The Game Changer

by Lana Ferguson

I pull my apron over my head, frowning at the bits of flour that escaped the hem to cover my chest—a common occurrence, with my…ample landing zone. Everybody wants huge tits until there’s flour involved.

He’s been up there in the frozen wasteland for way too long.” “Calgary is hardly a frozen wasteland.” “Eh. I assume everything above the border is snowed in.”

I’m sure Ian has missed you. It’s incredibly stupid what that one sentence can do to my heart. As if I’m sixteen again and not twenty-eight with over a decade between me and my pathetic pining.

I hate the way a part of me perks up, as if I haven’t purposefully avoided all things Ian since he left, for the sole reason of knowing he probably wouldn’t miss me all that much, since I was never more than Jack’s little sister in his eyes.

You’re Delilah Baker, I tell myself, attempting a pep talk. You studied under Olivier Guillaume in Paris before you were twenty-five. You’ve got this.

People love you, that hasn’t changed. You’re the girl next door, the sweetheart of the Boston baking scene, and that will always be true.” I suppress the urge to frown. I don’t hate being known as the proverbial good girl, it’s just a brand, after all, one that I suppose looks fitting with my small-but-curvy frame and my freckles and my big brown eyes that Jack and I share.

Get one of my brother’s teammates on here in their gear? A big hockey player making little pastries? People would eat that shit up. No pun intended.” She arches her brow. “It’s not…a terrible idea. Bad puns aside.”

Six years. Six fucking years of this shit trailing after me, finding me no matter how far I run. I’ve long learned the lesson firsthand that anything on the internet stays there forever.

“Every time the Druids played a game, the press would rather talk about my damned love life than how many goals we scored. It wasn’t fair to the team.” “Your parents own the team! They could have done more. They should have.”

“And I never bought all that bullshit they say about you online,” he says earnestly as I hand the napkin back. “You never seemed like the cheating type to me.” It’s a little harder to hold my smile, but I manage somehow. “Right. Yeah.”

Fuck what Twitter says. That place isn’t real, anyway. You can’t put stock in something owned by Elon Musk.” “I think Tesla investors would argue with you.” “Shut up.” “Also, I think they renamed it.” “Yeah, but it’s stupid. I don’t know what that guy’s obsession with naming things with just letters is.”

The mention of Lila throws me, mostly because it makes me feel oddly homesick. I spent the better part of middle and high school—even the beginning of college—having Lila Baker tail after me and Jack, and now after having not seen her for so many years, it’s odd to have her mentioned twice in one hour.

“I mean, it’s been a while since we’ve spoken; we sort of grew apart when I got drafted. Then there was getting married, getting divorced, moving to Calgary…” I frown. “I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

Lila wanted me on her show? I mean, I’m grateful that she’d be willing to help me out, but I can’t say that I’m not thrown by it. Given that we haven’t had a real conversation since I got drafted—it seems like a stretch. But then again…Lila was always a fucking saint.

“Hockey players are brutes. What if they say something stupid?” I cock an eyebrow. “Brutes? You never seem to mind Olsson being a brute when you’re lusting over him while we watch the games.”

And as big of a space in my head that Ian Chase’s name takes up—his actual presence is a hundred times worse. Or better. I’m not sure.

He’s changed since I last saw him; his hair is longer, his gray eyes are harder—but even with the years between the last time I saw him and now, that small smile he gives me still does the exact same thing to my insides that it did when I was sixteen. Earlier than that, if I were really being honest.

“Lila?” The recognition in his eyes is colored with a touch of confusion, which is fair, given that the last time he saw me, I was just a knobby-kneed teen with braces whose boobs hadn’t come in yet. He’s not the only...

“You do realize I’m two years away from thirty, right? I don’t think the whole kid thing applies anymore.” He frowns, a wrinkle forming between his eyes as he considers this. For a moment, he looks almost uncomfortable. Like he’s just now considering that I’m not the kid he knew.

I’m not sixteen anymore, and Ian has lived a whole life since I saw him last. Fanning the flames of an ancient crush is a recipe for disaster. Best to shut it down quickly.

I think it’s that we’re both realizing how many years have passed between us, how much life we’ve lived apart, how different we’re bound to be…It’s difficult to navigate. Neither of us can seem to figure out how to step back into the space we once shared.

“A local network is still more than a lot of bakers are doing back in their kitchens. Don’t sell yourself short.” I can’t pretend I don’t like the praise, but that could just be an echo of the girl who used to hang on his every word begging for scraps.

Stop being stupid. Ian is your friend. You’ve had plenty of time to get that through your head. Go back out there and act like a normal, twenty-eight-year-old woman and not a lovestruck teenager seeing a cute boy for the first time.

“You remembered my drink?” His brow arches, looking even more confused. Like I’m the silly one for thinking him remembering something as arbitrary as a disgustingly sweet drink I used to indulge in once a week over a decade ago is unfathomable. “I…yeah?” I actually feel my heart beat faster. That’s when I realize I’m in real fucking trouble.

Her mouth twitches in a smile. Her smile causes the cute little dimple she’s always had to deepen, and I’m struck with the realization that while it used to make her face more babyish, more angelic even—now it just accentuates how stunning she’s become. It makes me feel strange to acknowledge that, even in my head. Not that it’s kept me from noticing, because fuck have I noticed.

