Page 18 of Double Puck

"Yes. They are new. How did you know that?"

Beck's gaze drags down my legs with zero shame. "I'm very observant."

"You're also very annoying," I groan, clicking my fingers in his face to stop his eyes from wandering. "Now come on! Finish that drink so we can get this jog over with. I have a very busy day ahead."

Beck drains the last of his latte, backs up three steps, then launches the cup at the trash can. It rattles in just as my phone buzzes inside my bag.

I pull it out and find a message waiting.

MOM: Are you coming to the gala tomorrow? Your father and I expect you. Wear the cream gown.

“Okay, who’s issuing wardrobe instructions before sunrise?” Beck peers over my shoulder. “Because unless you’re secretly six years old, that feels excessive.”

“My mother.”

“Is she always this terrifying?”

"Only every single day since she decided hosting a gala for LA's most insufferably wealthy families was her personal mission from God."

His faces scrunches together. “Hosting what now?”

I lock the screen and slide my phone into the sleeve strapped around my arm. “The Madden Foundation gala.”

Beck goes still. “Wait. The Madden Foundation? As in the Madden hotels?”

“And resorts.”

“Holy shit. Darcy Madden.” He looks me over with renewed interest, eyes suddenly glowing with new information. “You’re Californian hotel royalty!”

"No. My father owns the hotels. I work with hockey players who don't follow instructions.”

“Right. Completely different kingdoms.” He gestures at me. “Still, this explains a lot.”

“What exactly?”

He points a finger in my general direction. “The posture. The color-coded schedule. The fact that you look personally betrayed by wrinkles.”

I should ignore him. Instead, I glance down at my phone again, where Mum’s message is still glowing through the screen.

Wear the cream gown.

As if there is a world where I’d arrive in the wrong dress. Or, heaven forbid, with the wrong man. The last man I brought to a Madden event had worn cufflinks shaped like tiny gold anchors and spent forty minutes discussing luxury real estate with Dad.

Mum had liked him. Dad had approved of his investment portfolio.

I broken up with him two months later and didn't hear the end of it for weeks.

I check my watch and shoot up from the bench before Beck can continue this complete psychological assessment of my entire damn childhood.

“We should run.”

Beck looks from me to the watch, then slowly rises and finally starts stretching.

“Wow. Someone gets within ten feet of a real conversation and you prescribe cardio. Way to deflect, Darce.”

He bends into a leg stretch, and I have to physically redirect my eyes to the horizon because the sight of this shirtless man stretching directly in front of me sends a pulse of heat straight between my legs.

“I prescribed cardio thirty minutes ago.”