The Not - Outcast

I had no intention of leaving without Cheyenne, but I also had no faith in her either. “Can stay a bit. Maybe in the back?”

“We’ll get it taken care of. Just wait. I’ll put you upstairs? You want to be seen or total privacy?”

“Privacy would be nice.”

“Got it.” He gave me a nod and a thumbs-up. “Be right back. You keep doing your thing.”

I signed napkins, a few arms, a forehead, a couple hats. Some shirts. A woman wanted me to sign her bra strap. It was a few minutes later when the manager reappeared and tapped my back. He motioned for me to follow him, and we headed through the bar, around to the stairs and up. It was roped off, with a bouncer standing by the side. He was talking to a few women, but gave me a nod as we went past.

Once upstairs, I saw we were totally alone.

“Here you go.” He held his hand out toward one of the back booths. The upstairs was sort of a loft with some tables set near the railing. There was a line of booths behind them, and another row of booths behind those. He indicated the second row. “I’ll send Dee to take care of you guys.”

He headed back down, and I went to the second row.

She was sitting in the farthest corner booth, also the biggest, and I had to smile for a second.

Cheyenne looked up at me. “What?”

I shook my head, sliding in to sit across from her. The table was big enough that I almost could’ve laid out on it. “We could pull another table over to add to this one. Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

Her eyes latched onto mine, staring, and then her mouth twerked. “I just wanted privacy.”

I nodded, glancing around. We could hear the sounds below, but they were muted from how far back we were. “This is definitely that.”

We heard footsteps, and Dee came over. Two napkins were placed in front of us, and she put waters on both. Giving us a professional smile, she never reacted at the space between Cheyenne and myself. “Can I start you off with appetizers?”

I knew Dee. She’d worked at The Way Station for a long time. She was a worker at Bresko’s as well, and she knew I was an investor there.

“Hey, Dee.”

“Heya, Cut. Good game tonight. I caught it on the TV.” But Dee knew if I was sticking around, I didn’t want to chit-chat with her. She turned back to Cheyenne right away. “How about you, sweetie? I talked to your server downstairs. She said it was mostly water for you. Want anything else? Coffee? Or—”

“Coffee. I’ll do coffee.” Cheyenne gave me a little look.

Her meds. She wasn’t drinking because she was on them.

“I’ll just do water. Maybe some lettuce wraps?”

She nodded. “I can do that, but Oscar was mentioning you might want a board he can put together. Healthy snacks for the athletes when they come in.”

“How about both?”

“Will do.” She knocked on the booth. “Give me a holler if you need anything else?”

Once she was gone, I focused back on Cheyenne.

She was looking at me, but looking around at the same time, and she had her hands in her lap. Outward appearance, she seemed fine. Inward feeling, she was skittish as hell. Or that’s what I was getting from her.

“You glad you came to the game tonight?”

Her eyes danced back to mine. She swallowed, reaching for her water. Her hand shook a tiny bit. “Yeah, I’m always glad to be at the games.”

This sucked.

All of it.

I was remembering the first time I saw her. Damn. I had wanted her so bad. I still felt that way, but she was the scared one.

She admitted, “I couldn’t stay away.”

That felt good, though I knew it was more about hockey. Not about me.

But I was going to pretend it was about me.

“You played really well tonight.”

I nodded. “Hockey’s been my outlet in life. No matter what’s going on off the ice, that’s where I’m in control. Some guys, if they’ve got shit going down in their personal lives, they get distracted. Head’s not in the game. Not me. It’s like the ice is the only place that makes sense to me.” I gave her a rueful grin. “But I pushed a little too hard. Got too aggressive, I guess. Coach called me in, asked what the fuck was going on with me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” It hadn’t felt good going through that talk. “I gotta scale shit back a bit.”

She nodded again, and we stared at each other.

I wanted to touch her. I wanted to hold her. Hell. I really wanted to pull her on my lap and have her grind on me. But I did none of that, forcing myself to sit here and stare back at her like we were just friends.