Page 28 of The Game Plan
“Don’t forget modest.”
“Why be modest when you know you’re the complete package?” He snatches his keys from the counter. “Are you ready?”
I hook my purse over my shoulder, wondering whether there’s a quota of arrogance any living human can have. “Let me grab my lunch.”
“Do you make every meal from scratch? Don’t you ever order in?”
I open his needlessly large refrigerator – needless since he seemingly does always order in – and search for my lunch. Last night I made a scrumptious sweet potato Thai green curry, with a portion leftover for today.
But it’s not—
“Did you eat my lunch?” I ask around the refrigerator door, chilled both literally and metaphorically.
He frowns. “Er, no? What was your lunch?”
“The leftover curry from last night. I put it in a container for today.”
The way his face falls into a guilty expression makes me rise to full height. He did.
“Oh. I thought that was mine. Last night you asked me if I wanted curry with you.”
“I did. Because I was being kind. Then you threw that kindness back in my face and said you were ordering in. So I put the spare into a container for my lunch today. You ate it, didn’t you?”
“That’s highly possible.”
I slam the refrigerator door closed and accidentally stomp my heeled shoe on the floor. He stares at my foot with a faint smirk. “Hot shoes, wifey.”
Dick. “I don’t have time to make anything else, Jax!”
“Can’t you just get lunch at work?”
“At the ice rink?”
“Relax, the staff eat with the team mostly.”
“Oh.”
“Yep, you get to spend even more time with your husband, sugar plum.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.”
He scoffs and I might be mishearing but I swear he whispers something about “Little” and “Dragon.”
He’s calling me a dragon?
* * *
Okay, with the short walk to what is a very swanky car – a PR loan from the manufacturer in return for Jax posting to his half a million followers on socials that he’ll be riding to the arena in it this season – I gain some perspective. I recognize that I can be a little intense over changes to my routine – call me flawed. I like what I like but mostly that’s a healthy, balanced meal, and the chances are, that’s exactly what I’ll be eating alongside the players for lunch.
All is not entirely lost, even if I had a brief moment of feeling like my schedule for today had been interrupted. Note to self, make clear to Jax that he is not to eat food I leave in the home. His home, I appreciate, therefore, I can’t be too precious because he refuses to take any financial contribution from me while I’m staying with him.
“How do you want to play this?” I ask as Jax swings us out of the garage under the condominium resort, into daylight.
He commands the wheel with the base of one hand and it’s bizarrely sexy as hell. Total. Complete. Control. No wonder the guy can handle a puck when this is how he handles a vehicle.
We take out our shades and put them on like synchronized figure skaters. Hopefully, they disguise my gawking at his hand and wrist strength. The way his veins pop and muscles ripple in his forearms. Ahem.
“Play what?” he asks, cool as ice in another PR gift of sports shades.
