Right Man, Right Time (The Vancouver Agitators, #3)(63)

“Riveting,” I respond. “What about when it’s the off-season? You said you go up to your cabin, right?”

“Yeah, just hang out with the boys. Play games, drink beer, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“So you don’t have any hobbies?”

“Too busy to have hobbies,” he answers.

“That seems boring. You’ve got to like doing something besides things that coincide with hockey.”

“Haven’t had a chance to explore. I came right out of high school with a girlfriend and a dream. I was going to play professionally, so when I wasn’t training or playing, I focused on Sarah. All my time was taken up with no room to spare.”

“I guess that makes sense. Well, is there something you wish you could do? A hobby you wish you could spend more time doing?”

He gives it some thought. “I’d like to cook more. Right now, I have a personal chef who makes my meals and leaves them in my fridge. He comes with me when we go to Banff, and I enjoy watching him work. If I had the energy, I’d ask him to teach me.”

“Maybe you should next summer. You won’t have hockey, so maybe have him teach you a bit.”

Silas nods. “Yeah, maybe I will.”

“See.” I nudge him with my foot. “I’m already changing your life.”

He rolls his eyes and then asks, “What about you? What are your hobbies?”

“Well, I love dancing. I do that when I want to blow off steam or just have fun. I also enjoy scrapbooking, but I haven’t done it for a bit. I have some catching up to do.”

“Scrapbooking with all those tools and shit?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No, I wish I had the room and the money for that, but right now, it’s just simple things I find that I like in magazines or pictures that I print out and write a story next to about the picture. My internship ate up a lot of my time this summer, so I’ve dropped the ball in adding clippings and pictures to my book, but I’ll catch up. I’ve stashed away everything so when I do have a moment, I can sit down and glue it all in.”

“That’s kind of cool. Do you have one for each year?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I started back in middle school. It was more of a diary at the time. My mom would purchase my magazines, and I would clip things from them that I loved or print them on the computer. Then I started using pictures with friends, and it formed more into a scrapbook than anything. They’re fun to look through because it’s like a time capsule in book form.”

“Maybe next time I’m at your place, you’ll show me.”

“Ha!” I shake my head. “No way. You’ll make fun of me for the things in those books.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . the Timothée Chalamet phase I went through, or how whenever I see a donut in a magazine, I have this need to cut them out and paste them because I think they’re cute. And those are just two things. There’s a whole dark side to my scrapbooking of my innermost thoughts and feelings.”

“Now I really need to see these.”

I nudge him with my foot. “Never.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Did you ever write in a diary?”

“Does it look like I’m a diary kind of guy?” he asks, looking so hot with the way he raises his brow like that.

“No, but we should never discredit someone for their appearance. For all I know, you could have a secret Bratz dolls collection.”

“What the hell are Bratz dolls?”

“Never mind.” I sigh.

“Did you have these dolls?”

I wave my hand at him. “That’s neither here nor there. I think what we really need to focus on is your diary.”

“I told you, I don’t have one.”

“But if you did . . . what would you write in it?”

“As if I would tell you.”

“Come on, Silas. Share a little.”

“No.”

“Please.” I press my hands together, begging him. “I’ll be super supportive.”

He glances away. “You really want to know?”

Growing excited, I say, “Yes, of course, and I promise, I won’t laugh.”

“Fine.” He exhales sharply. “Dear Diary, Ollie is really fucking annoying. Yours truly, Silas.”

When he looks my way, he smirks. I shove my foot at him, causing him to laugh. “You’re an ass. I really thought you were going to tell me what you would write in your diary.”

“Right now, that’s exactly what I would write.”





“Naked,” I say. “Always naked.”

“No fucking way.” He shakes his head at me.

“Yes fucking way. I love rolling in the snow, then jumping in the hot tub. The best part is when the snow gets all up in there and then melts away by the hot water. An absolute dream.”

“I don’t fucking believe you,” Silas says.

“That’s on you and your trust issues.”

“So you’re telling me, if I invited you over here for the first fallen snow, you’d go up to my rooftop, roll in the snow naked, and then hop in the hot tub?”

“Hold on.” I hold up my hand. “You have a hot tub?”