finally says gruffly.
Nailed it. I bite back a smile.
“They all want to get together again tomorrow night,” he says. “But just for fun. Lacey and Taylor will come, too. They said to bring you.”
“Oh.” I consider that. It sounds fun. “Okay.”
“And I’m having lunch with my dad tomorrow.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “Happy now?”
I laugh softly. “Why yes, I am.”
I don’t know why it matters to me, but I hate the idea that he and his dad have that distance between them. His dad seemed so happy to see him when we showed up unexpectedly at the party. And I think Jax does care about his dad, but something hurt him. I suspect it’s his parents’ divorce, but that’s a wild guess. Okay, not so wild. Lots of kids get hurt by their parents divorcing. Maybe he’ll talk to me about that at some point.
“Want to walk more?” he asks.
“Sure.” I stand. The ocean breeze tugs my hair back off my face and I turn my face to it. “I love it here.”
“Yeah, it’s nice. Would you ever leave Chicago?”
Steve asked me that once. There was a very real possibility he’d get traded somewhere else eventually, and we’d have to move. “I love Chicago. I don’t want to leave. But there’s a whole big world out there to explore.” I gesture toward the bluff and the ocean. “Like this. It’s beautiful.”
“True.” We walk farther. “You’re a pretty smart cookie, Flynn.”
“Of course I am. I’m a teacher.” I smirk at him and he laughs.
Jax arranges to meet his dad for lunch and it’s near a shopping mall, so he drops me off there on his way. It’s an outdoor, two-level mall, and I wander in and out of some shops. I spent a bunch of money on things to come on this trip, which was kind of a waste when I had perfectly good clothes and makeup at home, so I probably shouldn’t spend more. But I have some savings, which I was going to spend on the honeymoon (sigh). If we’re going out with Jax’s family tonight, I want to look decent, so I buy a pair of jeans, a black silk and lace camisole and a slouchy gray cardigan. After a salad at the food court, I discover the ice rink. This makes me smile. A skating rink in a California mall! I watch people glide over the ice through the glass on the level above the rink.
Jax texts me when he’s done his lunch, and we meet up at one end of the mall.
“How’d it go?” I ask, studying his face.
“Okay.” He shrugs.
That’s it. That’s all I’m getting. Okay. “There’s a skating rink in this mall.”
He grins. “No shit.”
“Really.”
“Do you know how to skate?”
“Of course I do.”
“Let’s go, then.” He takes my arm and starts walking.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
We find the entrance and pay to rent skates.
“What about your feet?” I whisper to him.
“I’ll survive.”
We join the people on the ice, lots of kids, some skating independently, others using big plastic animals to hold on to. I do know how to skate, but it’s been a while and I’m a little wobbly in my first efforts. Jax, of course, is a superstar, gliding easily around. Sunlight streams in through high windows and it makes me smile.
After a few laps around the ice, I feel steadier and I attempt a little spin, which is pretty much the extent of the moves I learned during my figure skating lessons many years ago.
“Ooooh, show off,” Jax says.
“I’m not showing off. You’re showing off.” He’s literally skating circles around me.
He laughs and takes my hands, spinning me around.
I let out a little screech but he’s holding on tight.
“How does it feel to be on ice like this?” I ask.
“It feels good.” He smoothly switches to skating backward in front of me. “It’s fun.”
A little boy whizzes between us and crashes into the boards. “Sorry,” he says. “I don’t know how to stop.”
Jax skates over to him. “Want to learn?”
“Yeah.”
Jax leads the boy into the middle of the ice and patiently shows him how to stop, and the kid does it a few times to show he’s got it.
“Thanks, mister!” he says as Jax skates back to me with a smile on his face.
My heart is warm and soft. “He has no idea he just got a lesson from an NHL star.”
Jax rolls his eyes. “Don’t know about the ‘star’ thing.”
“Your family is hockey royalty.”
“Whatever.”
We spend a little more time fooling around on the