Page 33 of The Huckleberry Bookshop

Not that she seemed eager to give in to those feelings. She wanted a boring old professor with a high falutin’ mind, not a millionaire who crashed into other jocks out on the ice.

He should back off. Forget her. Let her go.

Mullens wasn’t anything like what she wanted, from the way he behaved on down to not having a close or loving family. Athena was literally starting a business with her sister and always texting or calling her parents, whereas he no longer had a sibling, and his parents were long done with him. It was just him and his fancy cars, and anyone who cared to spend a little time with him.

And yet here he was, looking for an opening to flirt with Athena as if it might lead to them becoming something special to each other.

“Toss in about a tablespoon of oil. Like this,” Athena said, gracefully dropping a dollop of olive oil into a heated wok.

“Why not coconut oil?” Mullens asked, pulling himself back to the here and now. He pushed aside the cooked chicken he’d cubed. “That would taste good with the sweet potato, wouldn’t it?”

She gave him a surprised look.

Crap. He was supposed to be playing up the role she knew—the clueless man who didn’t know the difference between arugula and iceberg lettuce. The guy who thought “the kitchen” was a trendy new bar.

“The smoke point of coconut oil isn’t high enough for the heat we’re using.”

“Your coconuts are smokin’,” he said, dropping his voice to a suggestive register.

“Someone save me,” she muttered under her breath, tossing the vegetables into the wok.

“I know mouth-to-mouth.” He leaned close, aware he was within striking distance.

Athena looked up from her task, her eyes lingering on his lips.

“Imagining what that might be like, Tina?”

“Actually, imagining how many lips have touched yours.” Hers curled in the most adorable way as she went back to abusing the food over high heat, breaking down fibers or some such thing.

His few conquests suddenly felt like less of a badge of honor than they once had.

By the time they were done cooking their stir-fry, Mullens was sweating from keeping up with Athena. He wasn’t bad at food prep, but he wasn’t a ninja like she was. He had a feeling she enjoyed keeping him hopping, asking for ingredients he was still working on.

Coach could learn a few tricks from this woman when it came to getting a player to hustle.

“Man, is it just me, or is it hot in here?” He wiped his brow with the hem of his shirt, not caring if he was showing the world his abs and breaking food prep rules, or whatever Athena would surely find to scold him over.

“It’s just you.” She gave him a sly smile that stunned him.

He literally didn’t know what to say, so turned to the camera and stared blankly at it. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Athena’s shoulders shaking as though she was holding in a laugh.

“You been into the cooking wine again?” he asked.

“Never.” Her expression suddenly grew serious, and he looked around to find the steady, assessing gaze of her sister locked on them.

He checked his watch. Yup. Just about time for Athena to move on to her next job—whipping this building into shape. Wait, no. Tonight was a family dinner, bringing back memories of his own family, when his sister was still with them. She’d been a great fan of pancakes, and as a surprise he’d made her a huge feast one night. It ended up being their last meal with her.

She’d been thrilled, her hands moving a mile a minute as she used sign language between bites, telling him what an awesome brother he was and how much she loved him.

Carrot cake pancakes with whipped cream, sliced bananas and lots of blueberry syrup. They’d laughed, eaten, and then the next day it had all fallen apart, her being raced to the hospital with a pain in her gut that had been serious enough to take her life. Their parents had never said what it was exactly, just that her body, as fickle as it had always been, had simply given up its fight against one of her many underlying conditions.

They’d told him it hadn’t been the pancake feast. That it was just poor timing.

But Mullens could only believe that they were trying to spare his feelings.

Meddy was looking at her watch, chewing on her lower lip and jiggling her leg as though she was running late. Athena kept a tighter schedule than Mullens did, and it made him wonder what she was hiding from. Did she keep busy as a tactic to avoid thinking about or feeling something?

A sliver of guilt rippled through his mind that maybe she was avoiding thinking about him and how his attitude encouraged the team to give her a rough time.

---