Page 79 of Double Puck

"Beck, please. This is my first date. Do not finish that sentence."

Beck grins and steers us toward the token booth at the mouth of the pier, where a bored teenager hands over a cup of tokens in exchange for a twenty. The carnival games glow ahead of us, rows upon rows of ring toss games, basketball hoops, and even those rigged claw machines that are of course, absolutely stuffed with Bears merch.

Beck feeds two tokens into the nearest skee-ball machine and rolls his sleeves higher. "So are we talking hockey tonight, or is that off the cards?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

He sends a ball sailing up the ramp. It drops clean into the fifty-point ring. Showoff.

"Well, I don't know. Is there anything I should know?" He turns to look at me, like he's waiting for an answer he already knows.

Oh God.

Does he mean the deadline Colin quietly moved up without telling anyone? The one maybe three people in the entire building know about? Or is this just Beck fishing for a compliment, the way he fishes for everything?

Either way, my stomach drops a little.

He knows I'm holding something back. Doesn't he?

I can see it in the way his face just fell, the way his gaze lingered for half a second. He's reading me the same way I'm reading him, and whatever he's finding, he's choosing not to push.

I think about lunch with Zoey the other day, how she'd just asked him to do things, and Beck had just said yeah, sure.

No negotiation. Just instant compliance. Like his plans didn't exist until someone else drew them up for him.

And that is the thing that makes me feel like the world's biggest bitch.

Because I've seen this before.

I think about the way he talks about Declan. Always with that edge of humor that's a little too sharp to be funny. The way he mentions Mason's opinions like they carry more weight than his own. The way every Morrison story he tells seems to have Beck in the background, reacting to someone else's decision.

He never pushes back.

On anything. Or anyone.

And now here I am, sitting on information that directly affects his career, his future, his entire life… and I've just told him we're not talking about it tonight.

Am I doing the same thing?

Am I just the latest person in a long line of people who decide things for Beck and call it kindness?

"You've seen ESPN?" I ask, because it's easier than admitting what I actually know.

His mouth twitches. "Finn mentioned something in the locker room tonight. Something about three teams sniffing around, apparently. Very flattering. Very stressful."

He says it light, easy. And of course, that just makes the guilt land even harder.

Professionally, I should tell him. That's the job.

That's always been the job.

But I don't want to be the woman who brings a trade deadline to the pier.

Not tonight.

"Fine. No hockey chat. It's off the cards tonight."

"Great."