Mateo's quick huff of surprise is gentle. "Really?"
"Really," I say. "He'd retired. I was still playing. There was a gift basket in my hotel room that night with a card that read, 'You scored just fine on the ice, but I did even better in your bedroom.'"
"Holy shit."
"It was whatever. By that time, scoring on the ice mattered more to me." I look up at a cloudless sky and push away the past. "Was there anything about Taylor's big announcement?"
"That he'll be coaching for New Jersey next season? Yeah, I don't follow hockey news closely, but it sounded like it had been rumored for a while."
"It had been."
He's quiet after that, and I don't believe for a second it's because he's bored with the conversation we're having. We've talked about my hockey career enough times, and Mateo is only slowing now so he can navigate around the bruises we've already leaned on. Then he reaches for my hand, and our fingers slide together. I'll let him lean against whatever he wants.
Mateo knows it, too. "You've never mentioned wanting to coach before. You've only talked about how much you miss playing."
"It's not much more likely than another run for the Cup."
"Why not? Taylor McKeon wasn’t a saint."
"He was always a dick, but I was the known troublemaker. Like you said, women were the only place he had me beat," I say. "Not much of a liability when I was leading the league in points and getting us into the playoffs year after year, but I can't think of many people who'd take a chance on me to be a responsible coach."
"You're a responsible parent," he argues. "And it's not like you'recausing any problems during the live broadcasts you join, or when you're taking pictures with fans. Hell, most of your teammates praised your leadership as captain. Would it be that hard to believe you still have all the knowledge and talent, and less of the attitude the league and press loved to market for their own good?"
"I don't know. Are you going to call the owners and GMs to ask?"
Mateo sighs, but he's still holding my hand too tenderly for me to think I've lost him.
“You really never took anyone down the hill from here?”
“Mmmm, not the way you’re thinking, no.”
"Harper?"
"She was the exception, but she doesn't actually know it's there," I say. "I'd take her for walks on the beach when she was a baby, and then use the shortcut to get back up here. Sometimes I'd just sit there with her and slow everything down."
"But you stopped as she got older?"
"I don't need my wild child and her friends playing on the side of a cliff, no matter how small it might be. I'm not stupid—if she finds it, she finds it—but it's difficult to see from here if you don't already know where to look, and they rarely hang out on the rocks below."
"Danielle lived here a long time, right?" Mateo asks. "She wasn't a fan?"
"Danielle's not really the hiking type. Andyouknow that's not an actual hike, andIknow that's not an actual hike, but she never cared to see for herself. I never cared to change her mind. She wasn't—" I shake my head, a sad laugh escaping before I go on. "She was a one-night stand who took years to leave."
"Isn't that what I am now?"
"You're the furthest thing from it."
"Because you brought me there."
And yeah. Probablybecause of that.
“Do you want a beer?” I ask, letting his comment fall to the water untouched before I scramble away from him without waiting for an answer. “Oh, hey, did you hear Harper has a boyfriend? Aidan? Brayden—”
“Stop,” Mateo interrupts with a laugh that catches me at the patio door. “It’ll take you forever to get there that way. It’s Zaiden.”
I grab a couple of bottles from the fridge and pop them open before I return to his side. In the thirty seconds I was gone, he took off his shirt, and since I’m at least as bold as he is, I hand him the beer and do the same.
“He’s a good guy?” I ask instead. “Zaiden?”