Page 24 of The Sweet Spot (Kodiaks Hockey #3)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wolseley

I knew why I didn’t text Tangi after Brandon kissed me. I was afraid of what she would say, so I texted Jill instead. After leaving my note for Brandon that lunch was in the oven, I’d spent the afternoon avoiding him, then headed over to Jill’s when she got home from work. I told her everything from Daniel leaving me alone for good to the amazing kiss and now didn’t know what to do about Brandon.

“Do nothing,” she said in her usual matter-of-fact voice. “Wait and see what he is going to do next.”

“What if he does nothing?” I asked, munching on the chips she had out. With nothing to do with my nervous hands, I was probably going to eat the whole damn bag. I stopped eating them once Chloe gave me a judgmental look. The cute little pup was probably pissed I wasn’t sharing with her.

“I suspect he’ll do something.” She leaned in closer to me. “Here’s the thing: he made the first move. He needs to finish what he started.”

“But maybe it was a reaction to my good news about Daniel.”

She arched a brow. “Really? He got so excited that you finally shut up a guy he’s never met so he kissed you? Not likely.”

When she put it that way, it did sound a little ridiculous.

“All right, so I wait it out? We have plans to go secondhand shopping tomorrow.”

Jill had been sipping her wine and slowly put the glass down. “Just a second here. First, he goes grocery shopping with you, then a drag show. He kisses you, and now a guy who makes millions of dollars a year is going secondhand shopping with you?”

I had no idea where she was going with this. “Well, yeah. He wants to try new things.”

“Secondhand shopping? A guy? Who makes millions of dollars and can buy anything he wants?”

“Yes,” I said sheepishly.

We were sitting on her sofa in her living room, the game on in the background. She shimmied closer to me, and when I turned to her, she clasped my face in her hands.

“The guy likes you. Do I need to repeat that? Brandon Warde likes you.”

I blinked several times, taking that in. “He’s killing time.”

“No. He likes you. He wants to be in your pants. He thinks you’re amazing. He’s also mostly normal. All good things.”

“But—”

“Zip it! Full stop. The guy has a thing for you. Stop making excuses for why he doesn’t. Here is my advice. Let this naturally play out, but if you want this, then you need to let him know it. I’m not suggesting to jump him next time you see him, but at least give him a sign. But I do have to ask: is this what you want?”

“I have no idea. I think so.”

Jill nodded slowly, picking up her glass again. “You need to think about that because he is your boss. Things could get complicated if it doesn’t work out, although Brandon doesn’t seem like the type of guy to make an issue of it.”

“Should I tell Tangi?”

Jill tapped a finger on the side of her glass as she pondered that. “I don’t know. Up to you. I don’t like the way she’s been acting about this, so I don’t blame you for not telling her first, or telling us in a group text. I think I’m about to sound like you, but I want you both to work this out. Some guy is not worth putting a wrench in a friendship over.”

She’d given me so much to think about. So much so that I’d barely slept that night, my brain a whirl of thoughts and consequences. Of course, I wanted something with Brandon, but I also didn’t want to jeopardize what I had with job security. Did I want to tell Tangi everything? Of course, but I didn’t want any negativity to impact any decision I made. So much to think about.

When my alarm went off, I was already awake. I slapped at my phone to turn it off, then pulled myself out of bed. How was I going to get through the day with a few hours of sleep? And secondhand shopping. And facing Brandon. Ugh.

I showered and got changed, making it to Brandon’s before seven o’clock. He was asleep, which wasn’t unusual postgame day. By the time he got home, ate, and came off the high—or low—of the game, it was usually between midnight and one o’clock in the morning. His extra hour or two of sleep gave me some extra time, and I used it to down a few cups of coffee.

On the menu this morning were protein pancakes, avocado toast, and some Greek yogurt and fruit. Ryan would be having the same, although I know he snuck pork bacon in there, which was beyond my control and totally up to him. I started on Ryan’s breakfast first because Delia came to pick it up around eight thirty. I met her outside the building with Ryan’s cooler bag of food, including some midmorning snacks, and headed back upstairs. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I almost ran into Brandon in the kitchen. That was what I got for not paying attention.

“Hey,” I said way too cheerfully.

“Good morning,” he said in his usual tone.

“Tough game last night,” I said in some strange falsetto.

“It sucks when we lose two games in a row,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I changed the subject. “Breakfast should be ready in about ten minutes.”

“No rush,” he said, sitting at the island with his phone. He liked to read the news for a bit, which I liked to avoid, especially in the morning. Who wanted to be depressed with so much sad information? I guess Brandon and millions of other people.

While he read, seemingly oblivious that I was even there, I prepped breakfast. The plan for today had been for me to get Delia in after her morning delivery rush to make lunch for Ryan and Brandon and then prep dinner. I told her I wouldn’t need her for the afternoon other than to pick up Ryan’s dinner and late-night meal. That was supposed to give me and Brandon time to hang out and secondhand shop, but now I had no idea if that was still happening. I had no idea what was happening with anything, and before I could stop myself, I started talking.

“The kiss. Did it mean something?”

He stopped reading on his phone, slowly put it down, and looked up at me. His blue eyes had me melting where I was standing. He had no expression on his face, and I suddenly wanted to run away as fast as possible and never come back. I was beyond mortified. But that didn’t stop me from continuing.

“I get it. I was excited, and you probably didn’t mean it. It was the whole spur-of-the-moment. Forget I even brought it up. Am I fired?”

He tilted his head in confusion for just a second, then righted himself. “I meant it.”

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t move. I wanted to be sick, and the coffee sitting in my empty stomach was suddenly like burning acid. “I don’t understand. Then why are you acting so weird right now?”

