Page 34 of Mother Pucker

“Have you always been like this?”

I give him a smug look, taking a bite of my salad. “Like what?Incredible,perfect, the bee’s knees?”

Rowan snorts. “And you call me cocky.” He leans in again. “By the way, Doc, no one uses ‘the bee’s knees’ anymore. They haven’t since the turn of the century.”

I poke him on the bicep with my fork and he howls, pretending to be hurt. “Well, I’m going to be the bee’s knees revivalist! It’s abuzz-worthyphrase.”

He groans at my lame joke. “Good luck with that. What I meant was, have you always eaten this healthy?”

I shake my head. “I started around the time . . .” I clear my throat, not wanting to dampen the mood. “Around the time Ajay was going through chemo. After reading about cancer until I practically reached the end of the internet, I went into this health-food frenzy, eliminating everything from our fridge and pantry that had any unnatural dyes, processed sugars, andwasn't organic. Ever since, I’ve become really careful with what Kai and I put into our bodies.”

Rowan puts his burrito down, turning to give me all his attention. It’s something I notice he does every time we talk–giving me his undivided attention–and it’s something I don’t ever recall getting from Ajay. “Do you think it was something in his diet that caused him to get sick?”

I shrug. “No one knows for sure. It could have been anything–a genetic alteration, something environmental, who knows? But I hated that I had no control over it. I hated that feeling of having to just accept it. That feeling of . . .”

“Helplessness,” Rowan adds when I trail off.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “So, it’s not that I control what Kai and I eat because it will keep us from becoming sick, it’s just that I try to do what I can.”

The memory of me smoking on the steps the other night floats into my vision, and I quickly wave it off. I’m not planning on smoking again, so I’m going to chalk it up to a stress-induced mistake and get back on the wagon.

Rowan’s golden-green gaze scrolls across my face before he takes another bite, chewing pensively.

“What?” I ask, knowing he wants to say something.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s just . . . fuck! It just seems like you’re punishing yourself for something that could happen anyway, you know?” His eyes bounce between mine. “Let me preface this by saying this isn’t a great example, nor is it the same as what you went through with your husband, but my dad left my mom when my sister and I were in our teens.”

I place my hand on his forearm, my heart lurching toward him as I take in his tight jaw and the way he’s white-knuckling the ball of aluminum foil he’d torn off his burrito. “I’m sorry, Rowan.”

He gnaws on his bottom lip for a moment. “The thing is, Mom did everything right. She was a perfect wife, a perfect mother. She was his biggest fan and his staunchest supporter, taking on all responsibility for my sister and me so my dad could focus on his career. When Dad played home games, he could always rely on the fact that he’d get a home-cooked meal afterward.

“And you know what else?” He looks at me but doesn’t wait for me to ask. “She always looked her best.” He shakes his head as if immersed in the memory. “As soon as she knew he was coming home, she’d go and fix her hair and makeup, sometimes even change her clothes. But even after all that,” he chuckles mirthlessly, “after nearly twenty years of being together, my dad still walked out on her–on us–to marry a woman half my mom’s age.”

I rub circles on his arm with my thumb, my eyes connected to the spot. I knew Rowan’s dad was a famous hockey player, but I hadn’t known about any of the other details. “How is your mom now?”

Rowan smiles, his face lighting back up like the way I’m used to seeing it. “She remarried and is living with a man who thinks the world of her, actually.”

That lifts my mood. “Well, that’s great. You seem close.”

“We are.” He nods. “My sister Piper, my mom, and me are three peas in a pod.”

I don’t correct him on the idiom because I get what he means.

“But the reason I told you that,” he says after a pause, “is to show you that you can do everything to control a situation, but there are circumstances that will test all your efforts. I get that you want to eat healthy and do what you can to stay away from bad shit, but don’t you ever just want to relax the rules? Eating an unhealthy meal from time to time isn’t going to hurt you; infact, it may actually make you feel happier. And in the end, isn’t that what we all want?”

He takes another big bite of his burrito and gives me the widest, goofiest smile imaginable. “See. Look at how happy I am,” he says before looking at my salad in dismay. “And look at how sad you are.”

I can’t even help it. I laugh. The man knows how to bring light to everything he touches. He is so fucking cute that I have to wonder how someone who projects so much power and strength–both on and off the ice–could be both so handsome and adorable at the same time.

“I’ll tell you what,” he starts, his beautiful eyes sparkling with another one of his mischievous ideas. “There’s no pressure, but–”

“Uh huh,” I deadpan, cutting him off. “Because you’ve never been one to pressure . . . “

He continues undeterred, “If you don’t feel just a tiny, eensy-weensy bit happier after taking a bite of this delicious burrito, then we’ll never discuss this topic again.”

I tilt my head skeptically, trying not to find him any cuter for saying ‘eensy-weensy’. “First of all, I highly doubt I’ll feel any happier after eating that, because I’ll just be thinking about all the bad stuff in it. And second of all, I don’t see you as the type to give up after I take one,eensy-weensybite.”

“What are you so worried about, Doc? Scared one bite will ruin you for life?” He waggles his brows like there’s another hidden meaning behind his words.

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