She watched me for a moment, then continued. “I get it. It was a shitty thing to think about you, and it was all based on my own insecurities. I know you wouldn’t do that. But, somewhere deep inside, I expected that one day you’d look around and see that you could do so much better.” Her gaze fell to the floor. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in my attractiveness.”
My mouth opened to argue but she continued.
“Just like you don’t have a lot of confidence in your intelligence.”
“But I?—”
She held up her hand. “It’s not true about you. I know, you had a rough time in school, and I’ve told you that doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”
I rubbed my hands through my hair. Katie thought I’d find someone I liked better. Someone more attractive. I didn’t get that, but I always thought she’d find me stupid and maybe get tired of me. My thinking that was because of how I felt about me. Not what she’d done.
So her feelings weren’t because of me messing up. Right?
“Can we make a rule that if I can’t say I’m stupid, you can’t say you’re not pretty? Not beautiful?”
Her nose squinched up, but then she nodded. “Anyway, I apologize for letting my insecurities contribute to what happened back then. I can’t blame it all on you because I could have talked to you and didn’t.”
I dropped back in the chair. “So you’re not pissed anymore?”
A corner of her mouth quirked up. “I’m still pissed about the text thing, but I’m angry with our parents about why it happened, not you.”
That all seemed good. “So that’s what you wanted to talk about?” We could still be friends, and I could work on getting us to more if that was the case.
I’d push for more until she said no. That was how I got to be in the league even though I was one of the shortest players. I was fast, and I was pushy.
“Yeah. We can be friends with a clear slate.”
Tension eased out of my body. And determination filled it up instead.
Chapter 19
Am I Going to Look Stupid?
Josh
I was pretty stoked about that chat, till I wondered if part of it was her making sure we were just friends. The friends thing was good, but could we never move past it?
I sent her some memes and “how are you doing” texts when we were on the road. Friends could do that. I wanted to move on to spending quality time together. But if I made it too date-like, she might say no. If she told me it wasn’t happening, I’d have to respect that, but I wanted as much time to woo her as I could before she had a chance to shut the door on us.
Figuring out when we were both free was also a thing. I played on average three nights a week. Half our games were away, so unless we played our crosstown rivals we were on the road. Katie had a couple of evening classes. She wasn’t the professor, but kind of was so she had to be there.
I had to come up with something we could do together that wasn’t too datey and then find an opportunity when we were both available to do it. I spent a lot of time trying to solve that problem.
Even at practice. Which wasn’t like me. I normally didn’t think of anything else while I was on the ice, but Katie was important. I didn’t get distracted while I was actually doing drills, and definitely not when I was playing. But times like now, when Coach was working with the third line, I sat on the boards, watching with part of my brain while I weighed ideas.
Asking her to dinner would definitely be a date activity. I’d gotten away with it when we were going to the season opener, but that was kind of thanking her for keeping me company at the game. And giving her tickets to watch with someone else when we were playing this badly? Didn’t seem smart. I needed to be sneaky until she remembered how good we were together.
Maybe a group activity. Or something two people did with other people around. The guys I hung out with were my teammates, and did I want them in on it? Not unless Jess was there, so Katie had someone she could relate to. I didn’t know any of Katie’s friends here in Toronto.
If there was a Tolkien film coming out, I could book an advance screening since I was a hockey player and we had fans. But there wasn’t one. There were a few things I could get preferential treatment for, but which of those things would she like? We’d gone to a driving range with Cooper and Callie in the summer, but Katie wasn’t into golf.
“Middleton!” I jerked my mind back to practice and dropped off the boards.
“Yes, Coach.”
“Enough daydreaming. Is that what’s wrong with this team? Got something more important to think about?”
“No, sir.” Didn’t need to give the man more reason to be pissed. It was too late though. We were still losing games, playing like shit, and he was frustrated. I’d given him a chance to vent that, and that was on me. I definitely had to deal with the Katie thing so it didn’t impact my play.
