Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 53212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 266(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 266(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Pulling off his jacket and draping it over the back of the chair like he’s preparing to stay awhile, he settles in and wraps both his hands around his own cup.
“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, Ky, but you look tired. Is it work? Something else? I can be a listening ear if you’d like.”
I snort, both at him and to myself, because I must have reached a new point for myself if the guy I thought was chasing me around to try to get in my pants is actually just concerned for me.
My God, Kylie. If this isn’t a wake-up call that I’m pushing myself to burnout, I don’t know what is.
“Hah, yeah. No offense taken,” I say. “I work for an accountant, and this tax season has been…chaos. I’m not surprised I look like the walking dead.”
He winces. “I don’t envy you.”
“What about you?” I ask. “You always look like you’re coming from somewhere important. Is your job serious? Stressful?”
He smiles at that, like it’s a private joke. If I had to guess, he likes the idea that I think he does something important, but to be honest, I’m genuinely too tired for a full psychoanalysis. “Law firm. Boston.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Big one,” he says easily. “Mostly contracts. Talent-adjacent stuff. It can definitely get stressful, but it’s mostly…” He shrugs, a smile creasing the corners of his caramel eyes so much, it’s almost as though they darken. “Fun.”
I tilt my head. “Talent-adjacent? That sounds like an NDA or two are involved.”
“Agents. Investors. People in the entertainment industry,” he explains with a laugh. “It’s not as glamorous as you’d think, but it’s interesting. And, yes. Privacy is at the utmost premium.”
“No offense, but that seems like a pretty heady job for someone who doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.”
He puts a hand to his chest, mock flattered. “Twenty-nine, technically, which I suppose is still a little young.” He shrugs and smiles. “But I skipped a few grades in elementary and ended up starting college at sixteen. I guess that puts me a bit ahead of the curve.”
“Wow. That’s impressive,” I say, because it is impressive. I barely tolerated college at eighteen, nineteen, and twenty, let alone sixteen. If it weren’t for Gammy, I probably would have dropped out. Not because I wasn’t smart enough, but because it was just so…ordinary. Which I know is rich coming from someone working in an accountancy firm and dreaming of an early bedtime now, but when I was younger, I always thought my life would be bigger or more interesting or…something.
Talent-adjacent, perhaps.
He waves it off. “Anyway. Where has the other girl you usually skate with been? Alyssa, right?”
“Yeah, Alyssa,” I say. “She’s my roommate. Normally, she’d be here now, but she’s out of town this weekend.”
“Oh?” His tone is light but inquisitive. “Everything okay?”
“Sort of. She went to Connecticut for the weekend. Her dad’s been sick for a while,” I explain. “It’s been hard for her…balancing school and going home to be with family.”
“That’s rough,” he says.
“Yeah,” I agree. Putting myself in Alyssa’s shoes somehow always places my current woes in perspective. I know what it’s like to lose your parents, but at least it happened to me before they were such a big part of my life. At this point, a world with her dad in it is all she knows.
“And what about you? You staying put this weekend?”
“Mostly,” I reply. “Trying to recover. I’ll probably spend time with my grandmother Saturday, though.”
“Lucky,” he says. “I don’t have any family close…well, other than the guys on my team.” He shakes his head. “They’re probably not too happy with me tonight, though, because I missed a game. Work ran late.”
He glances toward the window, where the rink sign is visible down the street. Compulsorily, I follow his line of sight with my own, visions of Rook Slater dancing in both my eyes and another, deeper place I’d rather not discuss.
I don’t know how my body can be so freaking interested in a man who doesn’t even know how to smile.
“Who’d you play?”
“Iron Knights.” It’s the team I was hoping to hear and, begrudgingly, makes my heart skip a tiny beat. If I get to the rink soon, Rook might still be there.
“Ah, yes. The most heated rivalry in Concordia Rec League,” I joke. “Bet you’re missing the chance to shed some of their blood.”
He laughs, and I push my luck.
“What is it between you guys, by the way? Is it just the hockey? Something else? I always feel like games between your two teams take ugliness to a new level.”
Holland’s eyes shutter briefly before he brushes me off diplomatically. “Oh, you know how it is sometimes. Grew up together. Never got along. We just don’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, and most of my guys and I are over the immaturity, you know?”