Page 30 of Mister Hockey
They played cornhole for the next hour. “Why do I get the distinct impression you are throwing the game?” She laughed as one of his bean bags landed near the kiddie pool.
He winked. “Because you have a brain.”
That’s it. If she got any wetter she was going to require a raincoat. Time to hit the road. She’d made an appearance. The flag cake was demolished on the table. The music was a little louder. The laughter a little more raucous as Granny Dee’s Greenie Meanies circulated the adult crowd and the kids began to feel the effects of the red soda they’d been guzzling by the plastic cup. Sparklers were brought out. Firecrackers began popping.
“I think this might be our cue to leave,” she said as Jed missed his next toss. She’d won 9–1.
“You’re the winner. Take me home and decide what to do with me.” He said it calmly, not a trace of licentiousness. But those were packing deadly intent. Full of wicked promise.
“I’ll g-go grab my bag,” she stammered.
She bolted into the house and found her handbag in the first-floor guest room. Coming out she froze, hearing her name.
“I’m telling you, it doesn’t make sense,” her mom was saying in the kitchen. “Breezy? What’s the catch?”
“He called her Vixen,” Auntie Shell responded. “Vixen. Like...” She made an exaggeratedrawrsound. “I think he likes her.”
“Of course he does. She’s nice. Likable. EveryonelikesBreezy.” Mom’s snort made it sound like it wasn’t a great thing. “Now you know I love my little girl, but she doesn’t have an ambitious bone in her body. She’d rather read about life than live it. Something isn’t adding up here for me.”
Breezy found herself unable to move, not to step forward and call her mom out for always dismissing her, never valuing her interests. Never letting her feel like... enough.
But at the same time, she was unable to walk away, to plug her ears and quit listening. It was such a strange experience to hear herself being described so honestly, not filtered by any white lies, just pure unvarnished truth.
For her whole life, she’d been trying to uncover that magical potion that got her mom interested in her accomplishments, in her interests.
So she sucked at skating and her mom loved it. So what? Did that one issue have to be the be all and end all of everything?
If she’d known that as a kid, maybe she would have tried harder. Because as much as she didn’t like skating, she disliked having her mom write her off even more. Maybe that’s why she embraced hockey as much as she did. It was the one connection they shared, a shaky patch of common ground. Otherwise what did they have to talk about? Mom’s pointed comments about some stupid new fad diet that had apparently worked wonders for so-and-so at the gym.
But it was true that they had an unspoken war about skating, about Breezy not trying to succeed in a sport that meant so much to her mother. A long silent battle that wasn’t so unspoken now that Breezy could hear her talking shit. Dismissing her.
It hurt.
It wasn’t fair.
And there was nothing she could do about it right now.
Because she didn’t want to get into it with Mom. Not when she could get into it with Jed.
And right now, that score seemed like the sweetest revenge.
Chapter Ten
“We’re going. Now.”
Jed glanced down at the hand slotted into his like it belonged there. Glancing up, he locked into a pair of silvery blue eyes that held an expression that he recognized. Determination. They shone like a porch light and he was hit with the uncanny feeling of being home.
Digging into his back pocket he pulled out his car keys. “M’lady. Your chariot awaits. Should we go say our goodbyes?”
“No.” She was firm, her chin jutting up a little. “We’ll vanish in a puff of smoke.”
Something had lit a fire in her. And that’s the way he liked it. He was drawn to her even though he had a sense he was going to get burned. No one noticed them driving off into the dusk.
“Hey, that was the turnoff to my house,” she called a few minutes later, her head swiveling as she jerked to attention. “But if you go up here and take a—”
“Not taking you home, Vixen,” he said in a low voice.
She turned sharply. “Where are we go—”
