We sat down at the breakfast bar with our food.
“You’re in a good mood,” he commented. “Did your plan work with Katie?”
“I think so.” I took a bite, slightly burning my tongue, but it was worth it. “This is fantastic.”
He smiled. He liked to hear when he’d done well. I thought life with his ex hadn’t been smooth even before they moved to Edmonton, when apparently things blew up big-time. He didn’t really talk about it, but word got around. I didn’t know what the problem had been with his wife, but if letting him know he was a good cook helped him, I was happy to do it.
“Thanks. Are you two friends now?”
I swallowed. “Pretty sure. She didn’t say it, but she didn’t kick me out, even when I mentioned what went down in high school. And I asked her about a TV show I knew she’d watched, and she talked about it, a lot.”
“Did you watch it?”
I scooped up more food. “Yeah. It was one of the things we did. Even after we broke up, I kept watching the things we used to watch together. People always said we were different, but we had fun even before we started having sex.”
Fitch paused. “Were you… Maybe this is too personal, but were you her first?”
I nodded. “She was mine too.” I stopped eating. “It wasn’t good, what our parents did. We could have been something really special.”
His smile twisted. “Yeah, but it might have gone totally off the rails anyway.”
“You’re talking about yourself?”
“I am, but it applies to a lot of people.”
He’d never mentioned his wife before. Did this mean he wanted to talk? “You’re from Sweden, right?”
“I was born there. My family moved to California when I was ten.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that. That’s why your English is so good?”
“Most Swedes learn English.”
I scraped the last of the food from my plate. “I don’t speak any other languages.”
“Most North Americans don’t.”
That sounded like something that should be fixed. But right now, I wanted to know more about Fitch. “So, was your ex from Sweden too?”
“No, I met her in California. USC.”
So he’d gone the college route. I wasn’t surprised. “You played in school after you were drafted? Were you college sweethearts?”
He pushed his plate away. “I guess you could say that. We met my junior year.” He stopped, and I thought that was it. Then he continued. “I’d been drafted by LA, so we knew I was staying there. I played well, and she enjoyed being a WAG. The women were all pretty tight. But I didn’t want to just play hockey, I wanted the Cup.”
I nodded. I felt the same. Didn’t every hockey player?
“I was in my thirties, a free agent, and LA didn’t look like management was trying that hard to win. My agent got an offer from Edmonton, and they’re a competitive team. Lost to Minnesota just before Minnesota—well, you know.”
Yeah, we knew. They won the Cup by beating us.
“She said she’d give Edmonton a try. Maybe she thought she did, but anything different from LA was a problem. The house, the weather, the other WAGs. We started fighting, about stupid things.”
That would suck.
“She visited LA while I was on a road trip. And then, the next road trip, she went back and stayed there.”
“Sorry about that.”
