Chasing Charli - Kat Mizera Page 0,5
But don’t you travel?”
He nodded. “Yes.” He pulled up the team’s schedule on his phone and showed her their days off. “Here. After practice.”
“Remember, I work until three o’clock every day.”
He typed a response into his translator and she leaned over to read it:
On days we don’t have a game and we’re not traveling, we can meet after you finish work. When I travel, maybe we can talk on the phone for a little while each night to practice?
She nodded. “Yes, that works for me. Are you sure you want to give me the money up front, so to speak?”
He looked at her blankly and she went back to the translator. He read over her shoulder and then nodded emphatically. “Yes! This okay.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” He looked around. “We start now?”
She laughed. “Sure. Let’s talk and I’ll get a feel for how much you know.”
“I understand, but talking, not so good.”
“That’s okay. We’ll get there.”
3
They talked for two hours while they waited for her car to get done and Charli couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun essentially doing nothing. Miikka was sweet and funny. She didn’t mind his difficulty communicating because it wasn’t hard to figure out what he wanted to say. Mostly, they used the translator, but she was using their conversation to gauge how she would teach him going forward.
“Food?” he asked her when the car was finished. “I am hungry. You come?”
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Is long day,” he said gently. “Pizza?”
She hesitated but then smiled and nodded. “Okay. Yes.”
They’d just sat down and ordered at a small, local Italian place when Dani’s name flashed on the screen of Charli’s phone. She answered right away.
“Hey!”
“Did Miikka get your tire changed?” Dani asked her.
“Oh, he’s been a lifesaver,” Charli responded. She gave her an abridged version of what had happened.
“So you’re at dinner?” Dani asked, surprise in her voice.
“Yeah.” Charli paused. “Why?”
“Miikka is one of my favorite guys on the team,” Dani said. “I adore him. He just, you know, usually goes for…wilder women.”
“Oh. Well, that has nothing to do with me. I’m going to tutor him in English.”
“That will be really good for him,” Dani responded after a slight hesitation. “He’s been complaining about his English since I’ve known him.”
“Okay, well, thank you so much for your help today and I’ll talk to you soon.” Charli disconnected and looked over at Miikka. The more time she spent with him, the hotter he got, so she had no trouble imagining him with some supermodel or movie star or something. All things she definitely wasn’t.
“Okay?” he asked when she met his eyes.
“Dani was checking in to make sure the car was okay.”
“Dani is good friend.”
“We got to know each other because she’s the room mom for my class,” Charli said.
He frowned. “Room…mom?”
“It’s when a mother of one of my students helps me with parties, special events, comes and reads to the class—oh!” Her eyes widened. “I have a great idea! What if we set a goal for May? It’s only March, so you have plenty of time, but you’ll practice reading and speaking, and then you can come talk to the class. They’ll be so excited—they love the Blizzard. You can read to them.”
He blinked. “You want I read? In English?”
He looked so horrified she started to laugh. “That’s what you’re paying me for, right? To teach you? The kids love when Sergei comes, so we’ll plan for you to do it toward the end of the school year. Oh, please say yes.”
He hesitated but then nodded. “If you think this is good, okay.”
“So tell me about you. How long have you lived in the U.S.?”
“I go Canada when I am fifteen to play Major Juniors. QMJHL. I play in Quebec.”
“You came alone? Without your family?”
“Yes. I stay with billet family. They are Finnish so easy for me.”
“But not much practice with English.”
He shook his head. “No. This bad.”
“And then?”
“I play in Nova Scotia, then come to Alaska.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Me too. I’ll be twenty-five in June.”
“For me, October.”
“I’m older than you,” she teased.
He grinned. “Is okay.”
They talked all through dinner and Charli forgot about her disrupted plans, her tires, and even the fact that she couldn’t reschedule her appointment with her optometrist for a week or two. Miikka was adorable, easygoing and really handsome. He had pale blue eyes beneath light eyebrows, a straight nose and full lips that made her think about kissing. He was laid-back, and when it came to his broken