Page 84 of Revenge Puck

“I’m not just an amazing hockey player,” I tell her, placing a quick kiss on her cheek while Finley’s gone to get us juice boxes and goldfish so we can have a picnic.

“What else are you good at?” she asks. “Well, besides the things that I have already experienced.”

Rubbing my scruffy chin, I consider her question, trying not to think about the things she and I experienced last night and this morning. “I’m a decent cook.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll show you tonight. We’re having Tuscan ravioli with Arugula salad and chocolate filled cannoli.”

Her blonde brow shoots up. “Wow. I’m already impressed.”

“Okay, so the cannoli may be store bought this time since I’ve been busy, but I can make it.”

“I can’t wait to try it all.”

“Uncle Pres!” Finley calls from below us when he returns with the goods. I reach down to grab the Warhawk lunch box from him, and it suddenly hits me just how devastated the little guy will be when I’m playing for a different team. He loves the Warhawks so damn much.

Clearing my throat, I reach my other arm down to pull him up through the hole in the floor where the rope hangs from. “Thanks for the snacks, buddy.”

“Welcome,” he replies proudly before he sits down near us and begins laying out a juice and snack pack for Elle, then me, then himself.

“This looks so delicious,” Elle says as she jabs her tiny white straw into her box and sips it before popping a cheddar cracker into her mouth. “Wow, the apple juice and the goldfish taste great, Finley,” Elle tells him before she takes her second and final sip from the juice. “Thank you so much. I was starving after Uncle Preston told me about his dinner plans.”

“You’re welcome, Ellie,” he says triumphantly, flashing her a big grin. “I’m glad you came to visit us.”

Elle completely freezes at his remark, as if he just told her the secret to curing cancer or some other miraculous shit.

I nudge her gently with my elbow to her side. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she whispers to me. “He just…he gave me a nickname.”

“Yeah, he likes you,” I tell her quietly. And it’s true. Elle is great with the little guy, a natural, making me certain that she’ll be a great mother someday.

God. I shouldn’t be thinking shit like that, not when it’s becoming more and more obvious that the two of us won’t have a future together.

A move to the West Coast would mean juggling my time between traveling for games, practices, and seeing Maya and Finley as often as I can. That won’t leave me much time for a relationship with Elle.

She won’t marry me or have my kids. She’ll be a mother to some other man’s spawn while I’m alone and miserable in California.

I should tell her and Maya about the offer from the Grizzlies, but I haven’t even laid eyes on the contract yet. It’s still just one possibility. Maybe I’ll get more offers if I have a great game tomorrow night or if the Warhawks win the championship trophy.

Elle

“Are you sure you don’t need my help?” I ask Preston and Maya as they work on preparing dinner and Finley huddles down in his room to do his reading for the night.

“Heck no,” Preston replies. “Just sit down and relax. You’re our guest.”

“We don’t get many guests, so we have to try to impress you,” Maya says, flashing me a grin over her shoulder.

“Trust me, I am already impressed. My dinners typically consist of takeout.”

“That is a shame,” Preston says with a shake of his head while making the ravioli.

Seeing Preston in the kitchen is almost as sexy as seeing him on the ice. He cooks while Maya makes the salad and sets the table, the two moving around the kitchen with an ease of people who have lived together for years. They’ve obviously made a lot of dinners together, just the two of them because their parents are apparently assholes.

And Christian may or may not know he’s a father. Either way, he’s not here to help out, to spend time with his adorable son who also calls me Ellie.

When dinner is ready and we sit down to eat, Finley talks a mile a minute between each of his bites, telling us about what he did at school, all the funny things his friend Joey said and did. The way he speaks and laughs with such an easy-going personality reminds me so much of his father that it’s scary. The only difference is that Finley was shy at first, but the longer I’m here, the more he seems to relax.

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