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I don’t want to confess I’m almost always free. “I think so.”
“Good. I have tickets for my next game. Enough for your friends to come,” he adds quickly, like he expects me to say no.
Beth makes a little squeak, and both of our heads whip her way. Clearly, I’m not the only one who forgot she was there.
“Ignore me,” she says, and I swear, she’s crying, fat tears falling on his application. “Go on! Pretend I’m not here again.”
“Goodtickets,” he says. “And I have a jersey for you. Can’t have you showing up in scrubs.”
“Hey! What’s wrong with my scrubs?”
Eli gives me an assessing look that I swear is like a laser heating through me. Never mind that over my baggy blue scrubs I have on a too-big zippered hoodie.
“Not a thing. You look adorable in scrubs. But if you’re coming to an Appies game, you need Appies gear.”
“But whose name will be on the back of my jersey?” His face darkens, and it only makes me push more. “Maybe Van? He’s a fun guy.”
Eli’s heated look turns molten, and he shakes his head slowly. “Mine,” he says firmly, his low voice wrapping like a fist around my heart. “You can only wearmyname.”
CHAPTER 11
Bailey
It’shours later before I get a chance to look over Eli’s paperwork.
Did I take it home with me? Yes. Yes, I did.
Because reading over the volunteer application of my crush turned maybe soon-to-be husband—a thought so unreal I’m going to keep qualifying it with maybes andishes until it becomes verifiable with documentation—is something to savor. I choose to savor it with the Bueno from his bouquet, hot tea, and reruns ofProject Runwaystreaming on the TV.
There are lots of interesting facts on the actual application. The one I’m still hung up on is Hagrid. I decide, after looking up the publication dates for the first Harry Potter book as well as Eli’s birthday, that Hagridmustbe a family name. Eli is just barely too old for Maggie to have read the books while picking baby names.
He also listed his previous employment as delivering pizzas and babysitting, complete with reference phone numbers—in Canada. Adorable.
Under reasons he wanted to apply, he wrote three.I love dogsbeing the first. Unsurprising, but still cute. The second is about the importance of volunteering, which rings true for him but also sounds a little like what a quick Google search might tell you to put on an application.
It’s the third one that has me smiling so hard I got a cheek cramp.To see my favorite dog handler, he wrote. Then, in parentheses, he added(Leelee aka Bailey aka hopefully the person reading this application). I read over this multiple times. While massaging my cheek.
The man is almost sweet enough to make my teeth ache. But there’s a little squeeze of naughty that just keeps him from beingtoonice.
It takes all my restraint to read the first page thoroughly, slowly before I flip to the second. And then, I almost choke on my Earl Grey.
The page is covered with pink sticky notes, a message scrawled out one word per note in Eli’s blocky handwriting:I know you said yes, but I thought you might appreciate some character references.
He doesn’t say yes towhat, specifically, but I don’t think he means going to the hockey game. Probably smart not to mention the marriage stuff to prevent any kind of paper trail. Even a pink sticky-note paper trail.
I’m grinning as I flip to the next page, careful not to dislodge any of the sticky notes. I’d like to put this whole thing under glass like ancient documents in a museum, install special lighting and buy the kind of gloves museum curators use to aid in preservation. Maybe if I had money for anything extra, I would.
It looks as though Eli asked half the team to write something. Becauseof course he did. I’m starting to see just how much attention he pays to detail, how Eli likes to turn even little things into events.
Most of the notes are fairly generic, and unlike Eli’s neat print, most are written in an almost illegible scrawl I can only decipher through squinting and some guesswork. Also, several of them aren’t all that convincing, like one from someone named Wyatt, which makes me snicker:I don’t know Eli well, but he seems like a good guy. (And if he’s not, I will not be held liable or in any way legally culpable for his actions.)
Culpable,huh? I could submit this as proof to contradict anyone who still equates athletes with stupidity.
Stay away from hockey players. We stink. Literally,someone named Nathan writes.
Probably true. Though every time I’ve been around Eli, he’s smelled delectable. Men’s cologne covers over a host of smell sins, but I doubt it would fully blanket hockey stink. Nathan’s note doesn’t deter me in the slightest.
Bring it on, hockey stink.Working here has uniquely prepared me for any olfactory assault.
