“We could take the ice cream to bedwithus,” he managed to say with a straight face.
She laughed. “By the time I’m done with you, neither of us will have the strength left to change the sheets. Think long and hard about whether you want to sleep in a puddle of mint chocolate chip.”
“We’ll have it for breakfast,” he decided, and then he picked her up and carried her toward the bedroom.
He was halfway there when he realized there had been only the slightest twinge of protest from his shoulder. It was good news, because proving he was pain-free and had full range of motion was the key to getting back to his team.
But as he dropped Kristen on the bed and then covered her body with his so he looked into her sparkling blue eyes, there was a part of him that didn’t want to celebrate his time in Boston coming to an end soon.
9
Kristen knew what tonight it was. Even without the text messages blowing up Will’s phone and causing him to get increasingly quiet over the course of the day, she would have known it was time for the All-Star Game. It was pretty much a Burke high holiday, though she usually opted out.
She’d talked to Erik on the phone that morning, while Will was in the shower. She’d called her brother to wish him luck, just as she always did before a game that meant something to him, but Will had yet to mention any of the All-Star events, even in passing. He certainly hadn’t brought up the fact Erik had won the accuracy competition in the skills events last night. But she assumed the constant attention to his phone meant he was either getting notifications or he had teammates in St. Louis who were sending him updates.
He hadn’t mentioned watching it, though she would have broken herno hockey on my TVrule if he brought it up. She wasn’t going to volunteer to sit through it if she didn’t have to, though.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
He looked up from his phone when she spoke, his brow furrowed. His expression cleared within seconds, but it confirmed her suspicion his mood was tied to whatever was on his screen. “Where do you want to go?”
Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know. We could see a movie or a show. There are museums and the aquarium and... Hell, I don’t know.”
“I’m not being very good company,” he said, leaning forward to toss the phone onto the coffee table.
“You don’t have to be, you know,” she told Will, sitting next to him on the couch sideways so she could see him, with her legs tucked under her. “I know you’d rather be in St. Louis right now.”
He leaned back against the couch with a heavy sigh. “It’s not easy not being there, I guess.”
“Are all the messages you’re getting from there?”
“Yeah. Mitchell’s there, along with a few other guys I know. Dev Mitchell, he’s been with the Harriers almost as long as I have. We’re pretty close friends.”
“I recognize the name.”
He chuckled. “I don’t imagine your brother’s a big fan of his, either.”
“I don’t know if Erik’s talked about him a lot. Some, I’m sure. But I also hear things. Sports recaps if I have the news on. Televisions in bars. I just know I’ve heard the name before. Did he get your spot?”
“That’s not exactly how it works, but let’s just say if I was healthy, he’d probably be sitting on the couch with his wife, getting text messages from me.” As he said it, his phone vibrated, and she saw his body tense as if he was going to reach for it, but he didn’t. “I should probably just turn that off.”
“Do you want to watch it?”
“Were you planning to?”
“No,” she said honestly, and then she shrugged. “But we can. I’ll make popcorn.”
He frowned. “Popcorn?”
“Fine, I can order some wings, and we can drink beer and get buffalo sauce on my couch.”
“That’s how you watch hockey.” He rested his arm on the back of the couch and reached for her hair, twirling it around his finger. “But we don’t have to watch the game. That’s not exactly your idea of a fun Saturday night.”
“Not everything’s about me.” She laughed when he gave her a very exaggerated look of shock. “Be honest with me. Do youwantto watch the game, or will it just make you feel shitty because you’re missing it?”
“I’d like to watch it. I know all the guys playing, and I don’t usually get to enjoy it from the comfort of a couch because, let’s be honest—” He paused to raise his eyebrow in a way that would have come off as arrogant if it wasn’t ruined by the fact he was trying to keep a straight face. “I’m usually in it.”
She groaned and got to her feet. “Okay, let’s make a deal. You walk down to the market with me because we’re almost out of food and you drank the last of my milk. When we get back, we’ll order in pizza and wings and watch the game.”
