But there was more, and he hadn’t wrapped his mind around that more. There was an ache, a hole that hockey left. There were parts of his life where he didn’t feel it so deeply—doing hard work, planning for the llamas, being with Mel…
It didn’t change the uncomfortable fact that being without hockey left a hole, and even if he got back next season…there would be a season he wouldn’t be able to go back. Someday.
It scared the hell out of him that the ache might never go away. That in using hockey as an escape, he’d made this temporary thing his whole damn life.
“No one wants to be known as a cheat.” He plastered the easygoing, for-the-crowd grin on his face and filled their plates with eggs. When he glanced at her, she was carefully pouring coffee into two mugs.
The moment struck him as something out of a movie or a TV show. Certainly something he’d never witnessed in real life. Two people working together to make a meal. Two people working together to make much of anything.
He’d seen teamwork, he’d seen people help each other out, but not the easy camaraderie of preparing breakfast as a unit. There was a fuzzy memory, dim and not quite fully formed, something to do with his grandparents and that table, but he couldn’t put all the pieces together and wasn’t sure why it was cropping up now.
“But is it just your reputation?” Mel was saying. “I mean, you said this place meant something to you, or you thought it could because of your grandpa, so… Is it just what people think that makes you want to play again?”
He stood at the counter, two plates in his hand, and she stood next to the table, a mug in each hand. Sunlight streamed through the window across from the table, spotlighting Mel in golden light and dust motes.
Fuck, this day was weird. Had he suffered a concussion last night and forgotten about it?
“Dan.”
Well, at least no more Sharpe for the time being. “It’s a lot to do with reputation,” he said, forcing himself to cross the tiny kitchen. “But it’s not just my reputation that could suffer.”
Her brows drew together. “Who else’s would? Your agent’s?”
“No.” He placed the plates down and studied her. “You don’t have a clue about hockey, do you?”
She shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t have a lot of leisure time to follow sports.”
Dan’s mouth quirked. “My dad was kind of a big deal. Hockey player. Like Hall of Fame, did commercials, Olympics, whole nine yards.”
“Oh.”
“And, anyway, he’s a front-office guy now, and there are things he wants to do and…well, having stuff said about me doesn’t help him any.”
“And it means you couldn’t do something in the front office?”
“Oh, I’d never be any good at that shit. Can you imagine me in a suit saying all the right things to smooth people’s ridiculous egos?”
She blinked and didn’t respond, which almost seemed like she could picture it. Weird. It was just another thing in a long line of things he knew Dad would always be better at doing.
So, no, he couldn’t imagine doing that.
“Anyway, we should eat.” He gestured to the table, because this was all awkward and not at all what he wanted to talk about. Llamas. Sex. Her. That about completed the list of things he wanted to discuss. “Cold eggs and coffee are less than appetizing.”
She gave a little nod and slid the coffee mugs onto the table, but before he could sit, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his.
He was surprised enough by the move he couldn’t do much more than put his hands on her shoulders. Mel didn’t do a lot of initiating, but this wasn’t exactly sexual. It was more sweet, like an offer of comfort or sympathy.
Why the hell should she feel sorry for him? Offer him sympathy? This was all…picnic stuff compared to her life. She should go back to telling him people with money had their problems smoothed away.
But when she stepped back, she only looked at some point behind him, sheepishness wrinkling her nose.
“What was that for?” he demanded, feeling off and wanting to feel something familiar. Irritation would do.
Her eyes were wide, but serious when they met his. Always so damn serious. “I don’t know.”
It was like that moment in the grass—the overwhelmed feeling again, part sweetness, part the sharp need to bolt. But something pulled them tighter, pulled them close, and though part of him wanted nothing more than to bolt, that instinct was no match for the sweetness, for the pull.
“Cold…eggs,” she said, her voice hoarse, the green and brown of her eyes mesmerizing. She cleared her throat. “And work to do.”
Work. Right. That had been the main thing that had lifted his spirits this week, so maybe that’s what he needed to return focus to. Forget hockey and Mel and all the things that made his nerve endings go haywire.
“I’m going to start emailing breeders. Get a firm date for when we need everything done.”