This Lila is pouty lips and luscious curves and a smile that makes me wish I were wearing tighter underwear, and fuck me these are not thoughts I should be having, but my brain hasn’t gotten the memo yet that this is Lila. Jack’s little sister and my old friend.

I try to think back to the time when I last saw her—she had to be, what, seventeen? Between the draft and her going to college out of state, and then moving to France…it feels like a lifetime since I sat this close to Delilah Baker.

Looking at her now, it seems like she’s lived a lifetime since I last sat across from her. Save for her big brown eyes that are just as wide and clear as they were back then, I can’...

“Finally started caring about your glucose levels?” She rolls her eyes, pulling the plastic cup closer. “In France, it’s all about espresso. I got addicted to it.”

“So…France? That must have been a trip.” “Oh, it was amazing. A fucking dream, actually. The pâtissier I studied under—Olivier—total grump, but he’s brilliant. I think I saw him smile maybe…twice? In three years? But the man can bake macarons that’ll make your taste buds orgasm.”

It’s the second time in fifteen minutes that she’s made a sex reference to food. It’s doing nothing for the me who’s trying desperately to rein in my brain’s confused reaction to her being so…grown up.

Jesus. It’s been too long since I’ve interacted with a woman outside of a meaningless one-night stand. The easy air between Lila and me that we once had is dryer now, harder to manage. Maybe it’s simply because it’s been so long? It sure as hell isn’t helping that she looks like…Well, that she looks like the way she does.

Olivier refused to talk to me in English. He always said: ‘If you want to cook like the French, you have to speak like the French.’ ”

Lila laughs like she’s happy to just be. It’s infectious. It’s also hard to ignore how it makes my chest feel too warm.

“Well, go on,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Talk French to me.” I say it as a joke, mostly, which means I could never anticipate the way my pulse quickens when she opens her mouth, sounding every bit a native to the French tongue in my very limited experience as her soft tone shapes softer words. “Tu es mignon avec tes longs cheveux.”

Lila always did have an overinflated opinion of me. She thought I hung the moon when we were kids. Even after all these years, I don’t like the thought of marring that image, even if it was always misguided. When we were younger, sometimes it felt like I could do no wrong in her eyes, and in turn, that used to give me the confidence sometimes to feel the same way, as silly as it sounds. I used to think it was because she was so much like a sister to me. Now that thought feels…odd.

She smiles again. Which means more of that fucking dimple. I try to take another drink, only to realize that I’ve already downed it all. Great.

“I watch your games when I can. You’ve still got it, Cupcake.” There’s a flicker of warmth in my chest, but whether it’s from her silly nickname or her praise, I can’t be sure. “Well, let’s hope Boston agrees with you.”

My attention feels like the kind I would give a beautiful woman I saw across a bar, and I realize it’s because I would if I didn’t know her. If we didn’t have the history we do. What the fuck? I don’t even realize I’m still staring until she talks again.

I consider this, taking in all the things that have changed with her; her soft mouth, her softer curves, the spray of freckles over her nose that have gone from endearingly cute to sinfully enticing—all the things I shouldn’t be noticing about her but can’t help but notice, anyway.

“You’re different,” she says with a crease on her forehead. “Am I?” “You used to smile a lot more,” she points out. “You seem more serious now.”

She surprises me by reaching out with her arms, and for the second time today, I’m subjected to the softness of her body pressing against mine. It’s nothing we haven’t done before. We’ve hugged a thousand times in our lives. There’s no reason for me to be so damn on edge. Maybe this really is weird, like she said. Maybe we just need time to readjust.

“Dee had this douchey boyfriend for a while. I met him once when he came back for Christmas with her. God, he was a tool. He acted like wine drinking was some kind of religious experience and was appalled when I had the gall to offer him a Michelob.”

It makes no sense that I bristle at the mention of Lila’s past boyfriend—I’m sure she’s had several over the years, with as gorgeous as she’s grown to be. I tell myself it’s a lingering sense of protection for a pseudo–little sister. Even if it feels off. “She seeing anyone now?” Jesus Christ. What the fuck, Ian?

“Weird that she’s not a scrawny kid anymore.” “Tell me about it,” Jack huffs. “She turned into a Grade A hottie, which means I have to worry about dicks sniffing around her all the time.”

Stop being weird, I tell myself. You’re just surprised by how much she’s changed. That’s all. You could never think of Lila as anything other than the kid sister you never had.

And yet, for all my reasoning…none of it stops me from thinking about her smile.

The man is sex on legs. Always has been, really. The years have only made him better. Ian Chase ages like Gouda, and I love me some fucking cheese.

I wave her off. “Please. It’s not like I’ve been waiting at the door for him. I’ve dated plenty since he left. Good sex has a way of making you forget things.” “Yeah, but…I mean, you never forget your first love.” I snort. It’s a silly notion. I didn’t love Ian.

“I didn’t know they were going to put makeup on me,” he grumbles. “Your toxic masculinity is showing,” I remark dryly. He scoffs. “I don’t give a shit about that, but she said she wanted to make my lips kissable. What the fuck does that even mean? They’re all shiny and sticky now. Feels weird.”