He left home at sixteen to join the Ontario Hockey League and played for the Ottawa Stallions for two years before he was drafted into the NHL at age eighteen to the Florida Spartans. He spent three years there as first a backup goalie, then a starting goalie, before being traded to the Cold Fury, where he’s been for the past four years although he’s suffered injuries that kept him on the bench last season.

I am not completely ignorant of hockey. I’ve dated guys in the past that are all about the sports and so I learned some things. I’ve even been to a game once before. But I didn’t know enough to recognize who Max Fournier was, and I sure as hell have no idea who any of the other players are.

But it all made sense to me why Chris jumped to give me my job back. The Cold Fury are the defending Stanley Cup Champions and I know Chris is a huge fan as he’s always talking about them.

I watch as Max turns his back on me and walks down the aisle that displays gum and candy on one side and chips on the other, until he reaches the back cooler and pulls out a Mountain Dew. He snags a Snickers when he comes back through and drops them both on the counter.

I ring the purchases up while casually saying, “You should let me buy these for you. It’s the least I can do for you getting my job back.”

“Not necessary,” he says, and my eyes slide from the green digital display on the register to him. He looks back at me with an expression that clearly says he was glad he could help. He hands me a five dollar bill without even looking at the total and I take that to mean this is not his first Snickers and Mountain Dew combo he’s purchased.

My heart starts beating a little quicker as I make change for him, then quicker yet when I hand him the coins and our fingers brush against each other. A flood of warmth courses through me, leaving a little prickle of excitement behind, and when he smiles at me and shoves the change in his front pocket a feeling of serenity settles over me.

That’s . . . odd and not exactly altogether unpleasant.

I wait for Max to tell me goodbye and walk back out that door—back out of my life probably for good—but he stuns the hell out of me when he walks the length of the counter and then rounds the end to come back behind the register with me. He casually leans against the back counter, setting his Mountain Dew there and opening up his Snickers bar.

“What are you doing?” I ask, stunned, with equal measures of excitement he’s not leaving and terror that Chris will walk in and find him here. I cannot lose this job again.

“Going to hang out with you for the rest of your shift,” he says with a shrug and then takes a bite of his candy bar.

I get sidetracked a moment by the strong lines of his jaw moving as he chews, and my fingers itch to touch the stubble there that looks the same length as when I saw him yesterday.

“You can’t,” I blurt out. “If Chris comes in . . . I can’t lose this job again.”

“He knows I’m here,” Max says calmly after he swallows, and then waves the candy bar in my direction. “Want a bite?”

My eyebrows draw inward and I shake my head over his offer. “He knows you’re here?”

“Yup,” he says with a grin. “Told him I was going to come by tonight for a little bit and hang until you closed up, and then make sure you got to your car safely.”

“And he was okay with that?”

“He was more than okay,” Max says nonchalantly, takes another bite and grins at me through his chewing.

I narrow my eyes. “You bribed him, didn’t you?”

“Yup,” is all he says.

“With what . . . tickets to games?”

“And signed shit,” he adds on.

I shake my head, my eyes lowered in amusement. I keep them lowered, afraid to look at him again as I might just grab his face and plant a huge kiss on his cheek.

I’m saved from embarrassing myself when the door opens and a young guy walks in. Tall with light blond hair, fashionable white polo, and khaki shorts with loafers. He doesn’t spare us a glance and heads to the coolers.

Max sets his half-eaten candy bar down, pushes off from the counter, steps to the end and nabs a baseball hat off a rack that holds several done in local collegiate colors. He chooses a red Wolfpack one, glances at the price tag before pulling it off. I watch all of this with interest as he puts the hat on, pulls it low, and then fishes in his wallet to hand me a twenty along with the tag.

I look down at the items in my hand, then back to him, and he winks. “Don’t feel like getting recognized.”

I grin and turn to the register where I ring up the hat for $14.99 and hand him back his change.

Max pulls his phone out, bends his head over it and leans back against the counter just as the young guy puts a case of beer up on the counter. He doesn’t even give Max a glance and it takes no more than a few minutes for me to card him, ring up his purchase, take payment, give him the difference, and he’s back out the door without once looking at the man behind the counter with me.

I turn to face Max, resigned—no, okay, excited—that he’s going to spend the next hour here. Positioning myself on the opposite counter with the register behind me, I lean back and ask, “It’s kind of weird . . . a professional athlete eating a candy bar and drinking a Mountain Dew.”

“We all have vices, Jules,” he offers before polishing the candy bar off.

“I bet you train super hard so what’s a candy bar here and there, right?” I observe.

“That’s kind of my theory,” he says, after which he swallows the last bit and uncaps his Mountain Dew. He holds it up toward his mouth, but before taking a drink he says, “But let’s just make an agreement right here and now that if you ever meet Vale Campbell, my strength trainer, you do not tell her about the candy bars and soda, okay?”

I laugh, tilting my head back and realizing it’s been a long time since I’ve let out an actual spontaneous laugh. When I lower my face and look back at him with a fading chuckle, he’s staring at me, bottle still poised in the air.

His eyes are intense . . . pinned on me. We stare at each other, and as my laugh dies, an electric current seems to sizzle in the air between us. His gaze drops to my mouth, holds there a moment and then back to my eyes. A slight flash of longing and then it’s gone and he’s giving me an easygoing smile. “Agreed?”

“Sure,” I say, desperately reaching out to grab ahold of that magnetic feeling again, but it’s gone. “It’s our secret.”