Page 310 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

“By the end of the day, we were both exhausted and starving,” I continue. “Toby volunteered to stay here while I went downstairs for pizza. I was gone maybe twenty minutes.”

“When I came back upstairs, he was sitting at the kitchen island. He wasn’t watching television. He wasn’t looking through the boxes. He wasn’t even checking his phone.”

Annette lifts her eyebrows. “Toby was sitting quietly?”

“Exactly. That should have been my first warning.”

“What was he doing?”

“Reading.”

She stares at me for a moment. “Toby?”

“I know.”

“What was he reading?”

“The annual trust report that I’d accidentally left on the counter.”

Her eyes widen before amusement takes over. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Even now, I can picture him sitting there with the report spread open in front of him, his elbows resting on the island and a crease between his eyebrows that I had only ever seen during playoff meetings. “He had already made it through several pages. I don’t know how much he understood, but he understood enough.”

“What did he say?”

“At first, nothing. He looked down at the report, then around the penthouse, then back at me. He did that twice, as if he thought the numbers might change if he gave them enough time.”

Annette presses her lips together, already trying not to laugh.

“Finally, he leaned back in the chair and said, ‘Dude…are you secretly Batman?’”

Her laughter bursts out before I finish the sentence. She drops her head against my shoulder, and the warm sound fills the room. For several seconds, I can’t help laughing with her. The memory has become funnier over the years, although at the time I’d been convinced my entire life was about to change.

“What did you say?” she asks when she finally catches her breath.

“I told him no.”

“And he believed you?”

“Not even a little.” He thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “That is exactly what Batman would say.”

Annette laughs harder, wiping beneath one eye. “That is the most Toby response imaginable.”

“It gets worse. He pointed at the report and asked what he was looking at. There didn’t seem to be much point in lying by then, so I told him. I explained the company, the trust, the board, and the amount of control that had passed to me after my grandfather died. Then I waited for the questions.”

“What did he do?”

“He sat there for nearly thirty seconds without saying a word.”

Her eyebrows rise. “That might be a record.”

“It probably is. Then he folded the report, handed it back to me, and asked whether I wanted another slice of pizza.”

Annette’s laughter fades into a warm smile. “He didn’t care.”

“Not about the money.” The truth of that still catches me sometimes. “I asked if he had questions. He said he had one.”

She turns slightly toward me. “What was it?”