“So do you.”
“Yes, but I’mAmerican. I’m allowed to make fun of Torontonians.”
Rowan gasped theatrically. “I’m telling the internet. Wait till your fanbase finds out. I bet they take you off that billboard.”
Jordy popped a piece of cheese into his mouth. “They can’t do that,” he said smugly. “It’s in my contract.”
Rowan cackled. “Shut up, it is not. You are not vain enough to put that in there.”
Even if he was, he wouldn’t have. He got enough attention already. But Rowan didn’t have to know that. “My agent did it,” he lied. “Sells more jerseys. Gotta get her cut.”
NHL players didn’t get a cut of the sale of jerseys with their names on them. Rowan didn’t have to know that either.
Rowan narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t call Jordy on the lie. Instead he nudged him in the side again and said, “I guess you have to pay for all this fancy cheese somehow.”
Jordy nodded seriously. “Yes. You’ve figured me out. It’s all about the cheese.”
“It’s good cheese,” Rowan agreed, managing to keep a straight face, but his eyes—brown, warm, and framed by ridiculously long lashes—danced.
Jordy grabbed his own bite, wondering why he suddenly couldn’t look away. “I always tell my agent, make sure you get those cheese bonuses.”
He might have kept looking—and then who knew what would’ve happened—but the ad break ended, and Jordy needed to pay attention if he wanted to continue his winning streak. He was highly suspicious of the sister-in-law, but he didn’t want to call it too early in case a better suspect presented themself.
“It’s totally the sister-in-law,” Rowan announced. Damn it.
“What makes you say that?”
“She’s totally being shady. She even did a classic ‘bad guy lying’ eye thing just now.”
“I think it’s the husband,” Jordy said, even though he didn’t. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t pick the same person.
Rowan scoffed. “The husband is a total red herring. Why else would Ersatz Canadian Catherine think badly of him so quickly? Obviously it’s because he’s a total douchebag, deserving of her contempt but not actually a murderer.”
“Oh, obviously,” Jordy agreed with a hint of sarcasm. He agreed with Rowan’s assessment, but honest support for their theories wasn’t any fun.
“Yes, obviously. Just you wait and see. In fact, I bet they’re going to figure out his innocence in this scene.”
They did. Two minutes later, the husband was cleared and the crime-fighting characters were looking for new suspects. Jordy was totally losing the bet tonight.
Still, somehow, as Rowan crowed in victory and delight, his body animated and his eyes sparkling, Jordy couldn’t muster up his usual disappointment over losing a game. Rowan’s glee and pride in victory were too uplifting.
Besides, considering the penalty for losing was more snacks andCSIwith Rowan, Jordy couldn’t be mad about it.
LEAVING THEhouse without Kaira in the morning felt surprisingly weird. Rowan said goodbye to her and Jordy after breakfast and headed off to the library. So far he’d had a string of half days during which he either dropped her off somewhere or left her after lunch.
Work at the library was odd now too, not just because Rowan’s last day was approaching but because he wasn’t used to having secrets. Sure, he kept some things hidden, but for the most part, he liked to talk with colleagues. But that felt awkward and taboo right now. Sharing details about his life meant talking about a kid who wasn’t his and her famous dad. Rowan wasn’t naïve—he knew people might want stories about Jordy and Kaira to feel closer to a professional athlete they thought they knew. So while he’d mentioned moving in with a friend of Gem’s who had given him a part-time nanny job and a place to live, Rowan was scant on the details, and Taylor didn’t know what to make of a Rowan who didn’t share stories about his off-day adventures.
Not that they’d have to navigate the changed dynamic much longer. He had a week left here, and though his boss tried, she’d gently but firmly told him she couldn’t make money appear fornew staffing positions, no matter how much she wanted to keep him.
Sighing, Rowan finally unclipped his seat belt—the car was part perk of the new job, part necessity of the new home address—and got out of the car. Time to stop woolgathering.
He considered his dwindling days as he made bulletin-board signs for the autumn programming he wouldn’t be around to run.
One upshot to the change in employment status would be a freer schedule. Trying to work two jobs, one of which was very demanding, left little room for anything else, like job hunting. Rowan had let his research slow to a crawl the past few weeks, but he couldn’t keep putting it off, especially once Kaira started school. Rowan’s days would soon feel a lot emptier between nine and three if he didn’t find gainful employment to fill the hours.
Ugh, that made him sound like a bored housewife. He couldn’t decide which part of that was worse—thinking it, or the guilt he felt for thinking it. Rowan might’ve actually had a nice childhood if either of his parents had stayed at home. And he certainly didn’t think the stay-at-home parents he met were doing less than their share of the labor.
No, a quiet part of him said. He knew which part of it was worst. It was thewifepart. Jordy wasn’t accepting applications for that job. And Rowan didn’t want to apply, no matter that his libido and his heart seemed to agree that a certain sweet, hot dad would make the perfect partner.
