“What about him? What is he even doing here?”
“Business. At least that’s what he said.”
“You don’t believe him?”
I shrugged and spun the chair around. The sound from the rinks below drifted up into my office. “Let’s just say I don’t think it’s the only reason.” I tried to keep my expression blank.
Maddie’s eyes narrowed and she grabbed the arms of my chair to stop it from spinning. Bending down, she stared deep into my eyes as if she were trying to read my mind. “You think he’s here for you?” she asked slowly.
My cheek muscles flexed as I fought to keep the grin off my face. “I know he is. He told me.”
She stood up and rested her hands on her hips, all the better to glare at me. “And you’re happy about it. Unbelievable.”
“What’s so unbelievable about it? That he would still be into me?” Sure I wasn’t in top shape anymore and I was on the other side of thirty, but I wasn’t hideous.
“No, idiot. Anyone would want you, you’re super hot. It’s just that after all this time and after how much he hurt you, I can’t believe he still has this hold over you.”
Neither could I. If someone had asked me two days ago if I would consider getting back together with Jake, I would have laughed in their face. But it wasn’t that simple.
Maddie was on a roll. “And then he disappears with not so much as a birthday card! He’s a dick. And probably a criminal. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were up to something. He’s probably trying to scam you. Hide your wallet.”
“So, you think I shouldn’t get back together with him is what I’m hearing?” Not that I was going to. She was right about one thing, I couldn’t trust Jake. He’d practically said as much himself. Carson. I had to start thinking of him like that.
The look she gave me would have quelled a different man. “You can stick your dick wherever you want. Just don’t come crying to me when he skips town and breaks your heart again.”
The chair felt like a prison all of a sudden. I shoved back from the desk and stood up. This was all too much. Was I actually considering hooking up with him? That way lay heartache for sure. Jake wouldn’t be staying, no matter what happened or didn’t happen between us. I paced from glass wall to glass wall, watching skaters and coaches glide across the ice. “There will be no sticking of dicks anywhere. I promise.”
“Lie,” she said under cover of a cough.
“I swear,” I said, meaning it. “I just want some answers, you know? I need…” Words failed me as I tried to express everything that Jake meant to me. His name alone evoked so many memories and emotions. Not just of our relationship, but of the person I had been back then. Seeing him, God, touching him, was forcing me into some kind of confrontation with my younger self. As if I had to justify how we had turned out. I wasn’t sure teenage Eric would even like grown-up Eric. Not because I hadn’t made the NHL, that was always a long shot, but for how small my world and my dreams had become.
How had I never thought to plan for life after hockey?
“Eric?” From the tone of Maddie’s voice, I could tell she’d been talking to me without a response.
“Sorry,” I said. “Woolgathering.”
She came up behind me, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you hurt again.”
“I won’t be. I’m not that kid anymore. Besides, there’s Ryan.”
Her mouth twisted with the effort of not saying anything bad about Ryan. Finally, she sighed and slipped her arms around me from behind. Her cheek rested against my shoulder blade. “Has anyone ever told you that you have terrible taste in men?”
I laughed. “Yes. Frequently.” And that was enough of that. Taking a deep breath, I slid out from her embrace. “Are you sticking around?”
“I got no real plans.”
“Jake’s meeting Aunt Momo here. If you wait a little, you can watch.” Maybe with Maddie around, I could be a little more objective about it all.
“Really? He hasn’t talked to her yet?” Her eyes opened wide.
I shook my head.
“She’s going to kill him.” She threw herself into one of the old club chairs in front of the desk. “Fuck yeah. I’m staying.”
The clock loudly ticked off the seconds as I waited for Jake. Finally, there was a quiet knock on my door. “Eric?”
“Door’s open,” I said.
Maddie put down the magazine she’d been pretending to read and leaned forward in her chair. Then she reconsidered, leaning back as the door opened and holding the magazine open lazily on her lap as she didn’t have a care in the world.
She needn’t have bothered. He didn’t even notice her. His eyes locked on mine as soon as he stepped into the room. “Hey,” he said with a shy smile. It took me back all those years to when the first thing he’d do when entering a room was look for me, and when he found me, he’d give me that same shy smile.
“Hey yourself.”
He let the door close behind him but didn’t come closer. Tucking his hands into his back pockets, he stared at me from across the room. That was okay with me. It gave me a second to check him out. He looked more like the Jake I remembered. Dark blue jeans hugged his lean legs, ending in a neat cuff and a pair of brown leather chukka boots. He’d traded the hideous yellow polo for an eggplant-colored cardigan over a white-on-white pinstriped dress shirt with an expensive sheen to the fabric. The top two buttons of the shirt were undone and he’d pushed the sleeves up to his elbow and a heavy silver watch with a thick brown leather band circled his wrist.
His light brown hair was parted to the side and brushed neatly back from his high forehead. The deliberately sculpted scruff on his chin and jawline was a few shades darker than the hair on his head, and he looked like every professor I’d had the hots for in college. “Looking good, Karlsson,” I said. “Trying to look too good for your mom to hit you?”
His grin shifted into something warmer and he pulled his hands out of his pockets. “Trying to look good for that lunch date you owe me,” he said, stalking towards me across the industrial gray carpet. I couldn’t look away. I felt Maddie’s eyes boring into the side of my head. Carson still hadn’t acknowledged her. The closer he got, the more I had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. Reaching the desk, he rested his knuckles on the top, leaning forward into my space. “Still missing the black jeans and long hair?”
I kind of was. That Jake I knew. This GQ-looking grown man was almost a stranger. I leaned back, rocking my chair away from him. “Is this how Carson Grieves dresses?”
Hurt flashed briefly across his eyes before his expression shuttered. “I told you to forget that name.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry.” I hope Maddie hadn’t heard.
He stood up straight, taking my stress alien with him. We both watched the eyes bulge out as he squeezed it rhythmically. He frowned, eyes narrowing as he looked over my shoulder, glaring at the wall as if he could see through it. “It’s how I dress,” he said finally, placing the toy carefully back onto the desk and then meeting my eyes again. “Do you like it?”