Chapter Eight

Rowan

I'm curled up on my couch, a fluffy blanket draped over my legs with Sherlock, my neighbor Hans' Boston Terrier, snuggled against my side. The opening credits of the latest CSI: Las Vegas episode play on the TV, but my attention is split between the exclusive interview with Bex that I don't have and how the Hawkeyes are doing this season.

My sister, Jordan, who's sprawled on the other end of the couch, a bowl of popcorn balancing precariously on her stomach, lets out a relaxed sigh.

"So," Jordan says, tossing a piece of popcorn into the air toward me. I miss the toss, and the popcorn hits me on the corner of my mouth, bouncing off and landing right in front of Sherlock, who gobbles it up before I can steal it back, "How was the trip with the hockey team and the outrageously Sexy Mr. Bexley Townsend?" she asks, wiggling her eyebrows and using that ridiculous title she's given him

Jordan is four years younger than me and put off college in lieu of working her way up as manager of a large hotel in the city. She has her own apartment that she pays for without the help of a roommate. At twenty-four, she's doing so well and I'm proud of her and all that she's accomplished.

I've filled my sister in on all things "Bex" and his growing grudge against me. When I first told her about Bex, she whipped out her phone and internet stalked him immediately. I remember the look on her face the second his old team picture popped up on his Wikipedia page.

"Christ on a cracker… Please tell me this man is single."

"He's twenty years too old for you, Jordan."

"Perfect, I have daddy issues, and so do you,” she smirked. “Want to share him? I call dibs on the bottom half.”

I don't know about daddy issues but our parents divorced when we were little. I don't think Jordan even remembers our parents being married. Our dad got remarried and moved away after he got a big newscasting position in New York. I try really hard not to think about how I ended up choosing a similar career path as him.

Jordan and I didn't hear from him much after he moved, though for some reason he now talks more to our mom than he's ever tried to reach out to us.

I still get texts ever so often.

Dad: Hey, squirt. Mom said you got into Northwestern. Good job!

Dad: Congratulations! Mom said you got an internship with ESPN. That's huge.

Dad: Hey Ro, mom said you got a big promotion at work. You're traveling with the Hawkeyes? I'm proud of you.

But never a phone call or an attempt to reach out and ask how I was doing. Everything went through our mom.

Mom says that dad feels too guilty to reach out himself but that sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.

Jordan tosses up another fluffy piece of popcorn into the air and catches it in her mouth.

I clear my throat, debating whether or not to tell her about what happened on the trip, but I can't keep this from her. I tell Jordan everything. She and I don't have secrets. "It was... eventful, I guess you could say."

Jordan's eyebrows shoot up. "Ooh, do tell. How did it go traveling with Coach Bex? I know he's the Grinch and his heart is three times too small… but his cock must be huge, right?"

"Jordan!" I say, whipping a wide-eyed look in her direction.

"What? The mean ones always have the biggest cocks. It's nature's cruel injustice," she says with a straight face.

"Oh my God Jordan, we are not talking about the size of the man who hates my guts."

Not that I would know his measurements anyway since I’ve never seen it.

Jordan doesn't seem the least bit fazed by the shock written on my face about her choice of conversation topic.

"I guess you're right. Besides, Drew was average sized right? And that guy is the biggest tool of them all," she looks over at me. "Or rather an average-sized tool," she winks.

"Jordan—"

She cuts me off before I can demand she drops this line of questioning. "Here, I'll go get a ruler and you could show me where Drew falls short ."

She makes a move to pull the bowl of popcorn off her lap but I whip out my leg that I had tucked underneath me and plop it on her thigh. "Don't you dare move a muscle. This is sister bonding time since I haven't seen you in days. We're not talking about anyone's dick size, okay? Can we just watch our show and talk about anything else?"

"Okay, fine," she says, snuggling back into her spot, and then grabs a handful of popcorn and throws it at me.

"Real mature,” I mutter

I scoop as many pieces as I can before Sherlock gets too many but he's already eaten several pieces. It's the light butter version but he still shouldn't have too much. If he gets sick from eating the popcorn, Hans won't ever let me puppy-sit again. I'm on a thin line with that man.

"You at least owe me a breakdown of your trip. Tell me everything."

I snort, reaching over to steal a handful of popcorn. "Okay, something did happen."

Jordan sits up straighter, nearly dumping the popcorn bowl, as she reaches for the remote to mute the TV. "Spill. Now. And you’d better tell me that you played tonsil hockey with the coach."

I take a deep breath, preparing myself for my sister to lose her shit. "Not quite. We almost kissed."

The popcorn Jordan was about to eat falls from her hand, scattering across the blanket. "I'm sorry, what? How did you almost kiss? Did you miss?” she asks with a scrunched up nose as if that would be absolutely mortifying… and she’s right, it would.

“No I didn't miss,” I snap, irritation flaring as her first conclusion was that I somehow botched a simple kiss with the six-foot-two giant.

“What?” she says, defending her question with a shrug, piled another handful of popcorn into her mouth. “He’s a pretty large target and you’re a little out of practice. Maybe you need to work on improving your aim.”

“My aim is just fine, that wasn’t the problem, thank you very much,” I say, pulling my blanket higher up my stomach.

“And why in the hell didn't you think to tell me about this until now?" Her eyebrows furrow.

"When would you have preferred, I told you?"

"The minute it happened, duh!"

Of course she would have.

"While in mid-air? You're not supposed to make phone calls while on an aircraft. It could do something to the plane."

