Page 34 of The Huckleberry Bookshop

If he could go back to the day they’d met in that meeting room, he’d change it all. He would simply walk out and collect himself instead of trying to hold it in. He would be mature and not snap at her over the carrot-and-walnut pancake recipe.

Mullens let out a long, slow breath and shoved his fingers through his hair, trying to ground himself in the here, the now.

Forget the past. Forget the pain. Channel himself in this moment.

Athena waved a forkful of root vegetable stir-fry in front of him. “Try it.”

“What’s with the fork?”

“You prefer chopsticks?” She huffed a laugh when she realized what he meant. “You think I’m a slow learner? There’ll always be a utensil between that mouth and my body from now on.”

“Aw,” he said, trying to play up his faked disappointment. “That’s no fun.”

“Exactly.”

“You don’t enjoy fun?”

“No, I do. It just looks different than your version.”

“So you don’t love hanging out and feeling good with someone?” His body was close enough to brush against hers. She was turning a delightful pink, but stood her ground. Maybe she was afraid to step outside the camera’s view and wreck the footage. Or maybe she liked it right where she was.

“Is that how you define your love life?” she asked. “Hanging out and feeling good with someone?”

He lowered his mouth, taking the forkful of stir-fry. Unsurprisingly, it was delicious.

“You’ve never dated a hockey player before, huh?”

There was a bright flash in her eyes. “Who says I haven’t?”

Was that a challenge? No. It was something else. Truth?

Truth and pain.

His breath caught just above his sternum as his thoughts collided. “Who was he?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Lonnie,” Athena’s sister interjected from her spot just offstage, glancing up from her cell phone.

“Meddy!”

“What? He would have just pulled out his phone and looked it up online.”

“Online?” Mullens asked. Lonnie. Hockey player named Lonnie… No. Absolutely not. There was no way.

That crazy forward from New Jersey?

Mullens heard a gasp, realizing it was coming from himself. His whole body felt like it had been lit up from the inside as the truth blossomed, stealing his breath away.

“You’ve dated hockey players!” He slapped his hands on the counter, then turned to the camera. “Guys! Guys! She dates hockey players!”

Forget boring, stuffy old professors. She needed someone fun. Maybe a professional athlete. Someone who’d make her light up and laugh. He wasn’t saying a professor couldn’t do that for her, but he was pretty sure that her looking to date one was simply a knee-jerk reaction from dating Lonnie. Heck, Mullens would probably go that route himself after a go-around with that yahoo.

He sidled closer to Athena, so close she could barely work without elbowing him. Actually, she did elbow him. Possibly on purpose. But it lacked her usual conviction.

“Wanna go out with me?” he asked, lowering his voice in a way one of his exes had described as sexalicious. “You don’t have to cook, and I’ll only bite if you ask nicely.”

Her face had gone bright red, and she clamped her jaw at an odd angle like she was fighting the urge to scream.

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