Page 5 of The Girl in the Hockey Jersey

“So tell me about yourself.” He stretches his arm across the back of the booth. A clear invitation to lean in, which I’m not going to accept.

I lean back instead.Harper, what are you doing?His arm is warm, even through the suit jacket.The full experience. Just how far am I willing to take a terrible idea? “I don’t want to tell you anything about myself.”

“Not your name.”

I shake my head.

“Your job?”

Another refusal.

He grins.

Fuck. I feel that grin deep in my belly. That’s a dangerous smile that promises to pull all sorts of secrets out of me tonight if I’m not careful.

“You’re full of mysteries, aren’t you?”

I puff out my cheeks. “I’m thirsty.”

“All right. We can work with that. What else do you like to drink?”

Water and coffee to get me through twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, where I am an ordinary girl who doesn’t live this kind of life. “Mostly just beer. Wine with a nice meal. Tequila, when I want to loosen up.”

His eyes are hazel, I realize, because he’s a bit closer than before. Not light brown, but glittering chunks of granite flecked with green and yellow. “Is that what you need tonight?”

I take a long sip of beer. It’s good. Safe, reliable. Familiar. I don’t want familiar. I want to lose myself in the strangeness of this moment. “Yeah, I think so.”

His fingertips graze my shoulder. “You sure?”

I’ve never been less sure of anything in my life. I twist and wave down our bartender friend.

When I turn back, Kieran’s gaze sticks on my mouth for a second, before flicking back up to meet my eyes. “If we’re not going to talk about you, then what do you want to know about me?”

“You do this often?”

“Depends what this is.”

“Let a girl insult you while you buy her drinks?”

“Never.”

I smirk. “I won’t let you make me feel special.”

He laughs. “I’m picking that up, loud and clear. But I gotta say, the scowlisspecial.”

The bartender arrives to take our tequila shot order, so I don’t have to respond to that right away. He’s not going to remember me after tonight. I’m just another girl in just another city.

But I’ll remember tonight forever. I just need to keep that memory in perspective. Part out-of-character adventure, part cautionary tale.

Never fall for a hockey player.

It’s been the unspoken rule of my entire life. I’m not going to break it tonight.

“I’ll tell you what’s special,” I whisper once we’re alone again. “Those toques.”

He grins.

It’s a peace offering, and a subject change. “What are the odds, right?”

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