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I swallowed that question too and shrugged. “Yeah, okay. A beer would be great.”
It’d have been pretty rude for me to totally shut down her offer, right? Accepting had nothing to do with not actually wanting to leave her presence.
I sank down onto the sofa, stretching my legs out on a diagonal so I could get more comfortable on the narrow cushions.
Lou appeared at the other end a moment later, clutching a bottle in each hand. “I changed my mind. Or, well, I forgot I don’t have any beer. How’s hard cider instead?”
How was she so charming even looking embarrassed over the slip?
I reached out. “Cider’s even better.”
She passed mine over and plopped down on the other end of the sofa without any hint of self-consciousness. From what I’d gathered, she’d only been living here for a few weeks, but she’d gotten comfortable fast.
A set of silver rings, a little thicker than I saw most women wearing, decorated the fingers of her right hand. I nodded to them. “Gotta ramp up the punk style when you’re off the rink?”
Lou wiggled her slim fingers. “I don’t think you’d appreciate it if I had these on while weareon the rink. I just like them. They make me feel tough.”
She let out a laugh and fit her lips around the neck of the cider to throw back a gulp with an enthusiasm that made my dick twitch. I jerked my gaze away and took a sip of my own cider.
She had good taste. It was tart and crisp but still with a faint sweetness.
“Where’d you get these?” I asked.
Lou waved toward the front door. “Oh, there’s a local brewery about a half hour outside of town that I stumbled on when I was cruising around on one of our days off. Couldn’t help going in for a little taste test.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Going totally local, huh?”
She laughed. “Might as well while I’m here. Especially when the locals have good stuff.”
“Yeah. It’s not a bad town at all, tiny as it is. I guess wherever you’re from had a pretty different vibe.”
I was kind of fishing for more information about her past, but Lou didn’t take the bait. She leaned back against the sofa, a soft smile playing with her lips that made her look even prettier than usual, which was saying something.
“It really is a great town. A lot of people have been welcoming, and the people who aren’t have kept it to themselves. Well—no, that doesn’t count.”
I studied her. “What doesn’t?”
She waggled her bottle at me. “Nothing important. I thought I might get bored someplace this small, but I haven’t really at all.”
“Same,” I admitted. “But then, Niko keeps us so busy there isn’t a whole lot of time to get bored.”
Another laugh tumbled from Lou’s mouth. “That’s the truth. So he was just as much of a slave-driver before I showed up?”
“Oh, yeah.” I paused, feeling I owed the guy who’d flown halfway around the world to drag me out of my slump better than that. “A very nice slave-driver, though.”
“The most cheerful slave-driver ever.”
I couldn’t restrain a chuckle. “Yep, that’s him.”
“He does know what he’s talking about,” Lou said. “I never would have thought of trying pairs if he hadn’t brought it up.”
“He’s really very good at the whole coaching thing. I can’t believe he’s never done it professionally before.” I paused, abruptly embarrassed both to have said that out loud and that I’d never given Niko the compliment to his face.
“He obviously thought you were pretty special, coming all the way over here to train you.”
“Yeah.”
The chaotic emotions her comment stirred up might have shown on my face. As I took another swig of my cider, Lou clapped her hands together and changed the subject.
