Mr. Hat Trick

by Ainsley Booth

  “You’re happy.” He glares at the phone, then up at me. “You’ve locked yourself in with me inside my own room, told me to play puzzles instead of falling exhausted into my bed, and you’re happy.”

  “Well, no.”

  “You’re not happy.”

  “No, I didn’t— Wait. Let me start again.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Right, that’s a good place to start. “I love you.”

  The muscle twitches in his cheek again. “Are you sure? Because three weeks ago you disappeared on me.”

  “I didn’t know I loved you then.”

  “I did.” His voice is as clipped and hard as it has been with the press, on TV. As it has been with people he doesn’t really like that much.

  My stomach drops to the floor. “You did?”

  “Sure did. Could have told you, if you’d let me.” He flicks his dark, unyielding gaze to the door. “You’ve locked yourself in here with me. Are you sure you’re ready to hear what I have to say to you?”

  “Yes.” I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. Yes, I want to hear his objections. I deserve to hear his anger. And I’ll take it all if I get a chance to tell him how I really feel. Not just love. It’s so much more complicated than that.

  He reaches out and tests the handle. Then he laughs harshly. “Wow.” Instead of telling me how mad he is, though, he flips my phone in his hand and starts to prowl around the room. “How do I use this?”

  “H-hold it up.”

  He looks at the screen as he points it at the wall. “Floggers?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  He raises one eyebrow. “We’ve got time, right? How long is that door locked?”

  “An hour.”

  He taps at the screen. “Can you override it?”

  “No. You’d have to take the door apart.”

  “You did that.” He points at the handle. “Did you throw out my old one?”

  I’m not answering that. “I can restore the room to rights when we’re done.”

  “Done?” He stalks back to stand in front of me. “You think we’re going to be done after an hour?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He reaches out and rubs his knuckles gently along my jaw. “Ah, tiger. We’re just going to be getting started.” He leans in and lowers his voice as his breath dusts against my ear. “And I’m never going to be done with you.”

  The air in my lungs whooshes out as I sway towards him. “For real?”

  His fingers slide into my hair as he pulls me close. “For real. But I’m still mad at you.”

  “I know.” I twist in his arms, desperate to taste his skin. My mouth runs over his stubbled jaw and up onto his cheek. He turns, too, and his lips catch mine.

  He doesn’t taste mad.

  He tastes like home. “Oh, Tate,” I whisper as I press into him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s done wonders for my game.”

  I laugh weakly as he kisses me again, his lips soft and his tongue insistent.

  “This is it, though. No more hedging your bets. You came back to me, you need to keep me.”

  “I will.”

  “Because you’re my tiger. You might like me to play the predator and chase you down, but I’ve always been your prey.”

  I gasp at that. No, it’s not true. But when I pull back and search his face, I see the pain in his eyes. I hold all the power here. If I wanted to, I could rip his heart right from his chest with my claws. I’ve already made the first angry swipes, because I was cornered, because I felt threatened.

  Tate has never been a threat to anything except my heart. And he’s gently protected that at every turn.

  “I’ll think about the Seattle job,” I tell him, my words jumbling up as they spill out in a rush. “Or I can commute. I was being stubborn, and that was silly. I do love Vancouver. I love you and—”

  “Slow down,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you to take any job except the one you want.”

  “But—”

  “We fell in love across a country. During road trips and short visits. Phone calls and texts. You don’t need to be right in front of me to own my entire heart.”

  “But I—”

  “Let me finish.” He drags in a breath. “I know guys in the NHL get married and are happy, but I’ve always thought that if that happened to me, it would be when I was done playing professional hockey. Because I didn’t want to ask someone to give me their entire life when I could only share part of mine. I had that all backwards, though. It turns out, when you fall in love, you give your everything, no matter where you are.”

  I nod. He’s so right. These last three weeks have been awful, because my heart was smashed into a million pieces, into dust that scattered across the country as I fled.

