Charming as Puck(15)

I tell myself someone reminded him, that this isn’t Nick remembering my birthday.

It was right there on video screens on the scoreboard at the game the other night.

The Thrusters wish Kami Oakley a Happy Thirtieth Birthday.

The announcer even said it out loud.

I know Nick gets into the game and focuses hard on the ice, but it was during a break. While Ares was getting a new stick because his broke.

Nick was hanging at the net drinking water.

And he didn’t even notice my name.

If we had a real chance at forever, wouldn’t he have heard my name?

“Which birthday?” I ask. My palms are sweating. So are my boobs. And Sugarbear still won’t move.

He frowns. “The one last Thursday.”

“What number birthday? How old am I?”

His lips part, and his eyes get that goalie-in-the-headlights look. “You don’t look a day over twenty-four.”

“Thirty, Nick. I’m thirty. Your parents came to my surprise birthday at the game. Felicity was hiding thirty balloons in her office when you stopped in to see her that afternoon. It was announced on the loudspeaker at the game.”

“I—” He rubs his neck and absently scratches Pancake’s head. “You’re right. I should’ve remembered your birthday. I should know which birthday it was. I just got wrapped up in the season starting, and it’s a big season, Kami. We could be repeat champions, and—”

He stops himself and looks down. “So I owe you more than a nice dinner out.”

Dixie barks her agreement, and Tiger, who’s still being denied Nick’s affection, howls. It sounds sort of like an overinflated balloon with too much air rushing out the nozzle at once, and that howl is exactly the reason I took her home when I didn’t really need another dog.

She was too precious to resist.

“You don’t owe me anything,” I tell him.

“You’re my friend. I fucked up. I owe you dinner.”

“No, you don’t. Thank you for the sentiment, but you don’t.”

There’s something I’ve never seen before flickering in his eyes as he searches my face.

Like—like he’s seeing me.

Sugarbear moos and takes two steps forward to nuzzle Nick’s thigh.

She doesn’t even come up to his waist, and her brown eyes are so bright and content, and I could picture us all as a happy family, Nick walking our bovine dog, me holding the canine dogs, circling the block and picking up dog poop in cute little green bags and shoveling calf poop into cute large green bags and apologizing to the neighbors for the river of pee raining down on their rhododendrons from our growing several-hundred-pound puppy.

“Back, Sugarbear.” I tug on her leash too—not that it makes any difference.

“You named the cow.” He scratches her head and smiles at me again, the clouds part, and a million angels swoon and fall off their harps. “That’s sweet.”

Tiger whines mournfully in my arms. She’s the only one of the three to ever visit Nick’s place. He fed her plain popcorn, and she’s basically his for the taking now, though I’m pretty sure she’s not as easy as Dixie, who’s now wagging her tail as she continues to lay belly-up at his feet. “We need to get going before someone mistakes my dog for a cow again and calls animal control. Excuse us.”

I tug.

Sugarbear lifts her tail and gives me a just a minute look.

Of course she does.

“Are you keeping the cow?” he asks me.

“The dog,” I grit out.

The cow-dog who’s currently dumping a load on the sidewalk.

And here I am without my shovel.

He looks down at the patty. “Are you going to keep that?”

Oh, good gravy. “You cannot have the cow’s poop for a prank!”

“A-ha! You admit it’s a cow.”

“She’s a dog. Named Sugarbear. Nicknamed The Cow. And now I have to pick that poop up because I don’t trust you to not shove it in Zeus Berger’s locker.”

“I was going to send it off to be made into Christmas ornaments for everyone on the team, but I like your idea better.”

I sigh and shove all of my dogs at him while I whip a plastic grocery bag out of my coat pocket. Our fingers brush, and dammit, why do I always get that electric rush whenever he touches me?

He doesn’t try to take the bag from me to clean up the poop himself, but then, he now has his hands full with a dog trying to lick his beard off while two more jump on him and the cow-dog nuzzles his hip. “Aww, who’s a sweet puppy?” he croons to Tiger while I try to finagle a cow patty into a plastic grocery bag without actually touching it with my hands. “Kami, your dogs want to go out to dinner. They think you should let me make it up to all of you.”

“Little up to my elbows in shit right now, Murphy.”

“I could’ve gotten that for you.”

“Kami?” Mrs. Ostermeijer, my next-door neighbor, pokes her head out the door. “Kami, is that a cow?”

“Afternoon, ma’am,” Nick calls. “This is my dog. Her name’s Sugarbear.”

“Bless my stars, you look just like that handsome goaltender for the Thrusters,” the sweet older lady says. “He’s having an awful season, isn’t he? Couldn’t block a car rolling in at a mile an hour, could he?”