A Guy Walks Into My Bar - Lauren Blakely Page 0,79
know?”
“I do know what you mean.” I glance around. No one notices the hockey star, or us. We are anonymous. “Do you get recognized there?”
“Sometimes I do. Sometimes people come up to me on the street.”
“Does it bother you?”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s cool, actually—kind of a dream. My whole life, I wanted to be a pro athlete, and now I am. Having fans is a gift. So, when someone stops and says hi or asks if it’s me, I try to chat for a minute. Unless there’s some reason I can’t, like I have a raging boner, as I did at that softball place with you.”
“Fair point. And I can see that. You interacting, sans erection. So, if some fan came up to you here, you’d chat for a bit?”
Fitz glances around at the throng of people passing by, at the families, the fathers carrying young children on their shoulders, at the men and women in suits marching past us, at the couples—men and women, women and women, men and men—walking along the river.
“Absolutely,” he says. “But I’d make sure he wasn’t giving you sex eyes. If he was, I’d be all possessive and mine, mine, mine.”
I crack up. “Yes, exactly. No doubt loads of gay men are giving you sex eyes.” I hold up a hand. “Wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to think about all the guys who’ll be hitting on you in literally a day when you return to the States.”
He squeezes my waist. “Jelly, much?”
I roll my eyes. “Jealous a lot,” I mutter, but I don’t say what’s tangoing on the tip of my tongue. What happens when you meet someone else? What happens when you want to go home with someone else?
Those thoughts curdle my stomach.
I wince.
“Hey,” he says, regarding me closely. “What’s wrong? You look like you just swallowed a jalapeño.”
“I like jalapeños.”
“Yeah, me too. Wrong analogy, then. You look like you swallowed a cockroach.”
I pretend to retch.
“Exactly,” he says. “So, what is it?”
“Nothing.”
Fitz pinches my waist. “It wasn’t nothing. What was it? Talk to me, babe.”
I sigh, running my hand over the back of my neck. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. What is it?”
I shrug, then tell myself, Why the fuck not? “I was just thinking about when someone does want to take you home in a week or a month or whatever.”
His smile downshifts then disappears. “Won’t happen.”
“Please. It will happen,” I scoff.
“First, I’ve got the pact with my guys, and I’m sticking to it, so it won’t happen.”
“But the pact ends eventually. In a month or something, right?”
“About a week or so into the start of the regular season.”
“So, that’s the only reason?”
“You ass. The reason is you. I fucking want you. I don’t want anyone else.” Fitz turns to face me, looping both hands around my waist, tugging me against him. I wrap mine around his neck.
“Yeah, I get that, Fitz. It’s just, down the road . . .”
He leans in close, nuzzling my neck. “I can’t think about anyone else. Not now, not tomorrow.” He brushes the lightest kiss on my neck, then moves back to look at me. “Dean, do you want to talk . . .”
“Yes,” I say, and my heart slams against my chest because I think I know what’s coming.
The talk.
The Can we do this? talk.
And I want to have it, but it’s crowded and busy here.
“Let’s go sit on a park bench.”
“That’s so rom-com,” he remarks with a roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, and if this were a movie, we’d both watch it.”
“We so would.”
I take his hand, guiding him away from the water and toward a nearby park. We find a quiet bench, away from foot traffic, among the grass and the trees.
Fitz speaks first. “What are we going to do after tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“Do you think about it?”
A laugh bursts from me. “Are you kidding me? I think about it all the time. If you were here, I’d make sure no one gave you sex eyes.” I furrow my brow and reconsider. “Well, I can’t make sure no one would do that, because you’re the hottest guy who’s ever walked into my bar, so I’m sure tons of guys would. But I’d damn well make sure everyone knew you were taken.”
His smile is the stuff of legend. It’s like I’ve given him his greatest wish. “You’d go all caveman on me?”
“Fuck, yes.”
“What would you do?” Fitz asks, a little low and dirty. “Like, if we were in public,