  “And then I fell for you. So hard, so fast, I didn’t see it coming. And you kept insisting we weren’t serious, we weren’t official.”

  “That was stupid of me.”

  “Maybe it was self-preservation.” He cups my face. “Or maybe you were scared.”

  I burst into tears. Fuck. “No maybe about it.”

  He leans in and softly kisses my wet cheeks. “I love you, Sasha.”

  Stupid, blubbery reactions. “I love you too,” I whisper.

  “Louder.”

  I grin and blink, my damp eyelashes sticking together as I look up at him. “I love you to the moon and back, Tate.”

  “That’s better.” He kisses my mouth now, hard and insistent. “We’re going to be just fine. We’re going to live together in Ottawa, and in Vancouver. And if you get a job somewhere else, be it Seattle or Boston or Halifax, we’ll live there, too. We can have as many homes in as many cities as you want. They will all be ours, and we’ll be together as much as we can. I’m not going to be playing hockey forever. When I retire, I’ll be all yours, all the time.”

  “That sounds annoying.”

  “Incredibly so.”

  “I want that. Eventually. But as long as you’re playing hockey, I’ll happily meet you in New York, and Los Angeles, and Chicago…”

  “All excellent shopping cities.”

  “I have my priorities.” But I can’t hold back a smile. “And you are, and always will be, my number one priority.”

  “I know.”

  “God, you are the cockiest, most egotistical—”

  He covers my mouth with his and kisses away the bickering, but I’m sure we’ll get back to it soon enough. I can’t wait.

  “And I’m sorry about the Facebook post,” he murmurs against my neck as he slides his hands under my shirt. “I didn’t know about it until after the game.”

  I freeze. “What Facebook post?”

  He groans. “You didn't see my text?”

  “No…” I cast about for my phone, but the app is still running, and— “What happened?”

  “I texted you after the game. Bree and Amy posted about us on Facebook. They recognized me.”

  “Oh.” My heart resumes beating normally. “Okay. That’s not bad. Right?”

  “It’s gone viral. Media’s picking it up as a feel-good story, and they want to know about you.”

  “Ah.” I roll that over in my head. It doesn’t feel as scary as I thought it would. “I fell asleep on your bed. I guess that’s why I didn’t see it.”

  He kisses my nose. “I like the sound of that. You in my bed. Missed that.”

  “Mmm. Have you responded? What did you say?”

  “I growled something about it being none of the media’s damn business.”

  “That's not like you.”

  “Maybe it is. Maybe for twelve years, I've been playing at being a certain kind of guy. But deep down, I'm a man who is fiercely protective of the woman he loves. Even if she's not speaking to him.”

  “Even if she's breaking into his apartment to lay a trap?”

  He laughs at that. “You had a key.”

  “I like the idea of being a cat burglar.”


  “I like the idea of a skin-tight black outfit,” he says huskily. That part of his personality hasn’t changed a bit. Pervert Santa, now with extra growl and bite.

  “Show me the post, you dirty man.”

  He pulls it up on his phone and hands it over. I read it, then whistle at the number of likes and comments. “That’s getting a lot of love.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is the team going to do something for them?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to anyone in the front office about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Believe it or not, I haven’t been the friendliest guy the last few weeks.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nah, it’s fine. I’m hardly the worst asshole in the league. And it’s nobody’s business who you are. I’ll protect you always and forever, no matter what.”

  I believe him. “We should go and see Amy together.”

  “You'd do that?”

  “In a heart beat.”

  “She might want to take a picture.”

  “She might.” Maybe it’s time for me to make some bigger sacrifices for Tate, too. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

  He traces his fingertips over my cheeks. “I might want to take a picture, too.”

  “You have pictures of me.”

  “Yeah.” His voice catches on a burr, like he’s holding something back.

  “What?”

  “When we were in New York, and you had me post that selfie of us on Instagram. I had a different caption in my head.” He keeps stroking my face, featherlight touches that make me go all wibbly-wobbly inside. “Never mind.”

