“Cheers,” Diane said.
They all touched glasses.
Apparently Nate and Aubrey’s chemistry was as good in the kitchen as it was in the bedroom and the studio. Conversation over dinner was mild and pleasant and didn’t at all make Aubrey want to stage a freak accident with the carving knife just to escape. But the wholesomeness of it carried its own kind of hurt. His own family dinners had never felt like this. When he was very young, they’d been nice enough, but were they close? The specifics of his younger years were lost on him, and by the time he was twelve, the rift between him and his parents felt insurmountable.
But maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe things with Nate weren’t either.
Chapter Sixteen
“WE STILLon for tonight?”
Nate left his stick leaning against the arena wall outside the dressing room and focused on Caley. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I know you have your parents waiting. I want to make sure they don’t feel like I’m taking you away from them.”
No danger of that. Nate got along well with his parents, but after four days together, they needed some time apart. “Trust me. They’ve been here since Monday. We’re all very happy doing our own thing today.”
Caley smiled. She was obviously still riding the high of her beautiful third-period goal, a wraparound which the goalie, a former pro who now coached at the college level, didn’t see until three seconds after the puck hit the back of the net. “Great. Usual place, or did you want to try the new place the next block over?”
“The usual. Unless the health department’s finally closed it down,” he joked.
Twenty minutes later they met up again in the quiet back booth of a bar that would get progressively rowdier as Friday night wore on.
“So, how was your Thanksgiving?” Caley asked, accepting her drink from the server with a smile of thanks.
Nate strangled a laugh thinking about it. First he’d bitten off more than he could chew with the cooking, and then he’d had his uncomfortable realization about Aubrey, and then the gratefulness speeches…. “Nearly averted disaster?” he suggested. “Next year remind me I don’t need to cook a whole turkey and stuffing and three side dishes plus salad, hors d’oeuvres, and dessert for four people.”
Caley wiped a bit of something pink and frothy from the corner of her mouth. “Honestly, you managed all that? I’m impressed you’re not still sleeping it off.”
“Ah, well, I had help,” he admitted, realizing his mistake only when Caley said, “Wait a minute, four people? I thought it was just you and your parents.”
“Uh,” he said.
Caley narrowed her eyes and leaned across the table with her arms crossed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your recent disclosure to Kelly that you’re not interested in dating seriously right now?”
Damn it.He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks again. He hadn’t blushed this much since he was a teenager.
“So there’s a mystery man! I have to admit, you’ve been skating a little looser for a few weeks. Morgan said you must’ve met someone, but I thought maybe just having the divorce over with….”
He might as well tell her—except for one thing. “Promise me you won’t tell Kelly.”
Caley recoiled, blinking like he’d slapped her. “What? I tell her everything. Why wouldn’t I tell her this?”
Nate closed his eyes. “Because it’s Aubrey.”
There. It was off his chest. And maybe, unlike with his parents, he could tell Caley the whole truth. At least then he wouldn’t have to suffer in silence.
“All right,” Caley said. “Start at the beginning.”
Over the next ten minutes, Nate filled her in on everything—from the first frantic night in Winnipeg to the lazy Monday morning that had led to the whole façade. “So now I’ve realized that I have feelings for him, but I already asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend to my parents, and changing the rules now would make me an asshole. We couldn’t date openly anyway, because the show is on the bubble and Jess specifically said don’t change anything. And if the show falls apart because we couldn’t keep it in our pants, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Caley shifted in her seat, biting her lip, but whatever was on her mind, she kept it to herself. “Have you considered talking to Aubrey?”
Nate made a face. “That would be the mature, rational thing to do.”
“So, no?” She raised her eyebrows. “I hate to tell you, but if you think talking to him about quote-unquote ‘changing the rules now’ makes you an asshole, not talking to him at all would be considerably worse.”
