Page 15 of Heartbreak Hockey

He sounded like me and it was wrong falling off his pouty lips that I already wanted to kiss again. It was like he’d been given the wrong script and was reading my lines. I needed to be extra “me” about this. I patted his cheek. “Don’t flatter yourself, Jack. I’ve never fallen in love. I’m not going to start with a mouthy little brat like you.”

That’s when the bartender slid a pen and paper across the counter at me. “Just because he’s choosing to be stupid, doesn’t mean I have to let him. Address, Hot Guy,” the bartender said.

“Casey,” Jack groaned.

“Now,” Casey said to me. I took the pen as he focused on Jack. “You’re not the one who’ll have the captain on your ass when this guy dumps your body into the Fraser River.”

“He’s not gonna …ugh!” Jack scrubbed a hand over his face.

“I might,” I said. “Your friend has good sense that skipped you.”

There were a few snickers from around the near-to-empty pub from the other servers that were fucking the dog by pretending to work when really, they were paying much too keen an eye on us. I was too busy feasting on Jack to notice them earlier and I was too busy to bother sparing them more than a glance.

“Those are my nosey friends,” Jack explains. “I work here.”

He went from bratty and cocky to embarrassed and sheepish real fast. Not sure which I liked better. Maybe both equally. “C’mon, buttercup. Let’s get you home to bed.” I extended my hand for his to a chorus of “OooOooohs” from his friends, showing their age.

To be that young again, but I’d get to have a little taste of youth for a night. I tugged him toward the door, and he turned enough to flip them off. Then I mentally cursed myself for not riding my cool bike to the pub, just my uncool dad van. I traded my beamer for it ages ago for obvious reasons. Beamers are not kid friendly.

“You drive here?”

“Nope. Walked.”

Dad van it was. When he saw it and proceeded to laugh, I narrowed my eyes and reconsidered taking him to bed. Maybe I’d just spank him instead. “What?”

“Sorry, but with that long black jacket you’re wearing—which is totally rad by the way—you look like you’ve walked off the set of the Matrix. The soccer dad van isn’t what I expected.”

“I have kids,” I said, which wasn’t true. I looked after kids, but they weren’t mine. Not really. It also wasn’t something I disclosed to one-night stands, but apparently, I was an open book for Jack.

“Oh. Guess I’m the insensitive fuck. How many kids do you have?”

“There are six and one on the way.”

“Whoa, you have a partner I should worry about?”

It was my turn to be smug. “Get in the fucking van. Thought you knew martial arts or something, Jack?”

He got into the van and shut the door. “I see, you’re real kinky-like. That’s fine too. Is your husband hot? I’m definitely into threesomes … or foursomes.”

I started the van feeling jealous of my fictional husband. What was wrong with me? I’m into threesomes and foursomes and whateversomes and yet I wanted Jack all to myself. I knew that if I explained that “my kids” were my siblings, it would end that line of questioning, but I liked the banter—even if liking the banter was a red flag—and wanted it to continue.

There were red flags everywhere with Jack. Or maybe they weren’t red ones, they were green, and green in my world is worse. A red flag could repel me, but the green ones ensnared me.

Against my better judgment, I teased him instead. “If my husband thinks you’re too young for me, he’ll insist I spank you and send you on your way.”

“Least I won’t leave empty-handed. Pun intended.”

Our easy banter ended when I got him up the porch steps and unlocked the door because I needed my mouth on him and I didn’t want to wait another second. I manhandled him into the house by the lapels of his leather jacket, slamming the door in the same way Dawson does, which I yell at him across the house for.

Fuck the door. I wanted inside him. I only had him for a night, I was going to make sure he remembered me forever and that he felt me for the rest of the week. I pinned his arms to the wall and attacked his mouth.

“I’m not married,” I told him between ravaging his mouth. He tasted like lemonade, and it mixed with the beer still staining my tastebuds.

“Thought not.”

I kissed him some more, pushing the heavy leather off his shoulders, letting it pool at this low back and trap his arms for me. He was full of tattoos. Both arms painted with dark ink. One went from his arm, over his shoulder and up the back of his neck on the right side. I unbuckled his belt as he watched. “Don’t have kids either. They’re my siblings.”

“I know, I mean … I didn’t know, but I figured there was more to the story. Even as old as you are, you’re too young to have that many kids naturally.”