too close, and our chests are practically touching. He lifts his hand and rubs my cheek with his thumb. I think I hold my breath because I’m not sure what’s going on. Maybe the champagne is just fucking with my head. “I was going to say that you’re perfect, but thank you for thinking I’m perfect, gorgeous.” He winks at me, walking away to the stairs. I put the glass of mimosa down as I follow him.
When I get to the top of the stairs, there is another living room that leads to an outside patio, but I don’t stop there. My eyes roam to the hallway and what looks like a game room. “Oh my gosh,” I say, looking at the framed jerseys all along the walls around the room. “Are all these yours?”
He nods his head. “This one was when I was drafted.” He points at the one all the way at the far end. “That one was the first jersey I wore in the NHL,” he says, pointing at the next one. I walk toward the wall and start going from one to the other. “What are these?” I ask him of the wall of pucks all in separate glass boxes.
“That was from my first goal ever.” He points at the box on the top with a smile. “I was five, and my mother kept it.” I look at him as he stands next to me.
“You, Miller,” I say to him, standing in front of him. “You are definitely unexpected.”
“Gorgeous,” he says, stepping closer to me. “We have just begun.” I’m waiting for him to lean in closer to me, waiting for him to kiss me. This is it, but am I going to let him kiss me? Do I really want to do that and confuse him and lead him on? This can’t go anywhere; my mind is fighting with itself. “Now let’s go start dinner,” he says, walking past me and toward the stairs, leaving me here suddenly wishing that he fucking kissed me.
I follow him down the stairs, and he points at the stool in front of the island. “Sit,” he tells me, and I raise an eyebrow at him. “Please.”
“That’s better,” I say and sit on the stool. He walks over and gets my glass and puts it in front of me. “What is on the menu?”
“Steak,” he says. Walking over to the fridge, he takes the steak out and puts it on the counter while grabbing other things.
“Do you want me to help?” I ask him.
“Are you kidding me?” He laughs, turning to grab the bowls. “You paid twenty-five thousand dollars for me, so the least I can do is cook for you.”
I laugh now. “I mean, for twenty-five K, I think you’re right.” I watch as he marinates the meat.
“What’s your favorite music?” he asks, grabbing a remote, and I shrug. “Michael Buble it is.”
I laugh when his voice comes out of the speakers. “Are you trying to seduce me?” I ask as he grabs something else and chuckles.
“Gorgeous,” he says, “if I was trying to seduce you, I would put on Barry White.” He looks up at me and winks.
I laugh so hard my stomach hurts, but I don’t say anything as he prepares the steak and then starts on the salad. “Do you always cook?”
“When I have the time, yeah,” he says. “It helps me de-stress. I can just focus on the food and not stress about anything else.”
“Is it hard to go from a hockey player to a normal human?” I ask, wanting to know everything about him.
“Well, I think I’m a human, to begin with, and being a hockey player is just my job.” He walks over and opens a bottle of red wine and grabs a clean wine glass. He pours me some wine and smiles at me. “My job is just under the microscope.”
“And when you fuck up, the whole world sees,” he says. “I mean, if other people fuck up at work, reporters aren’t there shoving a microphone in your face to ask you why you fucked up so bad.”
I never actually thought about that. “I guess I do it also then.” Taking a sip of my wine, I say, “I get on the air the day after and …”
“You discuss what we did wrong, but”—he looks up at me—“you also discuss what we are doing to fix things or not.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Not always.” I swallow the wine down.