Parental Guidance (Ice Knights #1)(7)

“Zara?” he asked, sounding like he’d just been told the horrible news that his broccoli wasn’t going to be covered in delicious cheese sauce. “I’m Caleb.”

She shifted her stance, wishing she could grow about five inches in five seconds. The move put more weight on her bum ankle, the sharp jolt of pain knocking her off-balance and right into the unyielding chest of her date.

…

Caleb was used to two-hundred-and-thirty-pound men on skates slamming him against the boards—when they were lucky enough not to be on the receiving end of one of his solid hits—so having a redhead who was small enough to fit in his hockey bag with room to spare fall into him didn’t even rock him back on his heels.

He wrapped his fingers around her upper arms to help steady her as she regained her balance. “You okay?”

“Fine, thank you.” Her chin went up and the color in her cheeks nearly matched the twenty bazillion peach freckles covering her face. “My heel got caught in a grate on the walk over.”

But she wasn’t fine. There was no missing the way she favored her right leg by repositioning so most of her weight was on her left.

“You sure?” he asked as he released her and took a step back to give her some space. “Here, let me look. I’ve got experience with messed-up ankles.”

Okay, that experience mainly centered on the health of his ankles rather than anything he could do to fix them, but still, personal experience had to count for something. He squatted down and visually checked her ankle for bruising or swelling, telltale signs of a sprained ankle. There wasn’t any, but she was obviously in discomfort. The fact that she was continuing to wear shoes that had to be four inches high definitely didn’t help. He was a smart enough man not to make that observation out loud—having sisters growing up had definitely taught him a thing or twenty about how not to get kneed in the nut sack.

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

She sighed, her breath a bit shaky, and nodded. “Go ahead.”

He ran the pad of his thumb over and around her ankle, watching her face for signs he’d hit a sensitive spot. Beyond a tightness around her mouth in a few areas, she didn’t show any reaction. How many times had a trainer or a coach checked him for injury? Too many to count. This was different, though, and he couldn’t quite define how except that it made the hairs on his arms stand up.

He cleared his throat, shaking off the uncomfortable feeling. “How would you rank the pain on a ten-point scale?”

Her brown eyes narrowed as she sized him up, her gaze combing over him like he was a used car she wasn’t sure was worth the price but she was considering kicking the tires just for fun. “It’s fine. I’ll manage.”

Message received, he stood up. “Does your ankle hurt enough that you want some help walking?”

“I can manage on my own,” she said, the inflection in how she said “own” giving her away as a Harbor City native. “Let’s just get this over with.”

He and the hostess exchanged what-the-fuck looks over his salty date’s head, and he followed her back to the table where he’d been sitting. He noticed two things as they made their way through the café. One, she was definitely limping. Two, her ass in those jeans was phenomenal. The limp he could maybe do something to help with if she was open to an ankle massage—which didn’t seem likely. The ass he needed to forget before he messed up this wack-a-doo plan to redeem himself.

The reality was, his mouth, hands, and dick were going to stay untouched by his date tonight.

He gave himself a mental high five. Hell yeah!

That moment of joy faded fast, though. Why? Because this was what his life had come to—a mental fist pump that he would be going home alone to spend solitary quality time with his right hand and would continue to do so until he had five Bramble dates in the win column.

As soon as they sat down at the table, a weird what-in-the-hell-do-we-do-now moment came rushing at him full force. He should have read Zara’s dating profile when his mom offered the other day. He could have used the audible read-text option on the iPad, but he hadn’t wanted to do that in front of everyone in Lucy’s office. Instead, he’d gone onto the dating ice only to find he had no game plan.

“So,” he said, picking up his menu. Okay, he wasn’t a big dater—he did have this face, after all—but he wasn’t a noob, either. He knew how to do this. “Have you eaten here before?”

“No,” she said, tucking her bright-red hair behind one ear, her gaze locked on her menu. “I’m more of a street hot dog kind of girl.”

“Really?” Was it wrong that he liked her a little for that answer? 98 percent of the time he was on a pretty regimented nutrition plan, but on cheat days? He could eat his weight in street dogs and stadium nachos. “With or without relish?”

She looked up and wrinkled her freckle-covered nose. “What kind of horrible person skips the relish?”

Okay. Maybe this wouldn’t be a total shitshow.

“So,” Caleb said after the waiter dropped off a bread basket. “What do you do?”

She lay the menu down on the table and lifted her chin as if she was expecting a blow. “I’m a miniatures artisan.”

Okay, the jokes here just wrote themselves, and it was killing him to keep his mouth shut. Asshole? Him? Maybe.