Back Check (Aces Hockey #4)(55)

 

She grinned. "Ah well."

 

"Does the costume involve cleavage and a short skirt?"

 

"Of course."

 

"I'm in, then. Uh … why do you have that?"

 

"Oh my God, one year Daniel wanted us to go to a Halloween party dressed as Peter Pan and Tinker Bell."

 

Tanner covered his eyes with his hand. "Please don't tell me you had kinky sex after."

 

"No. That was the night we broke up."

 

"Ah." He removed his hand and sat back as the server arrived to pour their wine. When Tanner had tasted it, given his approval, and their glasses were full, he said, "Tell me about these three yahoos you were engaged to."

 

"Yahoos?" She gave her wine a little swirl, inhaled the bouquet, and then sipped. "This wine is amazing."

 

He lifted an eyebrow.

 

"They were nice guys."

 

"Nice guys. Huh."

 

"Do you think I would want to marry someone who wasn't? Honestly, they were all great. Successful, smart, fun."

 

"What was wrong with them, then? Why didn't you marry them?"

 

She dropped her gaze. "I didn't love them enough to marry them. I thought I did. I wanted to." She sighed. "But I couldn't go through with it."

 

He regarded her thoughtfully across the table, nodding.

 

She wanted to change the subject. "So! Next week I'm doing a party for Sidney. Jared's, uh … "

 

"Baby mama?"

 

She laughed. "Yeah. It should be good. She redesigned the drinks menu at Belmondo. I went over to her place last week to meet with her. She handed over a bunch of information, things she'd already done, and I'm taking over planning the party for her. She has another one coming up I'll probably do too."  

 

"That's great."

 

Dinner was lovely. The food was great, the wine delicious, and she and Tanner talked and talked about all kinds of things-memories from college, people they both knew, even a little politics, which they'd argued about in college. Surprisingly, it seemed now that Tanner made more money, he'd become more economically conservative and they had similar views, though she liked to push his buttons about taxation.

 

"Do you still like figure skating?" he asked.

 

"Yes." She grinned at him. "Do you still hate it?"

 

"Yeah." They'd argued about that in college, when she'd wanted to watch figure skating competitions, loving the artistry, grace, and strength of the skaters. "It's not a real sport if you win by being judged instead of scoring. Guys twirling around in jumpsuits with a sock stuffed in them. Doing all those ridiculous moves, like camel toes."

 

She choked on her wine. "Not camel toes! Flying camel spins."

 

"Whatever." He waved a hand, but his lips twitched. "Actually, we had a figure skater come and work with us. It's not that easy."

 

Tanner had also changed his views on same-sex marriage. Back in college, they'd argued more than once about that, and now they were on the same page.

 

"Are there any gay hockey players?" she asked him.

 

"Sure there are."

 

"Who?"

 

He gave her a crooked smile. "I don't know."

 

"Then how do you know there are some?"

 

"There has to be … right? There are over six hundred players in the league. The law of averages says there has to be."

 

She smiled at him. "Is this the same guy who told me there could never be gay hockey players?"

 

To her surprise, his cheeks flushed a little and he dropped his gaze. "Yeah, well, I was young and stupid. Okay, in all seriousness, there are guys I know are gay. They're not out, and nobody talks about it. But we know."

 

"Why aren't they out?"

 

He shook his head slowly. "Much as the league has tried to change the culture and other pro athletes have come out, their experiences doing that haven't necessarily been positive. It's a tough thing. And I don't think it's necessarily homophobia. I wouldn't have an issue with it and I'm pretty sure every guy on the team would say the same thing. But you know … the dressing room is a different kind of place. The guys are talking about women and hookups, and someone who's into men isn't gonna feel completely comfortable talking about boning the hot dude he's seeing."

 

Katelyn smiled but nodded. "I get that."

 

Yes, Tanner was the same guy she'd fallen in love with back in college, but some of his bad-boy attitude and hard edges had softened with maturity. And she liked that too. A lot.

 

Their walk back to Tanner's condo was leisurely, the evening relatively mild for February. Inside the lobby, he paused and looked down at her. "Come up?"