Her soft laughter told me she wasn’t offended by the pet name. “I think he tries to make up for things he can’t fix.” She reached for her wine. “He bought me an ice rink.”
I snorted. “That’s a lot ofI’m sorry.”
She looked at me over the rim of her glass, and something shifted in her expression—like she hadn’t expected that from me and wasn’t sure what to do with it. “Yes,” she said finally. “I suppose it is.”
We ate for a moment in the comfortable quiet I was still getting used to with her, and then she said, almost carefully, “Can I ask you something about the last game?”
My jaw tightened. Ihatedtalking about that last game, but she’d answered my personal questions. “Go ahead.”
“Not about the penalty.” She set her glass down, and I saw her take a deep breath, which did all sorts of interesting things to her tits beneath that deceptively simple black wool top. “I know why you did it—I’ve watched enough of your games to know how you play. You protect the guys on your left. Always.” She said it matter-of-factly, like she was telling me the weather. “It’s not instinct, or it’s notonlyinstinct. You always know where they are.”
I stared at her.
“Jord—the young one—you cover his left flank during most shifts. I’ve wondered if he knows.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Then: “He knows.”
I just couldn’t believesheknew. She’d recognized the pattern? She’dwatched enough of my gamesto recognize the pattern?
“So when the Crushers’ defenseman went after him?—”
“I didn’t think.” Which was the whole problem, wasn’t it? “I just moved.”
Lila nodded slowly, like she’d already worked this out and just needed to hear me confirm it. It was such a particular feeling—beingknownby someone who wasn’t supposed to know you—that I found I had nothing to say for a moment.
“You watch a lot of our games,” I said finally. It wasn’t really a question.
The pink in her cheeks said more than she’d planned on admitting. “My father has season tickets, of course,” she said, which was technically an answer to a different question.
But I didn’t push.
She knew me. She recognized my instincts.
Huh.
I stood when she did, because my mother had raised me right even if she’d raised me in a cave, and started stacking plates without being asked. Lila blinked at me like I’d done something unexpected.
“You don’t have to?—”
“I know.” I carried the stack to the kitchen.
She followed with the glasses, and I did what I always did in unfamiliar spaces—took inventory. Force of habit. The apartment had told me one story when I’d walked in: careful, considered, every object chosen to be on display. The matching art on the walls, the throw pillows that had probably never been thrown…
But there were cracks, if you knew how to look.
The cabinet above the stove, just slightly ajar. I nudged it open while she had her back to me at the sink, and found what I was looking for—not wine, not spices, but a shelf of hot sauces that had no business in a kitchen this tasteful. Eight, maybe ten bottles. A few of them nearly empty. One of them, I was fairly certain, was the kind that came with a liability waiver.
I closed the cabinet before she turned around.
It seems my princess had a spicy side that didn’t fit the pearls-and-cardigan public display.
And then, carrying the last of the glasses back, I made the mistake of glancing down the short hallway. The bedroom door was open. I looked away immediately, the way you do when you’ve accidentally seen something private—but not before I’d clocked the unmade bed, the clothes on the floor, and what looked like either a strange piece of art on the bedside table…or a familiar-shaped sex toy.
Huh.
Again.
Her messy bedroom—that hot sauce collection—her inside knowledge of hockey…they were parts of therealLila, weren’t they? How much of her public appearance—the art, the perfection, the refinement—was just a performance, and how much was real?
