15. ARAN

CHAPTER 15

ARAN

W hat am I thinking?

Am I even thinking?

No, the answer is absolutely hell no. My brain shut down the second I saw her go down, and only my amygdala has kept me going since.

I let her rant as I gather all the ingredients to make arepas because, unlike my brain, my body is still fully functioning and is starving. My hands are on autopilot as they dump Harina P.A.N. into a bowl without measuring. Based on the size of her sandwich the first time I met her and how much pizza she ate last weekend, I have a good gauge of how much she'll eat.

Good thing we have all night my ass . It's a bad thing. A very bad thing. The whole point of me coming home tonight instead of hitting the town with the guys was to behave well. Keep myself out of trouble.

Strawberry is trouble. Especially when she looks up at me with shiny eyes and a tentative little smile that makes me want to do whatever it takes to see it grow.

"Are you sure"—here she drags out the letter u until her voice breaks—"that you want to help me with my book research? I'm talking about super basic stuff like, for example, what the heck is icing?"

I stop. "You're kidding."

"No." But she's smiling, so I'm confused. "I watched bits and pieces of a game with the guys, and a whole game on my own later, but everyone kept saying icing this and icing that , and I only know about the kind that goes on cakes."

Biting down a smile, I set aside the flour pack and roll up my sleeves to my elbows. "Fine, I'll answer all your questions."

That perks her up. "All of them?"

"About hockey."

"Hmm."

Sneaky little Strawberry. What was she thinking about?

Curiosity gnaws at me as much as hunger, but asking would be too close to flirting. I try to concentrate on the dough I'm making with a pinch of salt and water. I had never cooked a thing until I left home for college, and even though my parents live across town, I couldn't spend my off time making trips home so Mom would feed me. I had no other choice but to learn.

"I'll ask you non-hockey questions too, though. Feel free to grunt when you don't want to answer."

I don't grunt.

The dough is consistent enough that I can shape it. I grab a good handful for her arepa and mold it into a neat ball. Then I slap it between my hands until it flattens into a disk.

"First question. What are you making?"

This one's harmless, so I say, "Arepas. It's the national dish of Venezuela, the country my parents came from."

" Oh . Okay, color me intrigued. Next question?—"

"Too many already," I cut in with a deadpanned voice.

"Well, we have to do something if I've got to stay up all night long, right?"

Shit.

Every fiber of my being stops except for two things. My heart, which is busy pumping blood down south. And my eyes, which narrow.

She gapes. "Is your mind in the gutter all the time?"

Yes. Except for when I'm on the ice. And lately it's getting worse.

As for her answer, I grunt.

"Lettuce backtrack." She clears her throat.

"Did you just say lettuce ?"

"I, too, am hungry," Strawberry says solemnly. "Next question. Can I help you with anything? I feel bad just watching."

"No, your job is to stay alert."

Strawberry gives me a little salute. "Yes, sir."

Once I'm done forming the three arepas, I rinse my hands and change gears to find her the pain reliever. I slide the bottle over to her and grab a clean cup from the cabinet to fill with water from the fridge dispenser. And then another one for me.

I quench my thirst—at least this one—watching over her as she takes a couple of pills and chugs water like it's beer. She even sighs hard at the end.

"Last non-hockey question for tonight." She squirms, and that worries me. Doesn't look like it'll be an easy one. "Or maybe I shouldn't ask. I mean, if you didn't comment on it when I talked about it, it shouldn't be a big deal."

What, among the verbal diarrhea she subjected me to in the past ten minutes, could she possibly want to revisit? The thing with her mom? The romance part of the hockey romance? And who the hell decided writing a romance book about hockey was a good idea? Hockey is the least romantic sport I could possibly imagine. It's a bunch of sweaty, stinky dudes slamming against each other or across boards, and a thousand ways to bleed. The cutesy shit that belongs in romance books should be figure skating or something.

Strawberry sucks in her lips and starts pulling away.

"Just spit it out, woman."

"Well." She tucks a strand of her messy—and, yeah, slightly gross—hair behind her ear. "How come you didn't blow a fuse about the period stuff? Like, most guys immediately want to fling themselves out the window at the mention of it."

"I'm not most guys," I say with the shake of my head. "Also, I have two sisters."

"Oh."

"Now you answer this. Cilantro, yes or no?"

"Oh, yes."

I try, I really do, to not find an innuendo behind that. But it's not my fault her voice came out all throaty and sigh-y, or that my blood was already pumping. I turn around and pull open the fridge with more force than necessary, just so I can stick my face in it ASAP. I know exactly where every single thing is, but I pretend like I can't find it just so I can cool down.

Finally, I grab the bag with the handful of greens and rinse the tomatoes I left soaking in a bowl in the sink.

"I love everything green," she continues saying, as though we hadn't just suffered a dangerous lull in the conversation.

It's just because you're out of the game , I remind myself. Nothing more, nothing less. Strawberry's not doing anything special. She's literally just sitting there, bundled up in a thick dress that fits her like a sack of potatoes. There's no cleavage, no hint of her curves, no flirty glances. She's not even wearing makeup. Her hair has mud in it. There's a whole kitchen island between us.

