Page 23 of Hard to Get

I nod slowly.

“So.” He leans forward. “Whatever the reason is that we keep meeting up, it’s up to us to make the most of it.”

I slide my bottom lip through my teeth, trying not to break into a huge smile. Dammit. I like this guy. “Which is why we’re here.”

“Right. And which is why we’re going to go out again.”

“Presumptuous,” I murmur. “Most men ask for another date.”

“Can I see you again, Stella? I’m kidding about making me chip dip. I’ll take you out somewhere fun.”

“Like where?”

He smiles. “I haven’t decided yet.”

I smile back at him and we’re sitting looking at each other across the small table with goofy expressions on our faces and I’m… enamored. “Okay.”

What am I doing? I want to roll my eyes at myself but I can’t stop smiling.

I take a bite of a salmon cake.

“How about Friday?”

I think about my social calendar. “I can’t. I have plans with my friends.”

He nods, lips pursed. “I respect that. Sisters before misters. My buddies and I were just talking about that.”

I blink. “Oh.”

“We have an out-of-town game Saturday,” he says. “Edmonton. Probably Sunday night isn’t the best.”

“I have dinner with my mom and my brother on Sunday. It’s Thanksgiving on Monday, remember?”

“Right. So Monday’s a holiday.” He thinks. “But we have a game Monday. How about Tuesday?”

I pull out my phone and check my calendar. “I’ll be in Toronto.”

“We leave for Dallas Wednesday. Back Friday.”

“I get back from Toronto late Friday.”

“Damn. So… next Saturday?”

My smile is expansive. “I think that works.”

“Excellent.” He finishes off a meatball, then says, “Back to the luck. That also got me thinking about hockey.”

“How so?”

8

JAYDEN

I hardly know this woman and maybe sharing my unhinged contemplations makes me dumb as a box of pucks. Do I want to scare her away so fast?

I don’t say anything for so long, Stella prompts me. “You don’t feel lucky in hockey?”

I look at her and her eyes are soft and non-judgmental and she seems genuinely interested in what I’m saying, so I throw caution out the window and say, “I’d like to say it’s bad luck that the last few seasons have been so hideous. But if I think that’s bad luck… it lets me off the hook. D’you know what I mean?”