Page 26 of Cold Shoulder, Hot Take (Seattle Puckaneers #2)

Dex’s jaw tightens. “I’m trying to have dinner.”

“Just one picture? Come on, don’t be such a dick about it.”

“The answer is no.”

She scoffs and mutters something about celebrities being assholes before stumbling away.

I’m starting to feel the weight of all the watching eyes, the way conversations at nearby tables have shifted to speculation about who I am and what I’m doing here.

“This is normal for you?” I ask quietly.

“Unfortunately.” He’s trying to focus on the menu, but I can see the tension building in his shoulders.

A group of women approaches next, giggling and nudging each other forward.

“We’re so sorry to bother you,” their designated spokesperson says, “but could we get a group photo? We promise we’ll be quick.”

“I’m trying to have a private dinner,” Dex says, his patience clearly wearing thin.

“Just one? Please? We’re huge fans.”

“Sorry ladies, not tonight.”

Their faces fall, and I catch them muttering about how rude he is as they walk away.

“Jesus,” he runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry about this.”

Before I can respond, another interruption. This time it’s a middle-aged man with his phone out, already recording.

“Dex Malone! Can you give a shout-out to my buddy Mike?”

“I’m not doing videos right now.”

“Come on, two seconds. Just say ‘hey Mike.’”

“I said no.”

“Why are you being such a prick? I spend good money on season tickets. That means you owe me.”

I watch something shift in Dex’s expression. The polite facade drops completely.

“Golda?” he says suddenly, turning to me with a grin that’s part mischief, part rebellion.

“Yes?”

“Let’s blow this pop stand.”

He stands abruptly, drops a wad of cash on the table, snags the wine bottle from the ice bucket, and extends his hand to me.

“Come on. I know a better place.”

I follow him through the restaurant, aware of every eye on us, every phone tracking our exit. The hostess looks confused as we pass, but Dex doesn’t stop to explain.

Outside, the cool Seattle air feels like relief after the oppressive attention of the restaurant.

“Well,” I say once we’re on the sidewalk, “that was dramatic.”

“I’m sorry.” He looks genuinely upset. “I wanted to take you somewhere nice, and instead you got a front-row seat to everything I hate about this job.”

“Where are we going with that?” I nod toward the wine bottle in his hand.

“I have an idea. Trust me?”

We walk toward the waterfront, away from the bright lights and crowds of the restaurant district. The city sounds fade as we get closer to the water, replaced by the gentle lapping of waves against the docks.

“There,” Dex points to a cluster of food trucks parked near the waterfront. “Much better.”

We order tacos and find a picnic table overlooking Elliott Bay. Dex produces the wine bottle and two plastic cups he somehow acquired from one of the vendors.

“This is much better,” I say, and mean it. The view is spectacular, the food is good, and most importantly, no one seems to recognize him here.

“I should have thought of this in the first place,” he says, pouring wine into our plastic cups. “I forget sometimes that not everyone wants to be part of the circus.”

“Is that what your life is like? Constant attention?”

“In certain places, yeah. Restaurants, bars, anywhere upscale. It’s like I’m public property.”

I study his face in the fading light, seeing fatigue I hadn’t noticed before. “That sounds lonely.”

“It is. Weirdly lonely, actually. All these people who think they know you, but none of them actually do.”

“What do you mean?”

“They know Dex Malone, the hockey player. The stats, the highlights, whatever story the media’s telling about me that week. But they don’t know...” he gestures vaguely, “anything real.”

“What’s real?”

He’s quiet for a moment, swirling wine in his plastic cup. “I grew up in a house with four older sisters. My mom still calls every Sunday to make sure I’m eating vegetables. I watch cooking shows even though I can barely make toast, and I fall asleep on my couch more nights than I care to admit.”

“Four sisters?”

“Four. I was the baby, the only boy. They basically raised me while my parents worked.” He smiles, and it’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen from him all evening. “Taught me how to braid hair, how to paint nails, how to listen when someone’s upset without trying to fix everything.”

“That explains why you’re good with kids.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it just taught me that women are actual people with thoughts and feelings, not just objects to be conquered.”

The honesty in his voice surprises me. “Is that how most guys in your position see women?”

“A lot of them, yeah. When you have money and fame, it’s easy to start thinking everyone wants something from you. Easier to keep things surface-level than risk finding out what someone’s real motives are.”

I take a sip of wine, processing this. “So why risk it with me?”

“Because you don’t want anything from me. If anything, you seem determined to keep me at arm’s length.”

“Maybe I have good reasons for that.”

“Maybe you do. Want to tell me what they are?”

I look out at the water, weighing how much honesty this moment can handle. The wine and the unexpected intimacy of our impromptu picnic have lowered my guard more than I intended.

“I was married for eight years,” I say finally. “It wasn’t... good. Took me way too long to leave.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Blythe. She was four, and she came to me after one of his... episodes. Brought me her favorite stuffed animal and said ‘when daddy makes you sad, you can hold Sparkles. He makes the scary go away.’” My voice catches slightly.

“That’s when I realized what I was teaching her about what normal looked like. ”

Dex is quiet for a long moment. “That must have been terrifying. Starting over with kids.”

“Terrifying doesn’t begin to cover it. But also... freeing? I finally got to make decisions without calculating how someone else would react.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m very careful about who I let into our lives. The kids have been through enough upheaval.”

“That makes sense.”

We sit in comfortable silence, watching the last light fade over the water. The food trucks are starting to close up, couples and families heading back to their cars.

“Can I ask you something?” Dex says.

“Sure.”

“Are you lonely?”

The question catches me off guard with its directness. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve built this whole life around protecting yourself and your kids. But are you happy? Are you lonely?”

