Jenna shrugged. “Some model.”
Liz and her mother looked at each other. “Ooh, a model,” her mother said.
“Do tell.” Liz had a gleam in her eye.
“It didn’t work out.”
“Why not?” Her mother looked disappointed, and Jenna wished they weren’t having this conversation.
“No chemistry.”
“That’s too bad. But at least you’re getting out there.” Her mom picked up the knife and went back to slicing tomatoes.
Good. Maybe they could drop the subject of her dating life.
“Doesn’t mean you have to give up just because of one bad date,” her mother said while slicing.
And then again, maybe they wouldn’t be dropping the subject.
“Clearly you need some help.”
Jenna’s gaze shot to Liz. “No, I don’t.”
“I know a lot of guys.”
“Yeah, guys in sports. You know my rule.”
“What rule is that?” her mother asked.
“Jenna doesn’t date guys who play sports.”
She leveled a glare at Liz, who gave her an innocent look.
“What? Is that a secret?”
“You don’t date men who play sports?” Her mother looked confused. “Why on earth not?”
She waved a hand. “No particular reason, Mom. Just that I’m surrounded by sports all the time, so I just don’t want to date it. You know?”
“I guess so. This worries me, though.” She laid the knife down again.
The one thing she never wanted was her mom’s full attention. That meant she was focused on her, and that usually meant trouble.
“What’s there to worry about?”
“You hate sports.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “I don’t hate sports. I grew up around them. I love them. I just don’t want to date them or marry them.”
“Hmmm.”
That was even worse. The examination by her mom when she pondered what she’d said.
She needed to escape.
“I think I’ll go see what Dad’s up to. You have things covered in here?”
“Sure. You go ahead.”
She made a quick exit and hurried out to the living room. Her dad was in there with Tara, Mick, and Nathan, watching, of all things, hockey. And even worse, it was an Ice game.
It was either that or face more conversation with her mother about her job and her love life.
The lesser of two evils, she supposed, and this was no different than being at work and having the game on at the bar.
She flopped onto the sofa next to her dad.
“What’s up, punkin?” he asked, slinging his arm around her.
“Mom and Liz are trying to fix me.”
His dad frowned and looked her over. “Are you broken?”
“Nope.”
He nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s watch the game.”
Thank God for her father. Everything with him was simple black-and-white. If you said you were okay, then you were. He believed you. Either that or he just wanted to watch the game and didn’t want to be bothered with girl things.
More likely it was the latter, since he was a guy, which suited her just fine. As long as she didn’t have to explain her lack of a boyfriend and why she didn’t want to date anyone affiliated with sports, it was fine by her.
She settled in, leaning against her dad’s shoulder.
The game was still in the first period. Normally, she’d be so busy at the bar that she’d only catch cursory glances at whatever games were on. And she sure as hell didn’t watch sports on her days off.
This was the first time she’d actually had to watch Ty in action—undistracted, anyway.
“Your boys are looking good, Elizabeth,” her dad said as Liz and her mom strolled in.
“Yes, Tyler and Eddie are great players. I’m very lucky to represent them.”
Liz arched a brow at Jenna, who shot her a warning look. The very last thing she wanted was for anyone to know about that night she’d spent with Ty. Especially after telling her mother she didn’t date sports players.
“Anderson was a good addition to the team,” Mick said.
“I have you to thank for that, Mick. If you hadn’t fired me, I likely wouldn’t have been scrambling to pick up new talent and I would have never landed him.”
“See? All kinds of good things came out of that mess. Mom and Dad ended up together. Liz and Gavin fell in love, and Liz got a whole bunch of new clients. And Dad and Liz made up and are friends again and now no one is mad at each other anymore. So sometimes bad things happen for all the right reasons.”
They all looked at Nathan.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” her mother said with a smile as she came into the room.
“You’re right, Nathan,” Mick said, ruffling the teenager’s hair.
Nathan ducked. “Man. It took me a long time to get it to look like that.”
“And here I thought you rolled out of bed and did nothing at all to get that style,” Mick teased.
“Dude. You just don’t know.”
“What I do know is that if you call me ‘dude’ again, you’ll be on toilet scrubbing duty for a week.”
Nathan looked at Mick with a horrified expression on his face.
Tara smothered a laugh.
“Uh, yes, sir.”
Mick rolled his eyes. “I don’t think we have to go that far.”
Jenna did laugh, then they all turned back to the game. She tried to watch the Ice as a whole team, but she couldn’t help but focus her attention on Tyler. He had a magnificent command of the ice and seemed to always gravitate toward the puck. Part of that was his position as a center, but he was fast on his skates and didn’t shy away from the hard action, which often got him double teamed or slammed up against the boards. He took a lot of elbows and hard knocks, ending up on his ass a lot of the time.
He didn’t seem to mind. In fact he was as aggressive as the other players, shoving an elbow or body slamming someone, even if it cost him a penalty. He’d do whatever it took to get the puck and skate away with it or pass it to a teammate.
And often enough it resulted in a goal, so obviously his methods worked.
But the bottom line was, he was exciting to watch, and he got results.
By the end of the first period they were up by one goal.