Okay, that’s a little formal. He hands me a hand-printed menu and then darts off again.
“Bess is my newest hire.” Henry Kassman sips from his water glass. “She recently played left wing for the Michigan State women’s D1 team. They were the runners-up at the national championship tournament in March.”
There’s a murmur of approval all around the table, and three sets of eyes turn to me once again. And I swear these young men are looking at me with more interest than they did just a moment ago.
That’s interesting. And pretty amazing. Women’s hockey doesn’t get a lot of attention from anyone except the women who play it. I relax a little in my chair, because these are my people.
“Who beat ya?” Tankiewicz sits back in his chair and gives me a lazy grin.
“Lindenwood,” I grumble. “But they’re done winning.”
His grin widens. He picks up his menu. “What’s good here?”
“Everything,” Kassman says. “The steak au poivre is my personal favorite.”
What the heck is au poivre? I wonder silently.
“Care to translate that?” Tankiewicz asks. “I don’t speak snooty menu.”
“With pepper,” he says. “It’s a creamy peppercorn sauce. I’m sure my cardiologist would prefer me to avoid it, but it’s terrific. The creamed spinach is also amazing.”
Tankiewicz’s expression has some doubts about the spinach.
But it would match your eyes, I catch myself thinking. Luckily, I don’t say that out loud. I’m not that far gone.
Although it’s close.
When the waiter comes back to take our order, he starts with me, unfortunately. Because I’m self-conscious, I turn the question back around. “What would you recommend?”
“The filet mignon is our tenderest steak, but it’s on the smaller side,” he begins.
“That sounds lovely.” I hand him my menu, happy to have that decision made. And now I know how to pronounce filet mignon.
“Medium rare okay?” he asks.
“Perfect.”
This proves to be an excellent decision. The food is every bit as good as Henry promised. It’s an effort to eat the steak slowly. It’s so tender it practically melts against my tongue. This is easily the best meal I’ve ever had.
And Mr. Kassman ordered a selection of side dishes for the table, so there’s plenty of things to taste. He also ordered a red wine that had its twenty-first birthday a year before I did.
“I would have ordered your exact vintage,” Kassman crows. “Except that wasn’t a good year for Burgundies.”
“It wasn’t a good year for baby girls, either,” I say darkly, and every man at the table cracks up.
I was only half joking, though. My mother never meant to have a second child. And after I was born, she fell apart. She became addicted to drugs, and died of an overdose before my second birthday.
But none of that matters tonight, does it? I could have skipped reading those files over the weekend. Nothing more is expected of me than sipping red wine and appreciating the surprisingly good creamed spinach. Hockey players are always full of stories, and I’m the lucky girl who gets to sit here and listen.
Ushakov’s father drives a taxi in Moscow, so I hear all about the time the two of them stopped a kidnapping at the airport. And then Tankiewicz tells a story about pulling a prank on a teammate. The guy ended up running around their apartment building naked, begging to be let back in.
“But I held out until the poor SOB promised he wouldn’t put plastic in the bottom rack of the dishwasher anymore.”
We all laugh. The wine warms my bloodstream, turning my anxious mind into a softer, golden place. I forget that I’m not supposed to stare at Tankiewicz. And every time I look up, our gazes collide.
“My motto is simple.” Tank leans back in his chair like a king in his throne. The wine goblet nearly disappears in his big hand. “In any situation, I just ask myself—what can I get away with? And then I do that.”
We all laugh again. Except I also realize something important. I’ve never once looked at life that way. Instead of what can I get away with, my motto is I’ll just keep my head down and avoid trouble.
I’ve known trouble, so my outlook isn’t an accident. But maybe Tankiewicz has a better way of looking at the world. I’m on my own now. I don’t always have to color inside the lines.
“I’ll bet the dessert is really good here,” Tankiewicz says. And then he lifts his eyes and looks straight at me.
After dessert and coffee, we follow my boss outside. “I’ve got four cars waiting,” he says. “The fifth one is late, though. Should take a few more minutes.”
“You go ahead, Mr. Kassman,” Tank says. “Age before beauty. I don’t need a car. Heck, I’ll share with Bess. She can drop me at the hotel on her way home.”
“Sounds like a plan, son, if Bess doesn’t object,” Henry says.
“No problem,” I agree, even though the sound of my name on Tank’s lips gives me butterflies.
“All right then. Good night, everyone. Go home—get some rest, boys. You’re going to need it for the rest of training camp.”
I slide onto the leather seat of a car beside Tank and give the driver the address of my tiny studio apartment in the West Fifties. “And first we’ll need to stop, at…” I turn to Tank for clarification. “You’re in a hotel, right?”
He doesn’t answer right away. The car slides away from the curb as Tank lifts my hand off the leather seat, kissing my palm right in the center.
Tingles ripple through my body as his lips skim my hand, stunning me.
“Let’s make it one stop instead,” he says slowly. “Your birthday isn’t quite over yet, right? And I’m really good at celebrating.”
It takes me several beats of my heart to understand what he’s proposing. This gorgeous creature wants to take me home with him?
He raises
