It’s possible I’m the real asshole here.
Zeus snorts with laughter and rubs his ass harder over the box with the one remaining Nick Murphy doll while it squeaks out slower and more vulgar insults as he destroys the one-of-a-kind voice box inside, which is nothing like the You’re a winner! messages that went to the 298 other dolls at the children’s hospital. “Nice try, Murphy. I’m still gonna keep your ass outta trouble on the ice tonight, because I got a lot of respect for second-rate pranksters.”
“You can’t beat us,” Ares tells me.
“Years of experience,” Zeus agrees. “Ask my sister sometime.”
“Scarred for life,” Ares chimes in.
“And she married the fucker who instigated most of it. He’s got a billion-trillion bucks now, and me and Ares, we know when to bow to a master.”
Ares nods in agreement. “When to ask him for favors too.”
Coach rubs his eyes. “I’m coming back in two minutes, and you all damn well better be ready to win a fucking game tonight.”
“You can brag on your family later,” Lavoie tells them. “Get dressed.”
He looks at me, and his lips twitch.
“There’s one more in his car,” I mutter.
“Kami know you’re this kind of an asshole?” he asks.
I grin. “She’s got an idea. Hey, Berger. Smile for me, sexy thang.”
Zeus strikes a pose. Ares turns on the flashlight on his phone and shines it on Zeus making the glitter dicks shine and sparkle. I snap a pic and text it to Kami.
Somebody won’t be interrupting private phone time anymore, I tell her.
She replies with a gif of a woman falling over laughing, and I send her a gif of a kissy-face.
She replies with a gif that’s probably illegal and makes me break out in a sweat, because it’ll be at least three hours, probably four, before I get to actually see her.
Coach strolls back in. “You all got your heads in the game?” he asks.
We all nod, serious as we can be.
And when we take the ice, I’m ready.
No question. No hesitation.
Except that minute I pause to wink at Kami’s mom and toss her a puck.
Because if Kami has to sit through the whole game entertaining both our mothers, the least I can do is charm hers from the ice.
And they said charm school wouldn’t work on me.
Those fuckers were wrong.
Forty-Five
Kami
Because my body apparently thinks that being nice and sweet and everyone’s favorite boring girl next door means that we can’t have the scandal of an unexpected out-of-wedlock pregnancy, even in modern times, I get my period two days later.
I text Nick to let him know there are no lasting repercussions, and he doesn’t answer.
But I get a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates with demotivational sayings inside the wrappers before I leave work.
Despair: It’s a step down from destrike.
Cheer up. You could be a dog, and then you’d be really loved. Maybe next life.
You know what’s hard? Getting a splinter under your fingernail. That’s hard.
They’re so wrong, but I eat the whole box, cracking up harder with every chocolate I unwrap. I lick the last one and use it to smear chocolate all over my face, then send a selfie to Nick.
I’ve accepted your sacrifice to the hormone gods. It is now safe to enter the building.
He sends me back a picture of him, Lavoie, Ares, and Jaeger playing cards on a plane, because they’re off to Florida tonight.
He’s smiling, but he looks tired, and I wonder if he had a hard practice today, or if he’s been more worried about the possibility of me being pregnant than he let on the other night.
I’ve started thinking that his love you was a total fluke, because he hasn’t said it again. And he knows I’ve been in love with him since before I could even say why, so I don’t want to say it first and make him feel like he has to say it back.
Even if I’d said it back that night, he wouldn’t have heard me.
He passed out so hard the next instant, I had to shove him to get comfortable, and he barely stirred.
After driving home to take my dogs for a walk, I meet Felicity, Maren, Alina, and Muffy for dinner at Felicity’s place, because we haven’t had a girls’ night in forever, and since I called Muffy for Muff Matchers, it’s become pretty obvious she needs friends other than her mom, so I’m dragging her along.
“How’s young love?” Alina asks me over wine while we munch on cheese and, in Felicity’s case, sparkling grape juice and hummus.
“Good,” I answer automatically. I’ve cleaned my face off, but I can still smell chocolate under my nose, and I’d rather be pigging out on toffee and brownies than cheese and vegetables.
All four of my friends gawk at me.
I rub at that spot under my right nostril where I swear the chocolate is hiding. “What? Do I have it on me still?”
