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“Then memorized them?”
She shrugs. “I have a very proficient memory. And if you’re wondering, yes, I’ll remember this moment for a very long time.” She draws the last words out, trying to give me a hard stare.
Her dad laughs. “I like you two.” He takes a sip of his water and is still smiling when he places it back on the table.
“Well, I hope you like me.”
He waves her away. “You know what I mean. I like you two together.”
“He could be a serial killer.”
“Is he?”
“No.”
I shake my head. Her mind is still an enigma to me, like an exquisite puzzle I love trying to work out.
“I’m only saying, you’ve known him for five seconds.”
“I trust my daughter’s judgment implicitly.”
She keeps her eyes on him, and I avert my gaze to scour the menu. I can’t even pronounce half the items offered. I look for a safe word like chicken or steak—
Holy shit.The steak is a hundred dollars.
I’m scanning the menu for chicken when her dad says, “Feel free to get what you want, I’m paying.”
I smile at him, but there’s no way I’m getting a hundred-dollar steak from this guy. I just met him. I find a menu item with chicken and as much as I can decipher from the words around it, it’s edible.
Soon, we’re giving our orders to the waiter as another server comes over with a bottle of wine and fills our glasses. I don’t even know if I like wine.
“Only the one glass if you’re driving my daughter around,” her father says, playfully glaring at me. I recognize the tease in his voice, too. My father has dad humor for days.
“So, what are your plans when school ends?”
For a few seconds, I mistakenly think he’s talking to Len, but then he looks at me expectantly. “I plan on coaching peewee back home, sir. I’ll be graduating with a degree in business economics, so a job offer close to home would be nice.”
“Sounds like you want to be a team owner with that kind of degree.”
“I…never really thought about it before. Seems out of reach.”
“Well…”
“Oh, here we go,” Len interrupts.
“You could learn a little something from this, too, sweetheart.”
“Dad, I’ve heard your rah-rah speech a bunch of times.”
I glance between the two of them. “I would like a rah-rah speech.”
Her father hits the table with a hammer fist, making me jump. “You can do anything you put your mind to. You just have to work at it. One foot in front of the other. You keep solving problems, eliminating obstacles one at a time. I wasn’t born into a hockey family. I didn’t have any hockey friends. All I had was a love for the sport, and look where I am now. I’m sitting ina rooftop restaurant with a panoramic view of the city that my team—myteam—played in. I have a controlling factor in what they do. I’m set for life. I could retire right now. If you want something, you go out and fucking get it.”
I sit up straighter. “Len says you weren’t rich growing up?”
His gaze morphs into a sort of sad recollection. “My dad was a factory worker, and my mom worked part-time at the local library shelving books. They’re wonderful people. But I had seven brothers and sisters, so we didn’t have much. I knew from the time I was a little boy that I wanted more. I hated seeing my father come home tired and angry only to get up the next day and do it all over again. He worked his body to an early grave. That’s not the life I wanted.”
I take a deep breath, letting his words consume me. My father’s an accountant who owns his own business. He’s always pushed me to create something of my own, like Len’s father. “It’s inspiring, sir.”