Page 18 of Puck Me Twice

Squinting at him, I try to understand. “What do you mean?”

But he shakes his head. “Do you want to get back with him?”

My stomach turns.

Do I?

No.

Not even a little bit.

The revolted expression on my face makes Sven crack a smile.

“So, until further notice, we’re dating,” he says quietly. “Is that going to be an issue for you? With your job?”

It is. It absolutely is. They’re sticklers about protocols, especially when it comes to players, so I have to rectify it quickly, especially now that Robby thinks Sven and I are dating. Especially since Sven kissed my cheek and held my hand in the bowels of the arena around other players.

This isn’t going to be easy to keep quiet now, and I have no idea if it’s going to be okay. But I’m committed now. And I’m not sure how to reconcile that commitment with the knowledge that I did it, fully aware that it’s against the rules.

It’s like Sven scrambled all the edges of my brain.

Again.

“I’ll figure it out,” I say instead. “There’s—it’s fine.”

“Are we ever going to talk about what happened?” Sven asks, cocking his head. “Or are we going to pretend it never happened for another nine years?”

I gulp. “So you do remember.”

“Vividly.” He presses his lips together, then looks away. “I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“You haven’t.” I think back to when I first started with the team. “You never mentioned it, so I assumed you forgot or just didn’t care.”

Sven shrugs. “Neither did you. Did you forget? Did you not care?”

All I remember was that I didn’t want the team to think I was trying to sleep my way to a job—or worse, use the job to launch myself into the bed of a player. I wanted to get by on my own merit. Besides, he was seeing someone when I started—I was hardly about to bring up our one-night stand when he was happily committed to another woman.

“We might have to pretend for a while,” I start slowly. “We can break up in a few weeks.”

“That’s fine.” He gestures to the sandwich. “You need to eat.”

How did he know I skipped lunch today? Unwrapping the sandwich, I pick out the tomatoes ruining it before taking a hearty bite. He remembered I love pesto.

“You won’t be able to go out with anyone else for a little while,” I warn him. “As long as we’re pretending…”

Sven shakes his head. “I understand what you’re asking of me.”

“There won’t be any problems with that?” I lift my brows. “Any… other partners who may come forward?”

He snorts. “Yeah, that’s not an issue.”

“What, are you, like, a monk or something?”

His eyes soften. “Something like that,” he admits. “I don’t go out much.”

“When was your last relationship?”

“When was yours?” He counters.