Me: Yes.
Mother: Oh, I’m so happy, sweetie.
Me: Yeah. Can’t wait.
Sarcasm practically drips from my phone.
Mother: Peter will be so thrilled.
Wait. Huh?
Me: Who’s Peter?
Mother: Your soon-to-be stepfather’s son. He’s single. Thirty-two. Tall. Blond. Devastatingly handsome.
I gape incredulously at my mother’s words, blinking a few times in the hope that I might have read them wrong. But no. This bitch is actually trying to set me up with my soon-to-be stepbrother at our parents’ wedding. I swear, I almost throw up in my own mouth.
Mother: He’s a dish, Han. And a very successful divorce attorney.
It takes all that I have not to reply with a smart-mouthed quip about her future stepson’s profession being beneficial to her considering she goes through marriages like she goes through Botox vials, but I’m far too nonplussed over the fact that she’s actually considering playing matchmaker with her own daughter and her groom’s son. I’m about three seconds away from rescinding my RSVP.
“Um, Hannah?”
I snap my head up to find Matt looking at me over his shoulder.
“What’s up?” My stomach knots when I see the look on his face.
“Brookes just… cracked a beer.”
“Hewhat?” I jump up, craning my neck to look into the recording booth to see Brookes sitting on his stool in front of the microphone, chugging back a can of Miller Lite like he’s at a goddamn Yankees game. I gape at Matt. “Where the hell did he get that from?”
Matt scoffs. “Bro literally just pulled it from the pocket of his khakis.”
“Oh my fucking God,” I mutter, storming through the door that separates the booth from the mixing studio.
Brookes glances casually at me, taking another pull from his beer.
“Give it to me.” Holding a hand out, I waggle my fingers impatiently. “Now.”
He has the audacity to hold up a finger, as if to sayOne moment, please,before necking the rest of the beer in one go. He crushes the can in his huge bear-like paw, handing it to me with a smug smile.
I look from the crushed can in my hand back up at him, shaking my head in disgust. “You have serious fucking issues. Youhaveto know that, right?”
He burps in response and chuckles, and I swear to God. Fucking men.
CHAPTER 14
HAPPY
“Good game tonight, son.”
I snap my head up from where I’m unlacing my skates, shocked to see the flash of a smile ghost Coach Draper’s lips.
Tonight’s game was in stark contrast to my train wreck against Chicago. I scored two assists and the winning goal. I’m not an idiot; I know I’m not in the clear just yet, especially if Chris Garret gets his way, but the look on his face when I passed him in the tunnel to the tune of the home crowd chanting my name after the game was fucking priceless.
“Ned’s tonight?” I ask no one in particular.
“Yeah,” Dallas says with a scoff. “You’re not gonna act like a pissy little bitch and dip out early like you did the other night, are you?”