  I kiss him. “Maybe—”

  My phone beeps at us, reminding us we only have thirty minutes left to escape the room.

  “Or what happens?” Tate growls as he grabs the phone, pointing it at the wall. “Did you rig explosives under the bed?”

  I laugh. “No. We just fail the game and have to try again.”

  He hands the phone over. “Start it over again. I’m not letting you leave this room until morning, anyway.”

  “We don’t need to do it.”

  “I’m a highly competitive man, Sasha. Set the game. Let’s do this. I think I know how to solve the flogger puzzle already.”

  “How is that possible? You just glanced it.”

  “It’s a logic sequence puzzle. Come on. We’ll do this, then I’ll do you, and then we can go out for coffee at dawn and sleep all day tomorrow.”

  I glance at the cuffs he hasn’t yet noticed are attached to his headboard. He might be busy at dawn. “You’re on.”

  42

  Tate

  Sasha stays through the weekend. We go to visit Amy in the hospital on Friday, and Sasha promises her that when she’s released, they’ll come to a game together.

  Bree apologizes for the over-the-top reactions to her post. “I never thought it would blow up like that.”

  I look around Amy’s hospital room, stuffed to the gills with presents. “Is she enjoying the attention?”

  Bree nods quickly, her eyes bright. “Yes.”

  “Then it’s exactly as it should be.” I squeeze her shoulder and promise to catch up soon.

  Sasha comes to my Saturday night game against Boston, which we win, and every time the goal horn blows, she’s on her feet cheering.

  Coach gives us Sunday off. He tells us to make the most of it, because we’re going to dig deep in the coming week.

  He doesn’t need to tell me twice. It’s Chinese New Year, a much bigger deal in Vancouver than in Ottawa, and I find myself quite excited to show Sasha my—our—new home away from home.

  We get up early and decide to go for dim sum before the Chinatown Spring Festival Parade. It’s already pretty busy by the time we get downtown—because it’s a crisp, clear day with no sign of rain and of course, the rest of the city has the same plan.

  After trying three restaurants, all jam-packed with people lined up waiting outside, we need a change of plan. “Okay, dim sum is a no-go. Ideas?”

  “How about we go for a walk and grab coffee? Then we can come back for the parade, and go in search of brunch after that,” Sasha suggests.

  There’s a greasy spoon in East Van I’d heard some of the guys rave about. “How does a diner sound?”

  She grins. “Like an adventure.”

  We walk to Gastown, a neighbourhood I’ve explored a bit, and hit Starbucks. On the way we pass the statue of Gassy Jack.

  After we order—a black coffee for me, a half-sweet hazelnut latte with no whip and extra foam for my complicated girlfriend—a table opens up in front of the window.

  I hand her my drink. “How about you grab those seats while I wait for your latte?”

  She kisses my cheek, then quickly snags the chairs, angling them so she can look outside and take it all in.

  That’s my Sasha. Ever the watcher.

  A couple minutes later, the barista slides Sasha’s latte across the counter, repeating the entire litany of changes she requested. I take it with a smile, then stop to grab napkins on my way to our table.

  I hand Sasha her cup, and she takes a long sip.

  “Gassy Jack. What kind of name is that to be stuck with through history?” She asks.

  “Not a particularly flattering one, that’s for sure.”

  “Where there’s a question, there’s Google,” she says, pulling out her phone. Her thumbs move at warp speed, then she looks up at me. “Short version—he was a talker, and a bit of a storyteller. That’s a little disappointing. I felt sure there would be a far more interesting answer than that.”

  “You’d think.”

  “Jesus,” Sasha says, pointing out the window. “That clock looks like the top is on fire.”

  I turn to look, and smile. “That’s just steam.” I glance down at my watch. “It’s about to do its thing.”

  “What thing?”

  This is why I brought her to this Starbucks. “Just wait,” I tell her.

