Page 73 of The Au Pair Affair

Tallulah had gone into the evening well aware that Bostonians didn’t do sports halfway. After all, her dad was a Red Sox fan. During baseball season, the games had served as background music to homework time. Thus, she knew that every Red Sox game was a matter of life or death. But hockey? She simply hadn’t known. The fans were not there to friggin’ play.

Everyone was wearing team colors. Like . . .everyone.

The dress code hadn’t been optional.

But here she was in jeans, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a coat. And she couldn’t even blend anonymously into the crowd, because the tickets they’d just picked up at the box office were in the front row. She and Lissa were heading there now, weaving in and out of fans holding loaded chili dogs and giant beers.

Nervous somersaults were happening in her tummy. Why?

Maybe because the last time she’d been alone with Burgess, she’d been asking him to spit on her? Her skin flamed just thinking about it. For the entire week that followed, he’d been busy preparing for the season opener, most of his waking hours spent at the arena in team meetings, doing press, and practicing. Tallulah had been splitting her time between caring for Lissa and working on her half of the collaborative assignment with Finn. Every time she’d been in the same room with Burgess, Lissa hadbeen there. Which had done nothing to stifle the charged glances and brushes of his lips across the back of her neck in the kitchen.

This time, her shiver had nothing to do with the temperature.

“Do you think I should go buy a sweatshirt or something?” she leaned down and asked Lissa, who had been a little too quiet on the ride over. Hopefully there wasn’t something new going on with the girls at school. “I feel... underdressed or overdressed, I can’t decide.”

Lissa looked down at her phone and scrolled through a feed of colorful pictures, somehow managing to avoid bumping into foot traffic. “Um. No, I think it’s fine.”

“Sure, easy for you to say.” She hip bumped the twelve-year-old. “You’re in a cool Bearcats shirt, complete with claw marks on the sleeve. Did your dad get that for you?”

“Yeah.” Lissa paled, her mouth falling open. “Oh no, I forgot my sweatshirt in the cab.”

“Oh. Shoot. I can call the car service and see if they’re still nearby? Or I can figure out how to pick it up in the morning.”

“We don’t have time—the game is starting and I don’t want to miss them introducing my dad.” Lissa’s shoulders slumped. “I’m going to freeze to death.”

“It’s that cold in the arena? We’re indoors.”

“Trust me. It’s that cold.”

“Well, hold on...” Tallulah craned her neck to see what each of the stalls was hocking. “Let’s just get you a sweatshirt or something.”

Three and a half minutes later.

“Seventy-five dollars?” Tallulah croaked. “For a sweatshirt?”

“No one has ever been shocked before, I tell you,” drawled the bored, red-shirted man with Boston in every syllable. “You’re the first. Wow.”

“Her dad is on the team. Isn’t there some kind of discount?”

His eyes rolled around like a pair of marbles. “Yeah, my mom is the coach. And my schnauzer drives the Zamboni. Next!”

Tallulah ushered Lissa away from the merchandise counter, leveling Red Shirt with a dirty look as long as possible. “Sorry, Liss. I don’t get paid for another week. And I grew up in a household where my mother made our clothes. I’d never be able to look her in the eye again.” Quickly, she whipped off her coat and draped it around Lissa’s shoulders. “You can wear this.”

Lissa’s hesitation was clear. “What about you?”

“Are you forgetting I lived in Antarctica?” She snorted. “I can survive a hockey game.”

They took their seats a few feet from the plexiglass just as the lights went out and blue paw prints were projected onto the ice, moving in a swirl pattern. An announcer’s voice swept in and sent the crowd into a frenzy, feet stomping on concrete, voices chantingcats cats cats. The referees took the ice first and they were booed, which Tallulah didn’t think was fair, since they hadn’t made any calls yet, but the negative greeting also seemed kind of... good-natured? As did the shouts ofget ready to lose, you fucks, that were yelled without reservation at the visiting team.

Tallulah raised an eyebrow at Lissa. “Remind me to never piss off a hockey fan.”

For the first time since she’d arrived tonight, Lissa cracked a smile. “The game hasn’t even started yet. Wait until the fights break out.”

“Ominous.”

“Yup.”

Geez. It was starting to get cold.Reallycold, actually.

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