And yet…

For the first time in my life, I find the need to keep talking. If I'm the one filling in the silence, then my head won't have any choice but to stop this hormonal loop I'm trapped in.

"I'm not a fan of green stuff or fruits," I say in a rasp, as if it's the first time I've used my vocal cords all day.

"No way. When we met, you were drinking some green gunk I probably wouldn't even want to smell."

I dry the tomatoes with a paper towel and keep my eyes on them at all costs. Which is a good idea, since I'm about to use a knife anyway.

"If you like green shit, you'd like it more than I do."

"What's in it?"

I wrinkle my nose. "Kale, celery, apple, orange juice, and some green protein powder just so I'm not hitting up dairy all the time."

"Huh, that doesn't sound so bad."

"This will be better." I slice the tomatoes in half and take out as many seeds as I can with one swipe of the knife. I hope she's not testy like my little sister, who can't stand a single seed.

She shifts, and I dare glance up in time for her to rest her chin on both hands, elbows on the counter. The picture of innocence. The drastic opposite of the thoughts in my head.

"How's your head?" I ask a tad too loud.

It makes her startle. "Hurts a little, but not too bad."

The moment she slipped in the icy parking lot comes back to my mind like a bucket of cold water. She looks, sounds, and moves normally, but you never know with head or spinal injuries. My chest constricts as if it's being squeezed by a cold hand.

"My older sister, Luz, was the captain of the Thunder Strikes the year the team was created." Even though I pause, she keeps quiet, probably sensing there's more since there was no lead-in to this. "Which is nothing short of a miracle, since for a while before that, she couldn't walk."

I only hear her sharp intake of breath.

For a moment, all I can do is focus on dicing tomatoes without maiming myself.

"She got checked against the boards at a weird angle when she was twelve."

"Oh, no." Another gasp. "But she recovered, right? I mean, if she was the captain of the Strikes…"

"Yeah, it was pretty much a miracle." I dump the chopped tomato into a fresh bowl and grab an onion. "So, that's why I'm being intense."

"I get it. Um, I'll stay awake all night and send you picture proof if you want."

"No need. You're staying under my supervision."

She laughs. "You don't need to stay up all night too. Don't you have practice tomorrow or something?"

"Nope. Not tomorrow." Besides, it wouldn't be the first time I went all night long without sleep.

"Has anyone told you that you're really stubborn, Aran Rodriguez?"

"I'm unmovable like an iceberg, remember?"

Her scoff sends her reeling back. "Unfortunately for you, icebergs are melting faster than ever."

Yeah, that's kind of the effect she's having on me.

The onion fumes hit me, and I have to look up and blink really hard for a moment, which she decides to take advantage of.

"Oh, are you crying? Did I make the big, bad boy cry?"

"You don't stink bad enough to make me suffer like this," I say with a sniffle.

"So, I do stink?"

I glare, and it makes her burst into a giggling fit. With her eyes closed, she misses the lightning quick smile I manage to tamp down.

Back to work I go. I bag the rest of the onion and dump a small handful onto the tomatoes. I wash the cilantro and wring it out with my hands, which I find brings out the flavor better. Then I chop just enough and mix it with the other veggies, adding salt, pepper, vinegar, and a dash of olive oil.

"Whoa, that looks amazing already."

"It's pico de gallo."

"Pico de gallo?" Of course she butchers the pronunciation of it, and I have to repeat myself two more times. As she practices the pronunciation, I turn the kitchen burner on and set a buttered pan on it. And off the arepas go.

"I didn't know guys who cooked this well existed outside of books," she says in a joking way.

I don't tell her about the Venezuelan saying my mom mocked me with the first time she saw me cooking. Ya te puedes casar. Which maybe one day, when I find the one woman who can put up with my bull crap long term, I will. Though it will definitely not be anywhere between now and graduation.

"You don't cook?"

"Eh, so-so," she admits. "I bake a mean casserole, but I'm extremely adept at burning pancakes."

I snort and flip the smaller arepa first. "How come you're vegetarian?"

"Ugh. Meat is the most disgusting thing that's ever been on my tongue." Gagging sounds.

"Strawberry." My voice carries a warning. "You keep saying things that are very easy to tease you about."

"Oh. Um. Maybe you're the one with the problem."

Definitely me. But I need help. What do we do?

"Anyway." She clears her throat once. Twice. "Maybe let's start the reverse tutoring."

I turn over my shoulder, cocking an eyebrow. Her face was already flushed to the roots of her hair, and it only grows warmer.

"On hockey! Oh my gosh. Do we need to wash your brain with bleach?"

"Maybe." I shrug and go back to flipping arepas. As they hiss against the heat and the oil, I slide back to the fridge and pull out a container. "I hope it's just the taste you don't like, because it's about to smell real meaty once I pop this into the microwave."

"Your house, your rules."

I file that one away for future reference and instead say, "So, why hockey?"

"Everyone's going nuts about it right now." I must've pressed the right button because she goes on. "My debut book is a young adult—that's fiction for teens—and it sold pretty well, but the way things work in trad—that's traditional publishing—is that they chop up the payments into checks smaller than those vegetables you diced. So I need to keep paying my bills until my next check, you know? And soon I'll have to start paying my student loans, which means I have to write what's popular even though I don't know squat about it."

