Page 265 of Handsome Devil
“You gave the guy who cleaned the hockey rink a house?”
“He lived in a… whatchamacallit?” He snapped his fingers, or tried to. “One of those underground… downstairs…”
“A basement?”
“Yes. A basement. He lived in a basement in a really bad building in a bad part of town. With three kids. And no mom for his kids. Lex told me so. He used to smoke outside the rink and talk to him while we were in practices. He drove the Zamboni and cleaned the ice, and he cleaned the locker room. He left his kids with the lady upstairs who watched them and took them to school, while he took the bus to work, and he cleaned the rink so the rich kids could play hockey. That wasn’t good. So I bought him a house.”
“When you were seventeen?”
“No. When I was older.”
I just stared at him.
“My team at Valhalla took care of it. They invented a prize… a giveaway thing… through one of our companies and told him he won the house.” He seemed lost in the memory for a moment, his eyes glassy. “They told me he cried. I think that was the only good thing I ever did with my life.”
Holy shit. My eyes were watering again.
I blinked it back. “You gave me the agency,” I reminded him.
His eyes snapped to mine. “I should never have stood in the way of your dream.” His gaze dropped to my lips and stayed there. “That was a very bad thing to do.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because I could.” He teetered over so far that his nose touched my neck. “You smell like all the best things.”
I pushed him back again, a bit. “How much did you drink tonight?”
“Lots. Johnny got a room upstairs.” He pointed up with his finger. “There was a lot of up and down, up and down.” He whirled his finger around in a woozy circle. “Hotel room. Ballroom. Hotel room. Ballroom.”
Well. Maybe that explained why I hadn’t run into him until the end of the night.
“Did you know I’d be at this party?”
“I hoped so. I dressed up like an angel for you.”
“What?”
“You called me the devil. I wanted to be your angel or something?” He smeared a hand over this face. “But I couldn’t find you. I looked for you. I couldn’t find you anywhere. So… I just kept drinking.”
“You looked for me?”
“Johnny said you were dressed as Xena. And Lex said you were Jane somebody. Shane said he thought he saw you dressed as that girl from The Witsler. The Wilcher.The Witcher.”
“You tried to find me?”
“I couldn’t find you,” he repeated, his eyelids low as he leaned toward me again. It didn’t even seem to be on purpose. The liquor had fucked with his center of gravity or something. I wasn’t even sure how he wasn’t falling over at that strange angle.
Then he kept folding right over. His seatbelt shot back into its holder as he unclipped it and he went down, right in my lap.
“Uh…”
“Sorry.” He spread across me and twisted, awkwardly, rolling onto his back and trying to find room for his legs. He stretched slowly, like a hot, sexy, drunken cat. “Your lap is soft,” he mumbled. “I’m so fucking tired.”
He gazed up at me. My boobs were kind of in his face, but he wasn’t looking at those. His gaze cleared a little as he focused on my face. “I love your face.”
I looked out the window. “My plastic surgeon would appreciate it.”
When he didn’t reply, I looked at his face again.