I consider deflecting, giving him the standard answer about how fulfilling single motherhood is. But something about the way he’s looking at me, the genuine curiosity in his voice, makes me want to be honest.

“Yes,” I admit. “I’m lonely. Most of the time, actually. But lonely feels safer than vulnerable.”

“I get that.”

“Do you? Because from my perspective, you have everything. Fame, money, women throwing themselves at you.”

“All of which is meaningless if you can’t have a real conversation with any of them.” He refills our cups. “You know what the worst part is? I’ve gotten so used to being Dex Malone, Professional Hockey Player, that I’m not sure I remember how to be just... me.”

“Who’s ‘just you’?”

“I don’t know anymore. Someone who likes quiet evenings and bad documentaries.

Someone who actually cares about whether his teammates are happy, not just whether they’re winning games.

Someone who wants to know what makes you laugh, what keeps you up at night, what you dream about when you let yourself dream. ”

The vulnerability in his voice makes me want to reach across the table and touch his hand. But I don’t, because vulnerability is dangerous and I’ve gotten very good at protecting myself.

“That sounds like someone worth getting to know,” I say instead.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We finish the wine as the waterfront empties around us, conversation flowing easier than it has all evening.

He tells me about growing up the only boy in a house full of women, about missing his family but never quite feeling like he fits when he goes home.

I tell him about the voice work, about finding pieces of myself in other people’s stories, about the strange intimacy of speaking to thousands of people you’ll never meet.

“We should probably head back,” I say eventually, noting how late it’s gotten.

“Probably.”

We walk back toward the restaurant district where our cars are parked, neither of us talking much. The evening feels different now—more real, less performed.

“Thank you,” I say as we reach my car. “For dinner. For the escape plan. For the most honest conversation I’ve had in months.”

“Thank you for giving me a chance to be something other than a public figure for a few hours.”

We’re standing close now, close enough that I can see the way the streetlights catch the different colors in his eyes. The wine and the conversation and the unexpected connection have created something between us, something that feels both inevitable and terrifying.

“Golda,” he says softly, stepping closer.

I look up at him, and something in my expression must encourage him because he reaches out to cup my face gently. His thumb brushes across my cheek, and I can smell his cologne, something expensive and clean that makes my brain go fuzzy.

When he leans down to kiss me, for a split second every nerve in my body screams YES. His lips are so close I can feel his breath, warm and wine-sweet, and I want this more than I’ve wanted anything in years.

But then reality crashes in. Evan’s notebook. The restaurant full of people recording us. The fact that I’m a single mom who can’t afford to make mistakes.

At the last possible second, I turn my head.

His lips brush my cheek instead of my mouth, and the disappointment that flashes across his face is so raw it makes my stomach clench.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, stepping back. “I can’t.”

He stares at me for a long moment, his hand still raised where it had been touching my face. Like his brain hasn’t caught up to what just happened.

“You can’t,” he repeats slowly.

“I’m sorry. I just?—”

“Right.” He drops his hand, takes a step back. “Of course.”

But he doesn’t look angry. He looks confused. Genuinely, completely confused, like I just told him gravity works backwards or that hockey pucks are actually spherical.

“Dex—”

“No, it’s fine.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I can see him trying to recalibrate. “I misread the situation.”

“You didn’t misread anything.”

“Clearly I did, or you wouldn’t have—” He stops, shakes his head. “Forget it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to?—”

“Golda.” His voice is strained. “Just... go. Before I say something stupid.”

I fumble with my keys, my hands shaking. “Thank you for tonight.”

He doesn’t respond. Just stands there watching me get in my car like he’s trying to solve a puzzle that doesn’t make sense.

As I pull out of the parking space, I catch a glimpse of him in my rearview mirror. He’s still standing in the same spot, hands in his pockets, staring at the ground.

I make it exactly two blocks before the regret hits me like a freight train.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say to my empty car.

Dex Malone. Dex fucking Malone wanted to kiss me, and I gave him my cheek like he’s my great-aunt Gertrude at Christmas dinner.

I grip the steering wheel tighter, replaying the moment. The way he looked at me. The way his thumb felt on my cheek. How close his mouth was to mine before I panicked like a teenager.

“He probably tastes like wine,” I mutter. “Expensive wine and bad decisions and—STOP.”

I force myself to focus on driving, but my brain won’t shut up.

He’s probably had women literally fight each other for the chance to kiss him, and I just turned away like he was asking me to file his taxes. The man who has models sliding into his DMs just had a hockey mom reject him in a parking lot.

God, the look on his face. Like someone had just explained that professional hockey was actually a elaborate hoax and he’d been chasing a rubber disk around ice for no reason.

When have I ever turned down a kiss from someone I actually wanted to kiss? When has anyone ever turned down a kiss from DEX MALONE?

“You could turn around,” I tell myself. “Go back. Tell him you changed your mind.”

But I don’t. I keep driving through Seattle’s empty streets, alternating between wanting to kick myself and knowing I probably made the right choice.

Probably.

Maybe.

Shit.

By the time I pull into my driveway, I’ve relived the almost-kiss approximately fifteen times, and in at least twelve of those versions, I don’t turn my head.

In those versions, I find out what he tastes like, what his hands feel like in my hair, whether kissing someone you actually like is as different from kissing someone you’re supposed to like as I remember.

I sit in my car for another five minutes, phone in my hand, staring at his contact information.

Sorry about tonight. Rain check on that kiss?

I type it. Delete it. Type it again.

“Don’t be pathetic, Golda.”

I delete it and go inside to my empty house, where I spend the next hour replaying every moment of the evening and wondering if I’m the kind of person who’s going to regret this for the rest of my life.