“I’m not acting weird.”

His expression didn’t change, and I was more confused than ever.

“But you are. You don’t kiss someone and then nothing.”

He scrunched up his face. “Not exactly. If I recall correctly, when I got home from practice, you were gone. And you didn’t come back, so when you say ‘nothing,’ that’s not exactly fair.”

I could see a hint of a smirk on his face and realized he was enjoying this torture. Yes, my self-inflicted torture.

“Are you suggesting that I kept my distance?”

“Did you?”

“I was busy,” I said, feeling the heat rising in my face.

He rolled his eyes. I wanted to pound my fist on the island counter, but I had to get his protein pancakes off the griddle before they burned. And to think I made him real bacon as a surprise. He didn’t deserve it right now. I slapped the plate down in front of him, and he jumped a little.

“I wasn’t avoiding you, per se. I was just trying to figure things out.”

“If you want me to forget it ever happened, we can do that.”

His face was serious now. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to understand this all. What was the right answer? My mom would say it was, to be honest.

“I don’t want to forget it happened. But what happens next? ”

“I don’t know. Things just happen?”

I drummed my fingers on the countertop. “Here is the thing. Tangi says I always fall for people I work with. She went through a long list of all the guys I’ve fallen for, and the graveyard was filled. I don’t want that here because I love this job.”

He pushed his plate away and folded his hands. “I have two things to say. Number one, who cares what Tangi thinks or says? Number two, you’ll have a job here as long as you want it. I’m not going to be an asshole.”

His words scorched through my veins. I wanted to leap across the island and kiss him, feel his scratchy five-o’clock shadow against my skin. Have his strong arms around me.

“Um, okay,” was all I managed to squeak out. I was so bad at the dating process.

“All right. So why don’t we start off with today and some secondhand shopping?”

He was smiling now, the most gorgeous smile any man could have. Butterflies were now swimming around in my chest, and I wanted to scream out, “Hell yes,” but I had to keep myself dignified.

“Okay. Let’s do that once you’re finished breakfast.”

“Great. Then maybe I can take you for lunch?”

“I’d like that.”

“Then it’s a date.”

I hadn’t hit much of the Vancouver secondhand-shop scene because I hadn’t had much time to, but I’d marked off a few places that weren’t too far. The first one was called Frannie’s Finds. The place used to be an old, small grocery store and was packed with everything you could imagine. Brandon took a lay of the land before following me to the clothing section .

“Almost none of my clothes are new. We have enough crap in the world, and I don’t want to add to it. Don’t get me started on fast fashion,” I said.

“I’m guessing fast fashion is like fast food?”

“Precisely. Look at his cute shirt,” I said, holding up a lime-green-and-pink-striped shirt that had to be from the eighties.

“It’s colorful,” he said.

He didn’t have to like it. He wouldn’t be wearing it.

We walked through the men’s section, and I pointed out all the neat vintage shirts, and he seemed mildly interested. What really got his attention was the book section. I decided to leave him there as I checked out more clothes. I loved wearing old concert T-shirts and vintage jeans. Mom had taught me to sew a little, so it was easy to modify the jeans to fit my shorter stature. I found a pair of dark denim that were more fitted than I normally wore, but after trying them on, I couldn’t deny how good they looked.

Once I was done looking at clothes, Brandon was still in the book section. He had about ten of them piled in front of him, all old science fiction.

“These are cool,” he said. “All out of print.”

“I’m impressed you like to read.”

“I prefer it to relax. While the guys like to play card games on the plane, I’d rather read and sleep. And as a kid, it was a great escape.”

Why did that not surprise me? And why did I think there was more of a story there?

We’d spent so much time in Frannie’s that we only hit one more place before going for lunch. This place was called Angie’s Attic. Once again, Brandon beelined for the books. I hit up the men’s section this time and found him a vintage Kodiaks T-shirt. I quickly googled it to find that it came from the late 1980s. I checked it over, and it was in great condition, and I was pretty sure it would fit him. I also found an MTV T-shirt as well as a Wheaties shirt. Angie’s was turning out to be great for vintage stuff.

I marched over to him and showed him the shirts. He looked them over and nodded.

“Would you wear them?”

“I was never into MTV. But I’d wear the other two.”

Proud of myself, I then hit the women’s section and found some cool vintage shirts of my own. The white Blondie T-shirt was a must, and I couldn’t leave without the Hubba Bubba shirt. How much of that gum had I chewed as a kid? I treated him to the shirts and books he’d found, and put it all in my jute reusable bag. Now it was time to hit lunch.

He suggested I pick the place, so I chose Radicchio, an Italian restaurant near his condo that I’d wanted to try. I’d been surviving on adrenaline the whole day, and now my lack of sleep was catching up to me. I hated that I kept yawning through lunch, and that was when I explained it all to him. How I hadn’t slept, that I’d been thinking about things the entire night. He didn’t chastise me or tell me I was silly for doing that. Instead, he listened, and when lunch was over, he came up with a plan.

“Why don’t I drop you off at home? You get some rest, and we can do something later tonight, if you want.”

Of course, I wanted to, but I had to play it cool. “Yes, that’s a good idea. We can hang out tonight. I’ll be by before dinner and whip up something.”

“I could probably fend for myself,” he said.

“I know, but that’s part of my job.”

He dropped me off at the condo and like usual, walked me to the door. He clasped my hand before I went inside and swept me into a kiss. I sighed when it came to an end.

“See you later,” he said .

I watched him get into the car and waved as he drove away. Dammit, I was going to fall in love with him.