Page 43 of The Slapshot and the Single Mom
“Good,” he says, his voice going suddenly deep again as he pulls me closer and kisses me on the lips. “There. I’ve been wanting to do that again since the last time.” He stares down into my eyes for a moment, then sucks in a deep breath. “We should go before I get too caught up and forget that we have reservations.”
A small smile curving my lips, I lift an eyebrow. “Reservations?”
He throws me a confused look as he steps to the door and locks the handle. “Of course reservations. I want to make sure we get a good table, don’t have to wait, and get to the museum early enough that we have plenty of time to enjoy the place. I don’t want you to feel rushed.”
Still grinning, I shake my head. “I never would’ve guessed you’d be this sweet.”
His brows crimp together. “Uh, thanks, I think? I’m not sure how to take that.”
Laughing, I walk through the open door, waiting in the hallway for him to lock the deadbolt. “It’s a compliment. But you have to know that hockey players, especially ones who are known for partying, don’t exactly have a sweet and cuddly reputation.”
He reaches for my hand, threading his fingers through mine, and the contact sends waves of warmth flooding through me. This man makes me melt.
Shaking his head, he says, “I’m not sure why, honestly. Sure, some of the guys are assholes, but that’s true anywhere. Just like there are some guys who are good with kids, and some who aren’t.” He gives me a quizzical look. “Isn’t making reservations and taking you places you want to go kinda the bare minimum? I always thought so.”
I glance at him, my lips pursed. Is that the bare minimum? Is this what I should’ve been expecting even with Kyle? I’m not sure why I settled for so little for so long, especially when there are guys like Jack in the world. The paintings? Dinner reservations? An art museum? Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising, but for me? It definitely is.
He doesn’t seem to notice my sidelong glance, though, and keeps talking. “I may not have the most experience with relationships myself, but I’ve watched my coaches and teammates over the years. Abernathy, the captain, is married and has two kids. Some of the guys joke around and say he’s whipped and that his wife carries his balls in her purse, and he just laughs along and nods. He likes it that way. I figure if one of the toughest, fastest players I know is happy to make his wife happy, then he must be on tosomething. They’ve been together since college and seem to be as in love as ever.”
I listen to all this with rapt attention as we get on the elevator and take it to the ground floor. “That’s amazing,” I murmur, not sure which part floors me the most. That Jack doesn’t have a lot of experience with relationships? That his captain doesn’t care his teammates call him whipped? That he uses his captain as a blueprint for his own romantic relationships? Or that he thinks the dates he’s been taking me on is the bare minimum when to me it feels like a dream?
I know, somewhere deep down, that Kyle never really appreciated me. Not even in the beginning. He always liked what I didforhim more than he liked me for my own self. And it’s weird to have someone just … like me. Like spending time with me. Enjoy doing things because they makemehappy without expecting me to pay him back—with interest—later on.
Sure, Jack offered to take me out as a ploy to rehab his reputation. Or at least that’s what he said to me. But the more time we spend together, the more I think that ploy was just to get me to agree to go out with him regularly. If it helps his reputation and keeps him from being bored, that’s a bonus. But the real motivation was to seeme.
And …
I don’t know how to feel about that. I like it, of course, but it brings back all those too-good-to-be-true feelings I talked through with my therapist earlier. How long until he decides I’m annoying or what I like is annoying and up and ends things?
That’s my real fear, if I’m being honest.
Kyle liked me—loved me, he said—for quite a while. Until one day, he just didn’t anymore. With no rhyme or reason as to why. Suddenly, all the things that he used to find endearing were obnoxious and needed to stop—my love of baseball, my enjoyment of making crafts, my time spent on social media. Never mind that staying on top of social media was literally part of my job, and that he thought it was cool that I was into sports when we first met. Baseball was thewrongsport, according to him.
Will Jack eventually feel the same way?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jack
TakingMaggie to all these different places is more fun than I ever would’ve expected. Sure, I think a lot of them are cool, too, but there are a lot of things I never would’ve done without her. And while the Chihuly museum is amazing with installations inside and out, full of glass formed in ways I didn’t realize was possible, watching her take it all in is even more enjoyable for me than the art itself.
I feel like I have a normal amount of appreciation for art—pretty things are nice and I enjoy the different public sculptures I see in cities all over the US and Canada—but it’s never something I’ve ever really studied or gone out of my way to look at or experience.
I’m not sure how much Maggie’s studied about art—though she did mention taking an art history course as an elective in college, so it’s fair to say that it’s more than me—but it’s clear that she really likes it. Every new exhibit has her staring in rapt wonder at the delicate play of glass and wire. I’ve seen plenty of stainedglass in my time, but nothing like this. The glass is sculptural, not just pretty windows, with pieces that look like they belong in a coral reef or like someone took what they saw under a microscope and made it huge. And the colors … I’m not sure I’ve ever seen color so intense as in some of these sculptures.
I get why she likes it, and I’m glad I get to experience it with her, but the highlight for me is the expression on her face the whole time. That wonder and astonishment—I can’t remember the last time I felt that way about anything, really. I’ve gotten so jaded over the last few years, doing the same things all the time, rarely looking for or experiencing anything new, much less anything that would make me feel the way this museum makes Maggie feel.
We spend nearly two hours there, and I’m pretty sure the only reason we leave when we do—after a brief stop in the gift shop for me to buy Maggie a souvenir, though she protests that she can buy it herself—is because the place is closing in ten minutes.
She bumps against me as we head out to the car, her fingers laced securely with mine. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
I smile at her. “You’re welcome.”
“I mean it,” she insists, waving back at the museum with the little paper bag in her hand. “I really appreciate you taking me to this and spending all that time there without complaining. After the first hour, I was a little worried you were bored, but you seemed to be enjoying yourself too.”
“I was,” I confirm, though I’m not sure how she’d feel if I told her that I was enjoying watching her look at the art more than the art itself. “I like doing things that make you happy.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “But you weren’t bored, right? Like, you didn’tjustgo because I wanted to go?”