  A few minutes later, the steam clock whistles the entire Westminster chime.

  “Ooh, that was adorable.”

  I swig the last of my coffee. “That also was our cue to head back over to Chinatown if we’re going to watch the parade.”

  “I’m ready.”

  The walk back becomes increasingly crowded, turning what was a fifteen-minute walk into closer to thirty.

  We walk part of the route, deciding on a spot a couple of blocks from the starting point. People are standing more than five deep in some places. I’m tall enough to see over most of the heads, but Sasha isn’t. “How do you feel about shoulder rides?”

  She looks up at me and grins.

  I partially crouch, and Sasha steps onto my leg just above my knee, then scrambles her way onto my shoulders. I shift beneath her weight, getting her balanced, then squeeze her leg. “Comfy up there?”

  “Best seat in the house, are you kidding me?”

  Yeah, this was a great plan.

  We hear the parade long before we can see it. Firecrackers exploding rapid fire and regular beating of drums.

  A few minutes later, we see the festival banner, followed by the Vancouver Police Department’s pipe band. Bagpipes in a Chinese New Year parade is a pretty Canadian thing, I bet.

  Not long afterwards, we see the first lion dancers. I tap Sasha’s knee and shout up to her. “Wow, look at these costumes.”

  “Stunning.” Then she grins. “Hand me your phone!”

  I pass it up to her, and she takes a few pictures of the parade, then glances around, nibbling on her lower lip.

  After a few beats, she wiggles her finger. “Turn around.”

  Since we’re at the back of the crowd, when I pivot, we can see ourselves reflected in the shop window.

  She holds up the phone. “Say cheese.”

  She takes a photo of our reflection with the crowd and the parade in the background, then hands me my phone. “Done.”

  The rest of the parade is j
ust as incredible as the start. The sense of community shows strong in the diversity of the groups taking part. This is Vancouver’s multiculturalism at its finest, and I love every minute of it.

  On the walk back to the car, Sasha points out that I look pretty happy with my new community, and I tell her what I was thinking during the parade.

  “You should post that picture of us on Instagram,” she says, squeezing my hand.

  “Are you sure?”

  She shrugs. “Yeah. It’s a pretty awesome thing we just saw. And I’m honoured that you shared it with me. How do you say Happy New Years in Chinese?”

  I look it up, and we make the post together. For someone who doesn’t use social media, she’s got big opinions about which filter to use.

  After some good-natured teasing, we settle on the picture, slightly overexposed, with the caption, Gung Hay Fat Choy! Best seat in #vancity. That was Sasha’s idea, and I love it. I take one last look at the picture—we look exactly as happy as we are—and I hit share before we get in the car.

  Forty minutes later, we’re standing in line outside that recommended greasy spoon in East Van.

  Sasha points to the sign that advertises the all-day breakfast and grins. “Under three bucks for the full cholesterol meal deal? Are you a secret cheapskate?”

  “Never let it be said I tried to impress you with a meal at a fancy, expensive restaurant.” She laughs as I use her words against her, months later. “But I’m sure they have more than bacon and eggs on the menu. You can probably spend at least seven or eight dollars if you try hard enough.”

  “No, I’m getting the all day breakfast. I totally need to experience this.” She pokes my chest. “And so do you.”

  When we get inside, the decor is along the lines of shabby-throw-it-at-the-wall-see-what-sticks. The furniture is scarred, but clean, and the walls are plastered in everything from movie and concert posters to graffiti.

  The breakfast is surprisingly good, and plentiful. The service isn’t exactly stellar, but the place is packed solid, and it doesn’t let up. The minute one table empties, it’s immediately filled.

  I love how normal this all is. Spending a lazy Sunday with Sasha. Doing our thing, not worrying about whether I’m breaking relationship-on-the-down-low-rules. Kissing her wherever, and whenever I want, which is everywhere and often. Sasha taking selfies of us and posting them on my Instagram.