“I’m not really dressed for that,” she murmured. “Neither are you.”

“True.” He shrugged. “How about pizza?”

She smiled reluctantly at him. “That sounds great.”

They dropped her car off at home and he took her to Mama Sophia’s. Over deep-dish pizza and beer she quizzed him about his hockey career. “I don’t know much about hockey,” she admitted. “But I think it’s very rough.”

“It can be.” He smiled at her. “That’s the fun part.”

“Do you fight?”

He laughed. “I have been known to mix it up a bit. But not often. There was a time back when I was a junior player and I was headed to goonsville. I was big and I liked to protect the other guys, but sometimes I tended to jump in and get physical without thinking about the consequences. I had a great coach, though, who really got me to work on controlling those impulses and to think about things.” He tilted his head. “You should come to a game.”

“Oh. Yeah. Maybe.”

“I’ll get you a ticket. I’ll get you two tickets and you can bring your friend…what’s her name…?”

“Delise.”

“Yeah. She didn’t seem too impressed with me the other night. I think I should make it up to her.”

“It wasn’t you she wasn’t happy with, it was me.” Remi grimaced. “She’s the one who wanted me to find a guy that night and get lucky. Then when I did, she freaked out and got all paranoid that I was leaving with a serial killer.”

Jason choked on a mouthful of beer. “Good to know she has a high opinion of me.”

Remi laughed. “She didn’t even know who you were. She would have felt that way if I was going home with the Pope.”

“Ha. Be glad it was me. You wouldn’t have gotten three orgasms with the Pope.”

Now it was her turn to choke. “I didn’t get three! We were interrupted…”

“Damn. That’s right.” His eyes went even darker. “I guess I owe you one more, then.”

Everything inside her drew up tight and her skin tingled with warmth. Oooh. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Maybe after this…

“When is your next game?” she asked breathlessly, clutching her beer glass.

He grinned. “Sunday afternoon. Two tickets. Okay?”

“I’ll check with Delise.”

He nodded. “I’m number twenty-five. Don’t forget that.”

Remi’s cell phone twittered in her purse. “Damn.” She grabbed her bag and dug around for it. It was Jasmine, sobbing.

“He’s such a jerk!” she cried.

Remi eyed Jason. “Uh…who is, Jasmine?”

“Ethan! Who else!”

Remi sighed and leaned back in the booth. “Why? What happened now?”

Sniffling and choking noises came across the line. “I think he’s cheating on me.”

“Oh.” Remi rolled her eyes. There they went again. She’d been waiting for this.

“So I’m moving back home.”

“What!?” Remi sat up straight.

Jason frowned at her from across the table and mouthed, “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and put her hand to her forehead. “When?”

“Right now. I’m on my way there. Where are you?”

“I’m…out. Having dinner.”

“On a school night?”

Remi rolled her lips in and released them with a pop. “Yes. I’ll be home in a while.”

“Get home quick. Please, Rem.” She sniffled again.

Remi snapped her phone shut, then met Jason’s eyes. “My little sister. She just had a fight with her boyfriend and is moving back home as we speak.”

“Oh.”

She nodded, and finished her beer. “I’d better go. She sounded pretty upset.”

“Damn.”

She huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. Damn.”

He’d already paid the bill with a platinum credit card and stood to help her with her jacket. “We could go back to my place.”

She looked over her shoulder and up at him. Her insides all warm and melty, she really, really wanted to. But her little sister was at home crying.

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice catching. “I can’t tonight.”

He nodded. “That’s okay. Another time.”

Sure. She’d heard that before. He was looking for fun and she was going home to be the responsible, dependable big sister yet again. She’d never hear from him again. She knew how that worked.

He parked in front of her house in his Jeep Liberty. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“That’s okay.” She smiled at him. He reached across and took hold of her chin with his fingers, then leaned over and brushed a kiss across her mouth. A soft, melt-your-insides kind of kiss. She blinked at him.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. About the tickets. Check with Delise.”

She stared at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

Her heart missed a beat, then pitter-pattered embarrassingly. A thrill skittered through her. “Okay. Thanks.”

Remi and Delise found their seats, row twelve right behind the Wolves bench in the Metro Center, home of the Chicago Wolves. “Great seats,” Delise remarked.

“Yeah.” They watched the players skating circles on the ice in the warm-up, shooting randomly at their respective goalies. Music blasted energetically from the speakers and the chilled air in the center smelled of popcorn, sweat and artificial ice. A puck bounced off the boards with a bang that made them jump.

“So…what’s with you and this hockey player?”

“Nothing.”

Delise snorted and tossed her long, auburn curls. “Riiiight. And that’s why he gave you free tickets to the game.”

“We’re just having fun.”

“Mmm. It looked like you were having fun that night. Did I tell you how cute you were in his shirt?”

“Oh, god.” Remi closed her eyes momentarily. “I’m sure the cops appreciated it too.”

“They were having a good laugh about it, I think.”

“Well,it turns out Jason is involved in the Stars for Reading Program at my school this year.”

“You’re kidding.” Delise swiveled her head to look at Remi. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Remi licked her lips. “Yeah, well. I didn’t know it until he showed up at the kickoff rally. He was a last-minute replacement. He acted kind of weird. Sort of brushed me off. Which was okay, because even though he said he’d call, I didn’t expect him to. It was just one night.”

Delise shot her a who-are-you-kidding look.

“But then last week after class he asked me out for dinner.”

“I see.”

Remi frowned at the disapproving tone in Delise’s voice. “I thought you wanted me to have fun.”

“He’s an NHL hockey player.”

“Yeah. So?” Like she didn’t know that and hadn’t already been over that a million times in her own head.

“Professional athletes are…um…trouble.”

Remi scanned the players in white jerseys, the home team Wolves, with their red, brown and black logos, looking for number twenty-five. She couldn’t find him. She frowned. “What do you mean by trouble?”

“They cheat on their wives.” Delise dipped her hand into the bucket of popcorn Remi held on her lap.

“I’m not going to marry him,” Remi said, still looking for Jason. Delise snorted. “He’s probably just being nice to me, giving me tickets, because I’m a teacher at the school he’s volunteering with.” And Remi knew she should just shut up, because the more she went on about how it was nothing, the lamer she sounded. She pressed her lips together and tightened her fingers on the bucket.

A loud horn blew to signal the end of the warm-up and the players slowly started leaving the ice. Remi focused on each player as he skated up to the boards, stopped sharply, then jumped lightly off the ice to walk to the dressing room.

There he was! Number twenty-five. Hard to tell, with all the equipment and the helmet. He was definitely one of the bigger players. When he arrived at the boards, he lifted his head and looked directly at her. He must know where their seats were. She smiled and gave a little wave and he too lifted a big, gloved hand before disappearing.

She shivered and not just from the cold. He’d looked for her. She hadn’t seen him earlier, of course, he’d left the tickets for her at the box office. She wouldn’t see him after, either, unless she wanted to hang around for an hour after the game. She and Delise would likely go have something to eat after.