Page 94 of Perfectly Complicated
She freezes. “What?”
“A jersey. In my car. He didn’t say it had to behisjersey.”
Her mouth falls open slightly. “You’ve been carrying around a brand-new jersey? But why?”
“I brought it tonight because I was hoping…” I stop, my thoughts jumbling as I gaze down at her, suddenly at a loss for words. “I thought that maybe when we went to the arena—you’d want to wear it.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Then her face breaks into a smile. “You want me to wear your jersey?”
I slide my arms around her waist. “I do. Because the only thing better than my name on that jersey…” I tug her closer. “…is my name on you.”
TWENTY-SIX
Janie
“Give me ten minutes,” I whisper to Rourke after dinner.
His eyebrows furrow. “Where are you going?”
“To change my clothes. I promised you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but…”
“Ten minutes,” I repeat, then disappear down the hall into the powder room.
At one point in my life, I secretly vowed I’d never be caught in any man’s jersey.
That was before I fell for Rourke. Before I realized I can still beme—the woman who knows a lot about kids but nothing about sports—and wear a jersey proudly proclaiming my allegiance to the man at my side.
Life is full of contradictions. You can eat ketchup your entire life and decide one random day to like mustard too. It can be both after an entire lifetime of being solidly committed to only one condiment.
So today, I’m becoming a jersey gal—one of those crazy fans who wears a player’s number even if they don’t have an athletic bone in their body.
And I couldn’t be happier about it.
When I close the door behind me, I unfold the jersey Rourke gave me. I turn it around to see “Riley” stretching across the back in big black letters with his number beneath it. It’s different holding his jersey this close instead of seeing it on a TV screen, where I can barely make out his name among a sea of skaters. After sliding it on, I suck in a breath when I catch myself in the mirror. This was more than a scavenger hunt find. He brought this tonight for me.
I don’t even care that we didn’t win the game.
Jaz and Brax beat us to the finish line by a few minutes, thanks to a never-worn Crushers jersey buried in one of Mr. Marco’s many closets. Their prize is a weekend at Marco’s private beach house, which honestly, they deserve.
Right now, I don’t feel like I lost anything.
I let the jersey unfurl across my hips before sliding my hands across the smooth fabric along my waist. It’s too big on my petite shoulders and doesn’t match the pink in my hair. But it feels right in a way that I don’t expect.
When I come out of the powder room, hair thrown up in a quick ponytail, the hallway is empty. That’s when I see him in the dim light, leaning against the opposite wall, his jacket slung lazily over his arm, the top buttons of his shirt undone as he scrolls on his phone.
The soft click of the door behind me must catch his attention—because the moment he looks up, he stills, then straightens slowly, his eyes traveling over the length of the jersey.
“Well?” I ask, turning in a circle for him. “What do you think?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he pushes off the wall and crosses the space between us, never taking his attention from me. Andheaven help me,that dark gaze makes me want his mouth on mine again.
“I think…” he murmurs, stopping just inches away, his clean woodsy scent washing over me like some kind of drug, “it’s a good thing you didn’t wear this to agame first.”
It feels like I’m standing in quicksand, being pulled under by him. “Why’s that?”
“Because seeing you in my jersey…” His gaze drifts down, then back up before it lands on my mouth. “I wouldn’t be able to focus on the puck.”
