Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Also, why was he coming toward them?
Probably just a coincidence . . .
Nope. There he was. Three feet away, rapping the end of his stick against the glass, looking grumpy and intimidating and famous. The fans sitting behind them choked on their tongues, rushing to get their camera apps open. Lissa giggled and waved at her dad and received a gloved one in return. Tallulah tried to wave without uncrossing her arms, but they were now frozen to her person, like a tongue on a flagpole in January.
Burgess pinned her with an unholy frown.
You’re cold, he mouthed at her.
You think? she said back.
He made a questioning gesture.
Fans were going out of their minds, tripping over themselves to converge on their section. Tallulah opened the notepad app on her phone and quickly typed out a memo, standing up and pressing the device to the plexiglass.
Sweatshirts are $75. She added a head exploding emoji for clarity.
His exasperation was plain.
Then Tallulah was looking at his back, because he was skating away, leaving her with the view of the name Abraham stitched on the flipside of his jersey. Over to the bench, where he shouted something at a man who appeared to be a trainer in his Bearcats blue polo shirt. Burgess returned to warmups, though he seemed more distracted than before, continually glancing over in their direction. Just as the buzzer sounded, a man blocked her view of the ice—the Bearcats trainer, if she wasn’t mistaken—holding a bundled up, inside out sweatshirt.
He handed it to her with a curious once-over. “Burgess told me to tell you to please put it on so he can concentrate.”
“Oh.” Tingles danced up her arms and onto her scalp. Pulses were leaping in all kinds of places. She accepted the garment, once again, without unfolding her arms. “Um . . . thank you. Thank him and thank you.”
The man nodded, turning his attention to Burgess’s daughter. “Lissa, right?”
She grinned.
The trainer fist bumped her and off he jogged, curving back toward the bench.
Having no choice now but to uncross her arms and reveal her bullet nips, Tallulah turned the sweatshirt right side out as fast as possible, yanking it down over her head, sticking her arms into the holes and sobbing over the rush of warmth.
It wasn’t only heat that permeated her bones, however. Burgess’s scent did that, too.
She’d never registered his scent before, but she knew it as soon as it wrapped around her like a cool forest waterfall. Simply put, he smelled like winter. Her favorite season.
Gulp.
Out on the ice, the Bearcats were poised to begin, the volume of the crowd rising to an earsplitting level as the referee dropped the puck. Activity exploded in front of Tallulah. Within seconds, giant bodies were crashing up against the glass, the puck moving in a black blur from end to end and back again. Burgess’s reflexes were swift and exact, every one of them with purpose. He wasn’t merely an immovable object, he was fast. Really fast. And she couldn’t figure out how both were possible. One minute, he would be blocking the path to the net, like a stone monument, and the next, he would be cutting through a sea of opponents to slap the puck back toward the opposite end—
“Is there something going on between you and my dad?”
Tallulah’s head moved on a swivel, alarm expanding like a sponge in her stomach. “Is there what?”
Lissa didn’t blink. “Are you my dad’s girlfriend?”
“No.” Tallulah made the denial automatically, because it was the truth. Right? She hadn’t agreed to be Burgess’s girlfriend, despite what he wanted. Sure, something was afoot between them, which would likely prove to be a sexual itch that wanted to be scratched. But they weren’t dating. Nuh-uh. “I’m not your dad’s girlfriend. We’re friends. What I am is I’m your au pair.” She squeezed the girl’s arm. “And I hope we’re friends, too.”
Relief was breaking across Lissa’s features. “Yeah. We are.”
Tallulah exhaled. “Good.”
“Because I can tell he still likes my mom. He was waiting outside the building today and everything, like maybe he misses her. I just wish they would stop being so stubborn.”
Not for the first time, Tallulah’s heart sank at Lissa’s belief that her parents could possibly get back together. It was painfully clear that wasn’t happening, but perhaps a twelve-year-old with a big imagination saw what she wanted to see. Breaking the bad news to Lissa would be overstepping, so she wouldn’t, but she’d mention it again to Burgess later.
“I bet my mom is watching the game on television,” Lissa said, smiling.
Tallulah’s gut churned. Lissa’s mom was already engaged to someone new. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to gently prepare her for the eventual disappointment of her parents moving on?
“Lissa . . .”
“Hey! Oh my God, I’m so late!” Tallulah turned just in time to watch Chloe bounce into her seat with a ripple of blond hair and a pink jersey with the name Gauthier on the back. She dropped her purse and threw her arms around Tallulah’s neck. “I’m so glad you decided to come!”