Page 81 of Offside

Griffin had wandered off toward the bar ten minutes earlier and come back with company. A woman in a red dress, dark hair in careful waves, who he'd apparently fallen into conversation with while waiting on his drink and who he was now steering toward our table.

"Ryan," he said, dropping back into his seat. "This is Tiffany. Tiffany, Ryan. He's the captain."

He said it like he was handing me a gift.

Across the table, Maren was deep in a story with Paige, hands going, Paige laughing. She hadn't clocked any of it.

Tiffany slid into the empty chair beside me and turned the full force of her attention on me. "The captain," she repeated in a purr that made me deeply uncomfortable. "I read about you."

"Hey," I said, and reached for my water.

She was talking before I'd set it down. About the season, about a power play sequence she'd apparently rewound twice, about how she'd never met a hockey player before but had always wanted to. Her knee found mine under the table. I shifted. She didn't.

A few minutes in, Maren stood up. "Bathroom," she said to Paige, and headed toward the back. She passed close enough behind my chair that I caught the scent of her, and she didn't look down at Tiffany or at me, and I couldn't tell if she'd seen the situation at the table or simply hadn't registered it yet.

I made myself nod at the right places while Tiffany talked, and the whole time I was watching the bathroom hallway and doing the math on how long Maren had been gone.

I was doing great.

Tiffany's hand moved to my thigh under the table. She leaned in closer, her chin near my ear, and she smelled like expensive perfume and ambition.

"I've been watching you play all season," she said. "You're not from here, right? Minnesota?"

"Originally." I shifted my leg. Her hand stayed where it was.

Across the table, Cole had gone completely still. He caught my eye over Tiffany's shoulder.

Help.

I couldn't make a scene. Not here, not with Griffin beaming about it from across the table and half the roster watching, not without it becoming the kind of story that got back to Maren sideways, secondhand and distorted, and could hurt worse than the truth.

So I sat there and counted the minutes until I could end the conversation without looking like a total asshole.

Griffin was up at the bar again, and when I glanced over he caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. Big, dorky, delighted with himself, like he'd personally engineered the best night of my life.

He had no idea.

The thought of Maren coming back and seeing any of this, Tiffany's knee against mine and her brother beaming about it, made my stomach churn.

I looked at the bathroom hallway. It opened.

Maren came out pulling her hair back over one shoulder, phone going into her pocket, and eyes moving toward the table.

And she saw it. Tiffany pressed close, Tiffany's shoulder against mine, her hand now on my arm, the whole shape of the situation.

It lasted less than a second. Her eyes went flat and her chin came up a fraction and she crossed the room and dropped into her chair beside Paige and said something that made Paige laugh, and she did not look at me again.

Paige looked at me. Once, level, and then away.

I moved my leg again. Tiffany followed it.

The next ten minutes felt like thirty and were the longest of my professional life. Griffin came back and stayed standing, holding court about Calgary's defensive line to anyone who'd listen. Theo argued with him about it. Cole tried twice to redirect the conversation toward me and got nowhere. Tiffany kept talking, kept touching, kept finding reasons to lean in, and every time she did it I moved and every time I moved she closed the distance again like it was a game we'd agreed to play. Which we had not.

And Maren sat six feet away and laughed at things Paige said and did not look at me one single time.

I knew what that cost her. That was the part I couldn't stand. She was doing exactly what we'd agreed she'd do, holding up her end perfectly, and it was costing her something I could see from across a table and couldn't say a word about.

"So," Tiffany said finally, her knee still against mine. "Are you seeing anyone? Because I'd very much like to change that if you're not." She smiled. "Or even if you are."