Plus I bought him a gourmet doggy treat on my way into the office this morning, just in case this is our last time together.
While he sniffs butts and socializes in the dog enclosure, I spend time solving a couple of problems in the office by texting instructions to Dion. Before long my hands are freezing and I’ve lost track of time. “Come on, Ruf!” I call. “Time to go! Want a cookie?”
He comes running when he sees the treat, and I clip on his collar while he’s bolting it down. We walk back to Yorkville Avenue at a nice clip, and I’m humming to myself when I beep into Matt’s apartment.
“Sit,” I tell Rufus when we get inside. “Good boy.” I drop down to my knees, and he wags his tail when we make eye contact. “Yes, you’re a very handsome boy.” I give him a kiss on the nose. I unclip him, and he wags some more, probably wondering whether I have any more of those treats. My hands undoubtedly smell like doggy biscuit. “Sorry, pal. I gave up all the goods already.”
“Did you, now?” a low voice asks, and I nearly leap out of my skin.
My heart spasms with surprise as I whip around to see Matt Eriksson standing in front of his kitchen island grinning at me.
Six
Poker Night
Matt
Hottie nearly topples over with surprise, and I feel bad for startling her. She seems to have a poor sense of balance for some reason. But even wobbly, she’s the best sight I’ve seen in days. She's wearing skinny jeans and a blue winter coat the same shade as her eyes. The tip of her nose is red from the cold, and I have the dumbest urge to plant a kiss on it. She's got a really cute nose, and the tiny jewel in it is strangely hot. I've never really been attracted to punky chicks, but I'm definitely attracted to this one.
Rufus recovers first. He bounds over to say hello, but then runs right back to Hottie. That traitor. He’s already one up on me. He’s been on the receiving end of a couple of Hottie’s kisses.
I’ve got nothing. It’s the first time I’ve ever been jealous of my dog.
“You’re home early,” Hottie says, rising carefully to her feet.
“True story,” I agree. “Our charity luncheon was cancelled, and we flew home two hours ahead of schedule.”
“Right. Well…” She makes a break for the door.
“Whoa. Not so fast,” I complain. “I just put a pot of coffee on. Will you have a cup with me?”
Her eyes look a little wild, and I try not to smile. My hottie is a hockey fan, apparently. It’s obvious that I weird her out. This happens sometimes. A perfectly functional human being can get a little loopy when it comes to hockey players. I know this firsthand because I misspelled my own name once when asking Wayne Gretzky to sign that jersey hanging on my wall.
“I would love some coffee,” she says in an almost normal voice.
“Awesome. How do you take it?”
“Black,” she says, and her shoulders relax by a degree or two. “Thanks.”
“Have a seat,” I prompt, gesturing toward the sofa. “Take off your coat.”
I turn my back and fix us a couple of mugs of joe. When I carry them over to the sofa, I find Rufus on his back, his head in Hottie’s lap, having his belly scratched.
She looks up when I set the mugs on the table. “Thank you so much.”
“Actually…” I take a sip of my coffee. “That’s exactly what I wanted to say to you. You’ve been a real help to me, Hailey. I’ve had a really shitty year, to put it bluntly.”
She winces. “You mean your divorce?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t my idea. But I moved out when she asked me to, because I didn’t want my girls to be uprooted from their home. Furnishing an apartment wasn’t something I ever planned to do, you know? I was so pissed off. But then you did everything, and I didn’t have to spend any energy on the details, and I really appreciate it.” I glance around at the tasteful things Hottie chose. “Place looks great.”
Her smile is my reward for opening up like that. It really lights up her face, and it makes those blue eyes come alive. “You’re welcome. And I totally get it.”
“You do?”
She nods, and the wattage of her smile cools by a few degrees. “I’m recently divorced, too. It happened right around the same time as yours—about a year and a half now. Also not my idea.”
“Oh,” I say, and a tightness grips my chest. I try to imagine someone telling Hottie to move out, and I feel a surge of anger on her behalf. “I’m sorry, Hottie. I mean Hailey.” Shit.
She laughs, luckily. “It’s really just fortunate that my initials aren’t U.G.H.”
Now I’m laughing, too. “Or I.C.K.”
She giggles. “We do have an employee whose initials are D.T.H. We call him the Dark Lord.”
Still chuckling, I lift my mug and take another sip. As I swallow, I notice Hailey’s gaze is fixed on my throat. Then she notices me noticing and her cheeks take on a pinkish hue. Yeah, I definitely make her nervous.
“So, um. Your daughters are super cute,” she says after a beat of awkward silence. “You and your ex have joint custody, I assume?”
“Barely. I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like,” I admit. “The team’s travel schedule is a bitch, you know?”
She nods in sympathy. “That must be rough.”
“Yeah. It is.” I set my cup on the table and lean back against the couch cushions. Rufus is lying between us, and I absently reach out to stroke his belly. Except Hailey’s still petting him, too, so my fingers unintentionally brush hers as I go in for the pet.
Her breath hitches. Then she snatches her hand away as if Rufus’s belly—or maybe my hand—is covered in fleas. Or maybe she did it because of the little jolt of static electricity that went through our fingers when they collided.
She’s blushing wildly now, and I watch in amusement as she wraps both hands tightly around her mug.
“They must miss you,” she says, awkward again. “Your girls, I mean.”
My heart clenches painfully as I remember the shiny tears in Junebug’s eyes when Kara came to pick up the girls the other morning. June’s always been more sensitive than Libby. She cries at the drop of a hat. Libby’s more reserved. Well, for a four-year-old. She still has her wailing tantrum moments, but for the most part, she’s better at hiding her emotions than her sister.
“I miss them, too,” I say gruffly. Then I swallow the lump in my throat and promptly change the subject. “What about you? You and your ex-hubby got any kids?”
Hailey shakes her head. “We were too busy building our business. We planned on having kids eventually, but the timing was never right.”
“Your business?” I echo. “You mean Fetch?”
“Yes. Jackson and I co-own the company.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You work with your ex-husband?” Man, that’s about as rough as me not seeing my girls on a regular basis. I’d never be able to handle seeing Kara at some office every day.
“We’re actually good friends,” Hailey confesses. Her blue eyes soften, and I catch a flicker of sorrow there. “We’ve been friends since we were six.”
“Oh. Wow. You’ve known him that long?”