Her face softens as she does the math on why that is. Then she grips my wrist. “Next game you come upstairs with us! Us WAGS have to stick together, right?”
I inwardly cringe. I’ve heard the term before--WAGS. Wives and girlfriends. But...I’ve got a dick, damn it!
I think she reads my mind—or maybe she sees my horrified expression—because she frowns. “Drat. I think we need to add a ‘B’ in there somewhere, for boyfriend.”
“And ‘H’,” I correct with a grin. “For husband. But WABGHs just isn’t very catchy.”
“I mean it, though,” she urges. “Sit upstairs with us at the next game. We drink Mai Tais and run up the guys’ credit cards ordering appetizers.”
I laugh, but she’s serious. “Sounds like fun.” The food in the oven smells really good now, which means it must be fully hot. I grab two towels and tug open the door, lifting both dishes onto the stove for safekeeping. But the motion triggers the last traces of my cough. So I toss the towel over the dishes’ blazing hot handles and quickly exit the kitchen area, coughing into the crook of my elbow.
At the sound of my respiratory distress, Wes sets down his beer and comes close. I warn him off with a stern look, even if I can’t exactly speak.Pat me like a toddler and die, I say with my eyes.
He restrains himself—smart man—and heads over to the food, fishing two spatulas out of our drawer. The first one hesets into the pan of chicken. But then I see him poke the second one into the lasagna, as if to cut it up to serve.
I’m just clearing my throat desperately to say,careful, that’s hot, when I see his hand go for the pan’s handle…
And I can’t move fast enough. His hand grips the burning hot edge.
“Fuck!” he yelps, leaping back.
I flick the tap onto cold and grab him by the elbow, towing him toward the sink. I take his burned hand and—after checking the temperature—I thrust it under the cold water. “Babe,seriously. Again? When there’s a dish towel draped over the handle, it’s not, like, a decoration, it’s…”
“Aflag. I know,” he says through clenched teeth. “I forgot.”
“How bad is it?” I glance up to see five people watching us in fascination.
“Uh,” he says, noticing the same thing. He shakes me off and stares at his hand. It’s red, and there’s a white blister forming on the lower part of his thumb.
I grab his hand and stick it under the water again. “At least it’s not your shooting hand.”
There is a nervous ripple of laughter, and Wes sighs.
The only sound is water crashing into the sink. And some kind of stubbornness keeps me glued to Wes’s side. I want to shout, “Look, sometimes men touch each other!”We’ve never been out as a couple before. This is going to take some getting used to.
The door flies open again. This time it’s Blake, and he’s used his key. “Dudes!” he yells. “I smell Katie’s lasagna!” His gaze travels to Wes and me. “Cheezus. You burn yourself again, rookie?”
My boyfriend growls under his breath, and Katie andEstrella leap into action, cutting lasagna without torching their own skin, and handing plates around.
There aren’t enough places to sit. I feel bad taking up a spot on the sofa, but Estrella parks me there with a plate and my mug of tea. She and Katie chat me up some more. They’re really nice, but I feel a little like I’m being recruited into a club.
“Hewitt!” Blake shouts from his perch by the counter. “Did you hear? I’m planning the wedding.”
I twist around to seek out Wes, and my alarmed gaze collides with his. “Not a chance,” he tells his teammate. “Only thing you need to plan is how to keep that big trap shut during the ceremony.”
Blake scowls. “I’d be good at it! I know flowers!”
“Name five flowers you’d put in the centerpieces,” Wes orders, while I choke back a laugh. If Wes can name five flowers I’ll eat my helmet.
“Um. Roses. Tulips. Daffodilias—”
“Daffodilias?” Katie exclaims. “Keep him away from your wedding, Ryan. I’ll give you the number for the wedding planner Ben and I used.”
“He can’t have the job anyway,” I say. “My sister Jess has decided to become a party planner. She’s definitely getting this gig.”
Something goes a little wrong with Blake’s face when I say Jess’s name. That’s weird. They must have really annoyed the heck out of each other when they were babysitting me.
After everyone eats, they take all the plates and wash them in the kitchen. And they don’t let me help. I end up on the sofa beside Hewitt and Eriksson, and the three of us try to beat each other’s best diving-in-front-of-the-puck stories. As a goalie,blocking shots was technically the main part of my job, but their stories are pretty entertaining.
