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“We will, but—”
“But you only came out with me because you felt the need to lie to your brother about something, and not because you actually wanted to be with me,” I finished for her.
She didn’t deny it, which was a step in the right direction. Truth was better than evasiveness and lies. “Putting it that way makes me sound like a jerk.”
So now we were on equal footing. I might not understand what was behind it, but at least she wasn’t trying to lie to me as well as her brother.
“I don’t think you’re a jerk,” I said. More like the exact opposite, whatever that might be.
“Maybe you should.”
“Never gonna happen.”
She chuckled, gracing me with a wry smile. “I won’t hold you to that.”
“So will you let me take you out again?” The question had barely left my lips when she was already shaking her head, preparing to shoot me down, so I kept going. “As friends. Doesn’t have to be anything more than that. We could do something with your family. Take your niece and nephew out or something, like you did today with Anthony. Anything you want.” That was good enough to start, and we could feel our way out of the friend zone later.
“Friends?” she repeated.
I nodded, never taking my eyes from hers, watching for any sign of change.
“I suppose we could try that.”
The color of her eyes remained unwavering, but at least now I had my in.
LEVI BABCOCK MIGHTjust prove to be more trouble for me than I’d bargained for. As soon as I’d met him, I’d realized he had the potential to be problematic. I mean, add a dimple to tall, dark, and handsome, and I’d always been a goner. But the better I got to know him, the deeper my problem became.
The guy had an addictive, self-deprecating sense of humor. Yeah, he probably got down on himself a bit too much, but he also didn’t take himself too seriously. He would make a joke at his own expense a heck of a lot sooner than he would do something like that to anyone else.
So maybe Sara was right. Maybe he honestly was a good guy, and someone I could trust myself to be around. If nothing else, the more I got to know him, the less like Guy he turned out to be.
But was he truly different, or was I only trying to make him so in my head, in order to convince myself that starting up some sort of relationship with him—even a friendship—would be all right? I honestly wasn’t sure.
That was the primary reason I scheduled an appointment for next week with the counselor my sports psychologist back in Winnipeg had referred me to, and I did it only a week after I’d arrived in Portland. I’d made a ton of progress with Dr. Trivedi back home, but I was far from being in the clear. I wished I could see this counselor sooner, but at least the appointment was already on the books. It was coming. I simply had to keep myself together long enough to reach it.
I was an emotional wreck, both on the ice and off it, when it came to trusting any man who didn’t share my last name and genetic makeup. Not only that, but I was smart enough to know this was no way to go through my life, constantly on guard with every man I came into contact with. I couldn’t live that way. Not for long. Someday, somewhere along the line, I would have to choose to trust again.
To start, I was choosing to trust Anthony as my partner. Sara liked him. Connor absolutely adored him. I wasn’t sure their judgment was better than mine, but it couldn’t be worse.
Ellen had talked to both Anthony and me separately after we’d spent some time together with Sara and the kids, and we were both on board with moving forward. As far as I was concerned, it was a done deal. Ellen was still moving slowly with it, though. She wanted us to keep skating together several days a week for about a month, on top of acquainting ourselves with each other off the ice, despite the fact that we already knew each other. Well, we were more than acquaintances, at the very least.
The delay left me frustrated. I wanted to move on with this arrangement. I’d made my choice. I wanted to put that decision into action before I could chicken out and let my fears and insecurities creep back in and sever the bit of trust I’d decided to give Anthony.
But he agreed with Ellen.
And neither of them were aware of the whole truth of why I’d left Guy.
Was it fair of me to keep them in the dark?
They knew only what the rest of the world did: Guy had dropped me while we’d been practicing an overhead lift, and I’d been injured badly enough that I’d required several months off; I’d never taken the ice with him again after that; and the personal relationship I’d had with him had ended at the same time as our professional relationship had come to a close. Surely that was enough for them to understand there were some deep-seated trust issues I needed to work through in terms of building any new partnership. Something kept nagging at me, pushing at the back of my mind, telling me I needed to give them more than that, though. But how could I broach it? When was the right time? I wasn’t sure, but I figured it would have to be soon.
Levi wanted more, too.
In the week since that first date, I’d seen him three more times. He hadn’t been pushy in order to convince me to talk. If anything, he was the soul of patience when it came to letting me reveal what I was comfortable with in my own time. But damn if he wasn’t persistent about finding ways to see me.
Following a Storm home game against the Predators, he’d been one of the first guys to reach the owner’s box, where the families watched the game. I’d been talking to Katie Babcock all night, and he’d used that to convince me to go have a late dinner with her, himself, and his brother. We weren’t out as late that night as we had been on our date, but he’d been just as charming as ever. He and Jamie had a special bond, very similar to the one I had with all my siblings. They were comfortable together and could tell jokes at one another’s expense, but their teasing somehow only drew them closer instead of driving them apart.
I couldn’t help but notice that Jamie never once said anything to make his brother feel less than. Maybe Levi felt he wasn’t as good as his brother, but I doubted Jamie would agree. If anything, Jamie spent half the night listing off his brother’s attributes and making sure I was aware of what a good catch he’d be. It was as if he were checking items off a list, lining them out for me so I couldn’t possibly miss them. Had Levi told Jamie that I wasn’t ready to jump in headfirst? Maybe Jamie sensed my apprehension all on his own.