Felicity’s eyes bulge, Maren doubles over laughing, and Alina and Muffy give each other a high five.
“What in the—oh! Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen him all day. I was eating—you know what? Never mind. Yes, can someone please check and make sure Nick’s semen isn’t in my nose?”
“I kinda wish I was still morning sick,” Felicity says.
“That’s really disgusting,” Muffy informs me.
“Trouble in paradise?” Maren wants to know.
“No, it’s just—hormones, okay?” It’s just that I think he loves me, but I can’t go blabbing to his sister that I’m afraid I’m reading the signals wrong because I’ve always been hopeless when it comes to Nick, and what if I actually scared him off and now he’s biding his time until he can break up with me because there was that super slim chance I was pregnant, and now that he knows I’m not, he wouldn’t be abandoning both me and his unborn child, whom I would be more than happy to carry, but not if I’m going to have to do it on my own?
Or possibly hormones are actually the right reason I’m cranky.
“So…no lasting implications from…you know?” Felicity hedges.
“He told you?” I gasp.
“Nick’s like a book when you’ve known him long enough.” She flutters a hand. “And I’m also really good at spying on him when I want information. Don’t tell him that. It’ll cripple me in the war to know what he’s up to. And given that it’s Nick, it’s always a good idea for someone to know what he’s up to.”
I can’t exactly argue with that. “He sent me flowers and chocolates today,” I tell her.
She frowns.
“The chocolates had terrible, awful, hilarious sayings inside them,” I add hastily, because yeah, flowers and chocolates are not Nick.
But then, he probably didn’t have time to throw together a gift pack of things with his picture on them.
“Oh. That’s better,” she says, but she’s still frowning. “Are you okay?”
“What are you two talking about?” Maren demands.
“Oh my god, Kami’s pregnant!” Muffy shrieks.
I lift my wine glass and jiggle it in her direction.
“But you could’ve been,” Alina guesses.
“That’s totally what I meant,” Muffy says quickly.
“He would’ve been thrilled,” Felicity tells me.
“Really?” I wince, because I hate the doubt creeping into my voice.
I know the hockey blogs—except Maren’s—are saying that dating me is his good luck charm, which is ridiculous, because Nick’s a pro. Even if people don’t think he works hard, he does. There’s just a lot of pressure this year.
But at the same time…I don’t know that he’s ready for the whole wife-and-kids thing either.
And not knowing how long it might take him to be ready sometimes makes my stomach drop to my toes as I realize that choosing to be with Nick might mean it never happens.
Felicity rounds the island to stand next to me and squeeze me in a shoulder hug. “He’s different, Kami. He knows what he has now, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up again. Just…give him a chance. He won’t let you down.”
“I know.” I do know. I do. He has been different. And even if he’s not saying he loves me, he’s doing everything I ever dreamed he would, but more, because he’s doing it his way. And he’s funny and sweet and romantic and obnoxious and imperfect and Nick. “No one’s more dedicated when he has a goal.”
My friends all snicker at that, because we all know it’s true.
“Did you know he was going to glitterbomb Zeus?” Maren asks.
I shake my head. “He doesn’t consult anyone when he gets a plan.”
“Ares said it was worse than when their sister got all of them in her husband’s office,” Felicity tells me. “And that was apparently pretty epic.”
“Did they use dick glitter?”
“I think that was the difference.”
“Do you have tickets to Thursday’s game?” Maren asks.
“I have tickets for all the games,” I say. “But yes—want to go?”
“To watch them play Indianapolis? Oh, hell, yeah.” Last year’s expansion team almost kept the Thrusters from reaching the championship finals. It’ll be a hot match-up. Nick’s already asked four times if I’ll be there. “But I have to go check on a project in Colorado this week, so I can’t go.”
“I’m on the last week of my tour,” Alina says, frowning. “That was terrible planning. Think you’ll get tired of going to every game?”
I consider it for half a second. “Nope.”
“I’ll go,” Muffy tells me.
“I had no doubt.”
We dive back into our food, and Muffy starts telling a story about a new client who asked to be set up with only women who have honey brown hair. Nick texts me when they land in Florida, complete with a much happier selfie—I would be too if I were walking on the beach—and by the end of the night, I’m feeling normal again.