Chapter 8
The place Alex took them was off the beaten track; small and in a neighborhood where Jo would never have imagined seeing hockey players or any kind of meathead guys at all. Weren’t sportsmen all about sports bars? Because it certainly was not a sports bar. There wasn’t a TV in sight, and the restaurant was empty.
Completely empty.
Had Alex pulled some kind of rich guy’s trick where he’d paid everyone off? That sounded way too much like the kind of thing that was a hundred kinds of douche, and for a second she balked at the door.
“Where is everyone?” She gestured at the ten or so tables, all set for the evening with crystal and silver and flowers on each one. The handwritten menu board showed it was the kind of intriguingly formal/informal place that she loved, where the food was good but the service and atmosphere were relaxed.
“They don’t open at lunchtime,” he said, and helped her off with her jacket, although she fought him a little, because she wasn’t sure she was staying.
“Then why are we here?”
Again, it smacked of elitism. She didn’t like it; she’d spent her entire adult years escaping privilege like that. Rose would have loved it; she thrived on that whole rich kid thing, hated that Jo was in her poky apartment when she could have better. But Jo? She immediately felt out of place.
“I want to go,” she said, firmly, so as to leave no room for interpretation.
But Alex didn’t hear her. He was crossing to the bar area, where small spotlights illuminated beautiful wine bottles and created cascades of rainbows. He banged on the counter, and a man walked out from behind the bar, his nose in a book, glasses on his forehead, all kind of balanced there and defying gravity.
“You made it,” he exclaimed, and reached over to bump fists with Alex.
Alex turned to Jo. “Come meet Fly,” he said, and beckoned her over.
She still wasn’t sure she was staying, but the “Fly” person caught her eye and gave a gap-toothed smile that she couldn’t resist. He was cute, and his hair messy like he’d stuck his finger in a socket. He held out a hand.
“You must be the poor woman who volunteered,” he said as they shook hands.
“Volunteered?” Jo asked, confused.
“I didn’t actually tell her,” Alex said. “Not yet. We got… We had other things to talk about in the car.”
“I’m Marty Anderson. Marty, hence McFly, which led to just Fly,” he said, and gripped Jo’s hand solidly.
“Fly was also because he was the fastest blueliner in the game.”
“Oh, you’re a hockey player,” Jo said.
Fly tapped his teeth, where the gap was obvious. “What gave it away?”
“Best D-man I played with,” Alex announced. “But don’t go telling Ryan that.”
“You know damn well that Ryan’s better than I ever was,” Fly said, and placed his notebook flat on the counter. “So tell her already,” he said to Alex.
“Fly asked me to volunteer to taste some options on his menu. You up for that?”
“Do you have any allergies?” Fly asked.
“None,” Jo said. She realized she’d relaxed in the time it took to meet Fly and see Alex grinning at the other man. “And I would love to be a guinea pig.”
He came out from behind the bar and offered an arm. “Come this way, then, beautiful—your pasta awaits.”
“Hands off my girl,” Alex grumped good-naturedly, but he made no move to insert himself between Jo and Fly. Instead, he went to the door and locked it and followed them as they moved.
She expected them to stop at a table, but instead they went into the kitchen, right in the heart of the place. At a counter, there were two stools set up, and Alex gestured for her to choose one. She sat down and waited for Alex to take the other stool. Instead he turned and opened a vast fridge.
“What do you want to drink?” he asked. “Wine, juice?”
“Water!” Fly interjected. “Water to start.”
Alex pulled out two bottles and placed them on the counter before taking the stool opposite.
“I show you all the best places,” he said, and saluted Jo with his bottle.
Jo unscrewed the cap and filled her glass, then saluted him back. “This is going to be good,” she said.
Thinking that he’d done something pretentious had set her back a little. Finding out he was doing a favor for a friend and had thought she’d be up for it was enough for that worry to vanish. Still, that gave way to thinking about things from the car that had sent her into a tailspin. The way he’d stared into her eyes when his fingers had caressed her, and she’d been so turned on. If he’d carried on much further, she could have thrown caution to the wind and gone back to his place in an instant.
A woman doesn’t give away too much. Her mother’s voice was a constant moral compass that she couldn’t shake however hard she tried.
“This is fennel, orange and watercress salad with thyme vinaigrette,” Fly said, placing two plates in front of them.
He hovered, looking anxiously at her and Alex, and she felt the pressure to say and do all the right things. What if she hated it? What kind of hockey player, all grunt and energy, could focus on the delicacies of balancing taste and texture? She smiled at him, then looked at the plate. Alex was taking it very seriously, contemplating his plate and making little comments.
“Balanced and informal,” he said.
Jo forked a little into her mouth, already thinking about what she was going to say, how she was going to word her comments with the tact and diplomacy she’d learned at her mom’s knee.
Then the combination of textures and flavors hit her taste buds, and all she actually managed to do was let out a low groan of pleasure. When she looked up, Fly was grinning, and Alex looked like he’d been hit in the face with a baseball, appearing dazed, his mouth open.
