Page 36 of Pucker Up
“We went through the session with the standard questions, but he didn’t really offer up any other information.” It was true, but I wanted Ace to know that I hadn’t had a heart-to-heart with his older, colder brother.
Ace’s smile was back. “That sounds like him. No small talk.”
I smiled. “Why did your coach bench him?” It was weird talking about my father in such a detached way.
“Long story.” Ace finished his glass of water and poured himself another. “But we need him on the ice if we want to have a chance at beating Las Vegas.”
I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes tightly as I replayed the vision. “What do you know about Bellamy?”
Ace seemed to ease into his chair. “Is this part of the study?”
“No. I’ll have to fix this thing”—I nudged the cap on the table—“before our next session.”
Ace pointed to the jug on the table. “He’s like that pitcher there. Huge. His nickname is The Wall and it’s impossible to get anything past him.”
I set the glass of water on the table. “Well, if that were true, nobody would ever have scored on him. Is that the case?”
I hated that I liked his smile so much. His eyes lit up and even though it was crooked, his smile was bright and wide, and infectious—I felt my own lips mirroring his. “The only way people have scored on him is low. His catching hand is like a fucking sniper.”
He clapped his hand to his mouth. “Sorry, I meant—”
“It’s okay. I’m not your teacher. You can swear in here.”
As he looked up at me through his eyelashes, a thrum of warmth rushed between my legs. “You could’ve fooled me. These are teacher glasses.” He reached across the table and touched his index finger to the arm of my glasses.
The glasses, bun, and suit were intended to come off as serious, and hopefully a little bit dowdy. It appeared that the getup was having the opposite effect.
“Ace,” I whispered. “I have to keep this professional.”
“Right.” He held up his hands like he’d been in a stick-up. “Back to Las Vegas. The odds are forty to one for us to win tonight.”
My lips pressed together as I nodded. “That’s not good.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”
“If you could, what advice would you give your coach?” I finished my glass of water and the second I put it on the table Ace refilled it.
“That he needs to put Gideon back in the game. And not to run the plays where we’re on the ice together. The two of us on the sheet together, it just doesn’t work. If he really wanted to win, he should’ve benched me instead of Gideon.” He ran both ofhis hands through his hair again. “I don’t know why they traded both of us to this team.”
Ace agreed with my father’s assessment; their estrangement was negatively impacting the team. I bit my lip. All I wanted to do was ask why they hated each other so much. He wasn’t likely to tell me and I didn’t want him to think I was prying into his private life. I also needed to remember that he was one of my subjects. Discussing hockey, players, and goalies built like brick shit houses was okay, but asking personal questions about family issues—was not. At least not at this stage of the study.
I folded my hands in front of me, rubbing my thumbs together. The vision I’d had seemed so real. I smelled the popcorn, and felt the building shake as the crowd screamed after Ace Bailey scored the winning goal. “I’m sure there was a reason that the two of you were traded together. The coach is the best in the league, and—”
Ace laughed and held up his hands. “Best might be a stretch.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. Of course I was biased, but Swanson was often referred to as the top coach in the league. “One of the best?” I opened my hands.
His hands reached across the table to hold mine. “W-w-w-what are you doing?” I didn’t pull away. The heaviness of his hands on mine were like a weighted blanket, warm and solid.
“Tell me why you said no when I asked you out.”
If my cheeks were hot before, they were now an inferno. Instead of answering, I squeezed his hands and blinked purposefully. The flash of the red goal light swirled behind my eyelids and Ace’s arms were in the air, his stick held high in one, the other pumping. In my earlier vision about the guys in the room, Ace’s shoes had been the wrong color. I couldn’t be sure what I was seeing was one hundred percent accurate, would it be wrong to tell him? He didn’t speak and I closed my eyes again. The scene played like it was on a loop. It was vivid. I could smellthe rink, hear the skates grinding on the ice, and I could feel Ace’s joy at scoring the goal. I could be wrong, but what if I was right? “I’ll tell you, but first I want to tell you something else.”
“Oh?” He cocked his eyebrow. I glanced at the recorder to ensure that I hadn’t accidentally left it running. “That you’re kicking me out of the study because I’m too dashingly handsome to resist?”
He knew how to break the tension in a room and I tried to hold in my smile. The man was entertaining. “I’ve been studying game tapes.”
His brow knitted. “Really?”
