. Like the last time in my kitchen, I turned away. I had a weakness for a man’s throat, the perfect place to inflict pleasure or pain.
He passed the bottle back to me. “Where will you play next year?”
“The draft isn’t until June.”
“But you have a wish, yes?”
“Isobel Chase has expressed interest.”
“The Chicago Athenas? They are good?—”
“For a girls’ team?”
His lips quirked. “I think they are good without …” He seemed to be thinking of the right word. “Qualification. But then, no doubt, you are used to men trying to limit you.”
“I am.” But I probably shouldn’t have jumped all over him when I thought he was gearing up to throw shade.
“You are related to Gunnar Bond?”
“My brother-in-law. You a fan?” Most people were.
“He is a legend.”
Though he was my brother-in-law, I considered Gunnar to be more of a father figure. He and my sister Sadie had been there for me through the toughest times. When I was twelve, and my father was convicted of financial crimes, Sadie had taken over as my guardian and Gunnar had restored my faith in families.
Which reminded me that Sadie had checked in last night and I let her call go to voice mail. Jonah Yates had been a naughty boy again.
I didn’t want to talk with her about my father and his latest fall from grace. But Sadie was big on communication. Too many years in LA where she absorbed all sorts of touchy-feely techniques for drawing a person out. She wanted us to discuss our feelings while I preferred Gunnar’s approach. Bash a puck and bury it deep.
“Maybe I’ll introduce you one day, though you’ll probably meet him through Isner.” Jason’s brother, Theo Kershaw, still played for the Chicago Rebels, and Gunnar and Theo were close.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is not important. These legends are the past.”
“Future forward, are you?”
His brow crinkled. Perhaps he didn’t understand that phrase.
“I mean, you would prefer to focus on what’s coming?”
“I prefer to focus on the now. And who is coming.”
I wondered if his proficiency with the English language had forced that change: what’s coming to who. Was it sexual innuendo? Or was I reading too much into it? The likelihood of Alexei Nazarov flirting with me was next to impossible.
“What time is your practice?” he asked.
“Eight a.m. We go first so the boys can get their beauty sleep.”
“Then we have time for breakfast. Are you hungry, Silver Eyes?”
The voracious butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t mind a pancake stack. I doubted it would satisfy them, but it was worth a try.
“Always.”
“Knock. It. Back! Knock. It. Back!”
“Okay, okay.” I raised the glass of schnapps to my lips—mint, ugh!—and downed it in one go to the raucous cheers of my teammates. “Happy?”
