“DAMN,” ROWANmuttered to himself. If he’d had a more appreciative audience, he might have swooned. “The view might actually be better from the back.”
“Hockey butt,” Taylor said with a dreamy sigh. “And Jordy Shaw certainly has a fine example.”
Intrigued, Rowan arched his eyebrows at his colleague. “You know him?”
“Sweetie, I know you’re not of this native land, but even you can’t have missed his face plastered around the city.”
Now that she mentioned it, he could recall something about Jordy’s face on a blue background showing up on bus shelters and tube platforms. “Huh. She mentioned he played hockey, but I hadn’t realized.” He paused and reviewed the conversation.“Did you sayhockey butt? This is a documented phenomenon?” Why didn’t they putthaton the posters?
“God, yes.” She perched her own behind on the corner of the circulation desk. “Although it’s difficult to appreciate under all the padding they play in. Criminal.”
“Someone should definitely be arrested.” Probably Rowan, for the direction his thoughts had taken while he was at work, where he was around children.
Taylor fanned herself. “I still can’t believe you didn’t recognize him. You were flirting pretty hard for someone who had no idea.”
“I thought he was just a DILF,” Rowan defended, keeping his voice down. Story time was over, but several parents and their charges were still milling around, picking out reading material. “You should’ve heard him with his kid. The world’s cutest mutual admiration society.” He couldn’t help that he had a weakness for that. His own parents had done everything they could to avoid being responsible for raising him.Obviouslyhe had daddy issues. “Everyone in this damned country plays hockey. How was I supposed to know she meantprofessionally? I thought he was a teacher or something.” At least that made sense, given his ease with his kid. And who else got summers off?
Professional hockey players, apparently.
“I mean, heisa DILF,” Taylor allowed.
“Yeah, asugarDILF.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat snapped Rowan out of the conversation, and he smiled winningly at an amused-looking woman and her six-year-old twins. “No, don’t tell me—it’s Devante and… Thea, right?”
The twins nodded, grinning, and Mom’s eyebrows went up in acknowledgment. “Not bad for your first day.”
“I’ll probably get worse as the week goes on,” Rowan said wryly. The maternity leave he was covering would last until theend of August. Five days a week of children’s programming? By Wednesday his head would be so full of kids’ names that he’d be sticking labels on their foreheads. “What’ve you got here—oh, good choices. I love this one.”
He checked out their books and slid them into their book bag—it had a sponge-painted dinosaur that Rowan happened to know was one of the crafts last year’s groups had made. He wouldn’t mind doing something similar. Who didn’t like dinosaurs? Although maybe he could open it up a little. Surely the internet had an assortment of animal-shaped sponges to choose from. Perhaps even a set that included an armadillo?
“Did I miss the introduction of a new sparkly object?” came a familiar voice once the family had left.
“There was a formal introduction,” Taylor answered seriously. “Rowan Chadha, meet hockey butts.”
Rowan pulled himself out of his mental tangent but didn’t bother to mount a defense. “Hello to you too, wench.” He leaned across the desk and swapped cheek kisses with Gem, hisotherbest friend, though on the surface their relationship looked more like frenemies. Rowan blamed their parents, who’d thrown them together on the rare occasion when both sets had been unable to pawn them off on nannies or boarding schools. “What brings you out of your crypt before noon on a Sunday?”
“I’m in search of a slut whose blood to bathe in, obviously,” she answered smoothly, her perfect façade never slipping.
“Well, all of Rowan’s blood is currently in his pants—”
“Oi!” Rowan protested. There could be delicate ears around. He shot Taylor a quelling look. “There will be no bathing of anything in my pants.” He paused and reconsidered. “That came out wrong. Let’s start over.” He took a deep breath. “Gem, darling. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
He realized he should’ve sensed the trap when Gem lifted a dark purple envelope in her perfectly manicured fingers. “I wanted to secure your RSVP in person, of course.”
Rowan felt his heart drop into his pants along with all his blood. “Another one?”
“Oh honestly, don’t make that face. You know you love playing Ken for me.” One of Gem’s more sadistic traits was the enjoyment she got out of forcing Rowan to dress up in her dead husband’s tuxedos and accompany her to various social functions. Rowan hated the clothing, but he had to admit that it was entertaining to see Gem navigate the highest echelons of Toronto society to secure funding for one social project or another, only to have her turn around once they were alone and absolutely excoriate their hypocrisy.
Besides, the food was always good. Not to mention the wine.
“What’s-his-face isn’t going to be there, is he?” What’s-his-face was old enough to be Rowan’s grandfather and richer than Midas, and he was under the mistaken impression that this made him the most interesting person in the world and that he deserved a captive audience.
Rowan had no idea why he’d been selected for this dubious honor, but inevitably he spent these social interactions devising increasingly ludicrous ways to escape, from ducking under a catering cart until a server pushed him away to leaping from the roofMission Impossiblestyle.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gem said, “he’s the fourth-richest man in the city. Of course he’s going to be there.”
Rowan understood that funds had to be raised from people who had access to them. However—“Can’t you have the third-richest challenge him to a cage match or something?”