She waves her hand in dismissal. "Psht, that's a myth. And even if it weren't a myth, you should have risked it," she says, her eyebrows down turning in annoyance with me.

She actually expected me to run to my phone the moment that Bex almost kissed me.

To be honest, it took a while to process the whole thing, and I'm still not sure that I understand why there was even an almost.

"Well, I'm telling you now. And besides nothing happened, and anyway, I’ve been a little too busy trying not to get fired."

"What do you mean fired? You’re one of the best sports reporters that The Seattle Sunrise has."

I groan at the thought of what I have to do to keep being the best sports reporter there in order to get the promotion. "Charles wants an exclusive with Bex and there’s no way that Bex is going to sit down with me. He already thinks I’d be willing to sell out my own grandmother for enough new subscribers to the newspaper."

Jordan's expression softens. "That’s because he doesn’t know you the way I do. Plus, if he knew Grandma Charlene, he wouldn’t put it past you. She’s a cranky old witch." Jordan is teasing. Our grandma isn’t all that bad, she just spends most of our visit still cursing out my father, as if that helps mend anything for Jordan or me.

“Yeah well, go down to the Hawkeyes stadium and put in a good word for me because he won’t believe it if in comes from me,” I sigh, absently stroking Sherlock's fur.

"With pleasure,” she winks.

I roll my eyes. “Don’t even start, you’ll only make it worse trying to come onto him. He'll just think that I'm prostituting out my sister for a promotion, which is exactly the sort of thing he thinks I'd do," I shake my head. "I just don’t know what to do at this point. My job depends on it.” I let out a defeated sigh.

“You know what you have to do. You have to go down there and face him on his terms. Don’t take no for an answer and find some common ground with him.”

I hate that she’s right. I really wish there was another way to get him to open up.

“Face him on his terms,” I repeat, mulling it over.

“Yeah, like what is he doing right now do you think?”

I don’t have to wonder. I can almost guess with certainty. “He’s probably alone out on the ice shooting pucks into the net. It’s like his way to decompress.” I tell her, thinking of all the times I’ve seen him out on the ice.

“Ok. We can work with that. Do you have a set of skates?”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t think I’ve ice skated since we were kids. And I wasn’t very good even back then when gravity was a little nicer to me.” I never took well to ice skating, skiing, or even gymnastics.

I do pretty good on a pair of stilettos but that’s where my balancing ability starts and ends.

She shoots me a look like I’m being picky. She’s right, if I want this exclusive, Coach Bex is going to make me work for it—figures.

“I don’t have skates… but I know someone who does.”

I pick up my phone and text Penelope asking if she has a set of ice skates I can borrow. I already know that we’re the same size, and then I set my phone back down.

Penelope is going too far to happy when she finds out what I need them for. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Jordan and my sister planned this.

“He can’t be all that bad. It seems like his team respects him and the fans love him.”

I nod. "I can't deny that he's an incredible coach. The way he connects with the players, the strategies he comes up with... it's impressive. And when he lets his guard down, even for a moment, there's something about him that's just... magnetic. You should have seen him with these little boys at the restaurant." My lips pull into a wide grin at the memory of Bex crammed into the booth next to the boys.

Something about seeing him dote on those kids has me imagining him as an amazing father to some lucky kid. Or maybe that's just me projecting since I can't have kids of my own. I often see people in two different categories: good with kids or bad with kids. A habit I should break since children aren’t in my future.

Jordan nods. "Sounds like someone's got a crush on the Grinch.

I grab a handful of popcorn and toss it at her. "I do not have a crush. That kiss was a mistake. It probably happened because the air is thinner up there. My brain was being depleted of oxygen."

Jordan ducks, laughing as she throws more popcorn at me. "Right. And that's why you're blushing like a schoolgirl after her first game of seven minutes in heaven."

I stick my tongue out at her, trying to catch a piece of popcorn in my mouth. It bounces off my nose and hits Sherlock between the eyes. He’s too busy trying to eat it before I can scoop it all up.

"Okay, fine," I admit. "Maybe I'm a little attracted to him. But it doesn't matter. We're way too different, and I don't need that kind of drama. If I’m going to date someone, it needs to be the right person."

Jordan's smile fades a bit. "You mean someone who's okay with adoption."

I sigh. "Or someone who’s fine with not having kids at all. I can't go through what happened with Drew again. I don’t want to feel like I'm not enough."

"You've been through a lot, I get it. But Drew’s a fool. The right man will accept you for who you are. Don’t give up hope."

"I’m not giving up. I just want to focus on my work for now. No more talk about babies or boyfriends for a while."

Jordan reaches over, squeezing my hand. "I know, Ro. I’m not rushing you. I just want to make sure you’re not shutting out someone who could be important."

Part of her speech might be right, but thinking of that “important” someone being Bex has heat rising up my neck.

I shake the thought of the grumpy coach for now, and besides him, the dating scene feels like a complete mess. It's easier to just focus on what I can control.

"Let’s just watch our show," I say with a sigh.

Jordan grins and throws one last piece of popcorn at me. "Deal. Now, let's see if they catch this killer before I lose my mind."

I laugh and settle back into the couch, pulling Sherlock closer as Jordan hits play on the TV remote. "Ten bucks says the killer is the neighbor."

"You're on," she says.

For now, the stress of work, life, and whatever tomorrow will bring out on the rink with Bex, will have to wait. I have ten bucks to win.