She sucks in air and finishes off with, "And on the day I decided to write a hockey romance, I met you. It was fate!"

My eyes are as wide as saucers. I imagine if the sun could smile, it would look like this, with gunky brown hair framing it, a pink glow to its cheeks, and sparkly eyes.

"Fate, huh?"

Strawberry nods rapidly. "Yes! Everyone says write what you know, but I didn't know, and now I will, thanks to you."

She… could compete with my sisters when it comes to who speaks faster.

My head spins with her words and I try to train it on not burning the food. I pop the container with pulled beef from last night into the microwave and set the timer.

This confirms my suspicion. She was taking notes about me not because she was an analog stalker, but for book research.

"What's TDH, then?" I ask.

Only silence greets me. I let her be until the microwave pings. Even as I take out plates and set them on the counter. I glance at her and almost laugh at how tightly she's biting her lips.

"If you want me to answer hockey questions, you'll give me that one."

Her brow crashes. She looks freaking adorable. "This is bribery."

"I call it building trust."

With a clean knife, I slice the three arepas, and before much of the heat escapes, I stuff each one with a mountain of cheese. To hers, I only add pico de gallo and put it on her plate. Then I load mine with the rest of the veggies and the meat.

"Thank you. It looks amazing." She's a clever one, watching how I wrap a napkin around my first arepa, then doing the same. She picks it up and takes a big bite.

The moan that comes from deep in her throat almost fells me like a tree.

I swallow hard one, two times. A third. Eyes on my food. Food in my mouth. Make it busy with that. Not with saying what I want to say. Keep it in my brain. That way it's only awkward there.

"Oh my word. This is so delicious. You'll have to teach me how to make them!"

"But first," I say with difficulty. "What's TDH?"

Strawberry groans. "You'll never let me forget it, will you?"

"Nope."

"Fine." She sets the food down and lets out a great sigh. "I will confess. But you must promise me?—"

"I'm not going to promise shit. Just say it and deal with the consequences."

"Talldarkandhandsome." She says this so fast the words jumble into one and all I hear is gibberish.

"The what?"

Gasping for air, she says it again, this time more slowly. "Tall. Dark. And handsome."

My arepa is suspended in the air. I need to set it down for this.

I burst out laughing.

"This is what I didn't want!" Strawberry screeches and throws her balled-up napkin at me. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" The question comes out squeaky between guffaws that refuse to stop.

"Like I'm one of your groupies and you caught me red-handed!"

"I know you're not a puck bunny—that's the term. Write it down." I'm still chuckling as I add, "You don't even know what icing is."

"And you haven't explained it."

I put a dirty knife on the counter, then put the salt dispenser on one side and her cup of water on the opposite side. "This is the middle line and the two goals. If you're a player here, on your goalie's side," I say, pointing at her empty cup, "and you shoot the puck all the way here." I poke the spot behind the saltshaker. "That's icing, in a nutshell."

Her eyes widen. "Oh. Hold on. I need to write all this down."

I keep eating as she rushes over to her bag at the door. She returns with the same yellow journal and the strawberry pen from day one, where she jotted down that I was TDH.

The tall part, check. I'm at least a foot taller than her. Dark? Double check. My brown skin is several shades darker. I also wouldn't describe myself as a ray of sunshine. The handsome part? Well, I'm not in the business of lying. I guess I'm a TDH, huh?

"So, were you going to base your character on me?"

She does not meet my eyes. "Obviously not on the real you. That would be supremely creepy."

A corner of my lips goes up. The guys will be disappointed when they find out.

"And what exactly do characters do in a hockey romance?"

"They play hockey all the time." She looks up, blinking innocently in an exaggerated way.

"With their tongues?"

She gasps.

So I add, "Surely not with their sticks."

"Aran!"

"Any other hockey questions?" I take another bite of my food to shut myself up.

"Um, I mean. Lots. What made you choose hockey? Or did it, like, choose you?" An awkward laugh. "What's it like when you're playing? Have you been hit by pucks before? Why did you decide to be a goalie? Is your training different? I mean, I guess it must be—you're not shooting pucks, but catching them. And?—"

"First of all, breathe. Second, it's probably better if you experience it."

"I plan to watch your next game."

That makes me oddly excited, but not as much as when I say, "I mean some firsthand experience."

Strawberry blinks fast as her brain processes. "There is no way in heck I could possibly play hockey. I don't even know how to skate."

"Excuse—" I do a double take. Triple. "Were you born and raised on the beach or what?"

"No, here. But not everyone is good at sports, you know."

I shake my head. "Fine, I'll give you a reverse-tutoring plan too. First step, I'm going to teach you how to skate."

"But—"

"No further hockey questions will be answered until then."

"What about non-hockey questions?" A slow grin spreads across her lips when she paraphrases our earlier conversation.

And like then, all she gets from me is a grunt before I take the last bite of my first arepa. My stomach is rumbly, but this time it's not because of the food.