“What?” Jo asked.
“You liked it,” Fly said.
“You really liked it,” Alex added. He was looking at Jo like she was the next course, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. It was only Fly’s cough that interrupted them.
“Courgette carpaccio with borlotti beans, peppers and capers,” he announced. He whisked out the half eaten orange salad and replaced it with a new one. Part of Jo wanted to demand that he return the rest of the zesty goodness, but she didn’t want to come off as needy. Anyway, the new dish was just as stunning, as was the pork he delivered next, the chicken ravioli, and the dessert taster plate, which had her in heaven.
And through it all, she and Alex talked about everything and anything.
Fly had joined them, with a carafe of bitter coffee and tiny thin mints, and he was encouraging her to ask all kinds of embarrassing questions.
“Did he ever tell you about the time we were in LA for a Kings game, and he was this green rookie, and when he got back to his room all the furniture was in the bathroom? Like, all of it. The mattress, the rest of the team had taken the frame apart, the cabinets. Even the TV.”
Alex shook his head ruefully. “My first road game and I was sharing with this other new guy, and we got into the room and it was all gone. To this day, I don’t know how the team got all of it in the bathroom.”
“What about the time he fell over coming onto the ice?” Fly asked, all innocence, as he was pouring more coffee for Jo.
“This is our first date, man,” Alex said, and his grumpy was showing again, even if it was countered by his smile. “I’m trying to impress her.”
Fly ignored him, waving away the protest and talking right to Jo. “So he’s on maybe his fifth game, just off the back of a two-goal road game, and he’s all super psyched, and the crowd was chanting his name.”
“They weren’t chanting my name,” Alex interjected.
Fly huffed. “So they’re chanting his name, and he comes running out, best you can on the blades, and he jumped on the ice, only he falls over thin air—”
“The edge of the rink, asshole.”
“Like I said, thin air, and he goes sprawling ass-over-head onto the ice, sliding out to center circle, and the worst was he had the captain right behind him, and the poor bastard never stood a chance, falling right on top of our boy here.” Fly pulled out his phone. “Look, I have it in my favorites.”
Alex reached out for the phone, but Fly was taller, holding it higher, and they were fighting, so Jo didn’t see the video. She opened her own browser and typed in Alex’s name and the keywords “falling”, “ice”, and “captain”.
“I’ve got it,” she said, and pressed play.
Alex groaned, but he did lean over to watch it upside down; clearly he wasn’t too worried about being teased.
Whoever had posted it had put the whole thing to music, and it was funny—she couldn’t help but laugh, covering her mouth with her hand to keep from embarrassing herself.
“I’m hitting the head,” he finally said with resignation, and vanished through the kitchen door.
Big, burly Fly took his seat and immediately leaned in.
“So, you like Alex, then,” he began with a questioning quirk to his eyebrow. “Because he’s one of the good guys, you know. Don’t believe everything you read or see on the internet.”
“Does he need defending?” Jo asked curiously. Alex seemed like the kind of guy who had a handle on life and was confident in his own skin.
Fly sighed noisily. “He was called up for the expansion team, captain of the franchise, raking in the money, you know what I mean? He’s an easy target.”
That sounded more like a warning than anything, and she stiffened in her seat.
“I can assure you that I’m not after his money,” she said, ice dripping from each syllable.
Fly looked shocked and reared back in his seat. “Jesus. No. I didn’t mean that. Fuck, I meant… Shit…”
“Cursing isn’t explaining it any differently,” Jo said when his voice trailed away.
“I just meant, before you, he had all these girls who wanted nothing more than the kudos of banging the captain. Or, you know, we’re used to it…puck bunnies, that kind of shit. Sorry, I don’t mean to keep cursing…”
“I’m a rookie firefighter. I’ve heard worse.”
He nodded then, and cleared his throat. “See, that there is why you’re nothing like the girls he’s had in his life. You’re real, and you work, and you don’t know much about hockey, and most of all, you like my food, and you ate all of it.”
Fly was defining her because she’d eaten his food? That was a new one, but she wasn’t going to argue. She was real. A real woman with her own issues, her own neuroses, and with a need for a partner who was just as real.
“Stop right now,” Alex said from the door.
Fly looked guilty. “I was just—”
“Seriously, Fly, no more embarrassing stories, right?” He hip-checked Fly off the stool and sat back down. “How will I ever get Jo to agree to a second date if she thinks I can’t skate, let alone walk in a straight line?”
Jo reached over and patted Alex on the back of the hand. He swiftly grasped it so he could hold her hand across the counter, and she didn’t snatch it back.
“I get it must be difficult,” she began seriously. “You being the captain and not being able to skate.”
He squeezed her hand. “Oh ye of little faith. Next date, skating,” he announced.
Jo shook her head. “I really can’t skate. I’ll kill myself. Or you; I’ll end up killing you, and the team will end up killing me for killing the captain.”
Alex lifted her hand, pressed his lips to the back of it, and smiled that devastatingly gorgeous smile of his.
“Skating it is, then.”