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I feel the familiar sensation of cold fingers sliding up and around my insides. The team always comes first. He’s an athlete, and nobody is ever going to be more important to him than his “brothers”. I can respect his mentality and even understand it, but that also means being realistic, like I was two years ago.
When I find the man for me, I’m not going to settle for coming second. Maybe that’s selfish, but I just call it self-love.
“What if you had to choose?” I ask him suddenly. “Hockey or cooking? No compromises. Which one would it be?”
He pauses with plastic wrap in both of his capable hands, eyes down on his work. He roughly pulls it between the wrap, squishing the delicate pastry with his excessive force. “Hockey,” he grunts.
“Really?” I ask.
“I love my teammates,” he says simply. “It’s a brotherhood. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
I nod slowly. “But if you took the team aspect out of it, which thing makes you happier?”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have to choose between them. I’ve got the restaurant now. I’ve got another season coming up. Problem solved.”
I watch his back as he continues to work, mostly mangling the pastries now because he’s being too rough. The clipped way he answered my question says there’s more he’s not saying. It also says he doesn’t want to be pressed on it.
“Well, your teammates are lucky to have you. They must be happy for you–opening the restaurant and all.”
He freezes again, as if I’ve said something wrong. But he brushes it off. “Yeah. We’re all excited for next season. We’re going to run it back.”
“Another Stanley Cup?” I ask. “Is that just athlete speak, or do you really think you guys will win it?”
“We can win it. Every team has a window. This is ours.”
I smile a little because I want to be happy for Nolan. I want to believe he’s telling me the truth. But every time I see him working with food, it’s hard to believe he’s going to spend the whole hockey season eating takeout and letting other people cook for him. It’s hard for me to imagine this isn’t his happy place–that he’s just deluding himself out there on the ice into thinking it’s where he’s meant to be. But maybe he’s right. Maybe he doesn’t have to choose one or the other.
“Have you and Zander made up?” I ask. “He seems to have received the message loud and clear that I’m off limits. That means you guys don’t have anything to fight about, right?”
Nolan doesn’t even glance toward the dining room to see if Zander is listening. “Fuck him,” he says simply
I laugh. ‘You hired him.”
“That was before I knew he was a creep.”
“Oh, come on. He’s not a creep. He grew up with Italian parents. They visited every summer. He’s just comfortable in people’s personal space.”
“He needs to get less comfortable in yours,” Nolan grits out.
I smirk. “He has been giving me way more space. I think you glared at him enough for the message to sink in. It’s pretty obvious you were jealous, after all. You couldn’t stand the idea of some other guy liking me, could you?”
Nolan turns toward me and takes a single step, eliminating the air between us until it feels like I can’t breathe anymore. He’s all anger and heat and muscle. He stares down at me. “I don’t want you talking about him like that.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“You’re talking about him liking you as if you like it.”
“What if I do?” I ask, fully aware I’m poking a very large, very temperamental bear with a stick.
“Then I would need to change your mind.”
“How would you do that?” My words come so quietly I’m not even sure if he’s listening or reading my lips.
“You sure you want to go down this road, Calloway?”
Just like that, all the levity in the air between us has completely vanished–sucked out of the room like air out of a breached spaceship. My heart is pounding, but I press on with the game of words. “What would you do if I wanted Zander?” I ask.
Poke. Poke. Poke.
