Page 111 of Offside

“Merry Christmas, Linda.” He let her hug him and even hugged her back warmly. “I brought wine. And I wasn’t sure what you needed, so.”

He held out the poinsettia.

My mother’s face lit up. “Oh, that’s—you didn’t have to do that.”

“My mother always brings one to holiday gatherings since it’s tradition. It seemed right.”

Mom took it and beamed at him with the same warmth she used for anyone who had done something that moved her without knowing it, and I watched all of this from the hallway doorway, arms crossed, leaning against the frame, my heart thumping, and thinking that this was going to be a very long afternoon.

I caught his eye over my mother’s shoulder. He looked at me, brief, warm, contained, and I looked back and gave him absolutely nothing because that was what this was, that was the agreement, and I was a pro at our arrangement.

He exhaled through his nose. Almost a laugh.

“Come in, come in,” Mom said. “Tom is in the kitchen arguing with the oven.”

“He does that every year,” I said.

“He wins eventually. Maren, take Ryan’s coat and get him a beverage.” My mother disappeared back the way she’d come.

Ryan moved through the entry toward the living room. He passed close to me in the hallway, close enough I could smell the cool air he’d brought in with him and underneath it, cedar, him, and said quietly, “Hi.”

“Hi, solsken,” he whispered. He stared at my mouth for a fleeting moment before saying, “Nice house.”

I laughed. “You’ve been here for Sunday dinner several times.”

“I was always focused on the food.” I stayed where I was for a moment, watching him. “And the pretty woman sitting across from me.”

The blush overtaking me was undeniable, and the knowing smirk from Ryan made it that much worse. I took his coat, hung it up with the rest of ours, and led him into the living room where we would have to proceed to act like coworkers the rest of the day.

My mother made the ham. She made it every year, slow roasted with brown sugar and cloves, the whole house smelling of it by noon, and every year it was the same and every year it was exactly right.

Ryan ate two portions without comment, which was the correct response to win her favor. My father noticed and approved. My mother started refilling his glass before he’d finished asking. Hockey players could eat.

“You’re easy to feed,” my mother said, pleased.

“I grew up with a mother who cooked,” Ryan said. “You learn to appreciate it.”

“What does your mother make for Christmas?”

“Julbord.” He said it the Swedish way, which was not the way I had been pronouncing it in my head since September when I’d first read it in a profile piece I had absolutely not been searching for. His accent when speaking Swedish was fucking sexy and I was trying not to look like a heart eyed emoji every time he spoke. “It’s a lot of things at once. Herring, meatballs, rice pudding. My sister puts a whole almond in the pudding and whoever gets it is supposed to have luck for the year.”

“Did you ever get the almond?”

He was quiet for a beat. “Once. I was twelve. Made the regional team that spring.” He kept his eyes on his plate. “It’s probably a coincidence.”

“Probably,” my father agreed, in the tone that meant he didn’t think it was a coincidence at all.

I watched Ryan talk to my parents the same way I had for months. With the attention I’d developed for all the ways he showed up in a room without trying to. He asked my father a question about the eighty-three Oilers and my father was still answering ten minutes later. He helped my mother carry the bread basket without being asked and came back to the table and sat down and picked up his fork and didn’t make anything of it. He listened when Griffin talked about the defensive changes Calloway had been drilling, nodding at the right moments, adding two words when he had something to add and otherwise staying quiet, because he understood listening was its own presence.

My mother asked him if he missed Minnesota.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Less than I expected.”

“Phoenix grows on you,” my mother said.

“It does.” He glanced across the table. Not at me, toward me, the way attention moved without announcing itself. “Faster than I thought it would. There are a lot of things about this city I love.”

I reached for the bread basket and did not look at him.