“I just…” I stare at the ceiling. There is a faint water stain shaped like Texas above my light fixture. Of course. “I don’t want to be The Woman Who Gets Cheated On. Again.”
“You’re not,” she says immediately. “You’re Annabelle Hacker. Brilliant. Gorgeous. Loyal. Organized. And you swear like a sailor when you’re angry.”
“I do not.”
“You called him a ‘banjo-wielding barnacle parasite.’”
“Okay, that one was deserved.”
“And you emailed his manager a color-coded bullet-point list of all the ways he emotionally underperforms as a partner.”
I roll to my side and squint at the camera. “That was constructive feedback.”
“Sure it was,” she says. “Look, the point is, he is a walking cliché with a guitar, and you are a whole functioning person. You left. You came home. You got a job. That’s not a sad girl move. That’s a main character move.”
The words slip under my skin and sit there, warm and uncomfortable.
“Speaking of the job,” she says, brightening, “how was day one at the Outlaws front office? Is your dad making you organize pucks again?”
I groan and throw an arm over my eyes. “You want the work update?”
“Yes. Tell Auntie Shari about your new high-powered executive life.”
I peek at the phone. “I have been assigned a demon.”
“Oh no. What?”
“More like who… Bryce Blackhorn.”
Her eyes go huge. “THE Bryce Blackhorn? The one who tried to fight a mechanical bull?”
“He did fight it. And lost.”
“The one who got caught dancing shirtless on Broadway with the mayor’s niece?”
“Allegedly. But yes.”
She props herself up on her elbow, face mask crinkling. “And you met him today?”
“I… encountered him.”
She smirks. “Was it sexy?”
“It was sweaty.”
“Same thing.”
“No,” I insist, sitting up again. “It was muscular. And smug. And distracting. He skated over, ripped his jersey off, and my frontal lobe packed its bags and left the country.”
“So, you want to climb him.”
“I WANT TO FILE A COMPLAINT.”
She cackles. I glare at her and reach for a hair tie, gathering my hair on top of my head just so I have something to do with my hands.
“You should have seen him,” I say. “He smirked.”
Shari gasps theatrically. “Not the smirk.”
