“He says she’s out of her mind. But he loves that team so much. Oh boy. I’ve said too much. She’s going to kill me if she finds out.” Raymond took another sip of his drink. “Luckily, I’ll be back in Spain in another week.”
A big part of me couldn’t believe what I was hearing from Raymond’s mouth.
But then the truth hit me that I had really only known Dustin for one week. If I had a skeleton in my closet, what was to stop Dustin from having one?
At least one. Or two.
When Dustin took his next turn to bowl, I made like I ‘accidentally’ brushed into him, linked my finger in his belt loop, and got on my tippy toes for a kiss.
He returned it, and although my eyes weren’t open, I swore I could feel the heat from Jackie blazing onto us. Oddly, knowing we had a captive audience made me want more.
I slid my hand into Dustin’s back jean pocket and kept it there. Hockey players weren’t known for their asses but after this personal experience, I decided it was just because they were covered in so much equipment when they were skating around.
All of a sudden, we were making out right there in front of our lanes and we weren’t stopping. I heard Jackie’s voice, faint, saying something like ‘Are you two going to let me have my turn?’
It didn’t matter because a few moments later, the whole rowdy crowd started egging us on, hooting while we went at it. It felt like everyone in the bowling alley had stopped bowling and eyes were just on us.
My body flooded with a magnificent feeling of warmth. Heat and something like love filled me, for these people whose son and cousin and friend was a celebrity hockey star, but they didn’t seem to care so much about that as much as about someone they knew had found love.
The fact that no one knew the truth made me feel fake. But beyond the lying, there was a truth between Dustin and I that was still nascent. A tinge of wonder and hope ate at me as we finished our night because I knew the feelings inside me weren’t imaginary.
I didn’t have time to tell him any of this, though, and when we got in our car and headed to the afterparty at the bar I nonchalantly asked him, “What were you and Jackie talking about?”
He looked at me slowly, then turned back to the road.
“She suspects we’re faking it. I told her we weren’t. But she said she swore, if we were, she would find out and end us.”
“Jesus.”
“I know,” he shrugged.
“Do you think she’ll really do it?”
“She’s crazy enough.”
CHAPTER 21
DUSTIN
Over the next few weeks,life went well, and without incident. I was starting to think the whole marriage thing was going to work out exactly as we planned.
But there was always a curveball. Or a curvepuck. Whatever.
“So, Dustin. How’s married life?”
I turned back toward Coach Slanch, who had taken up a seat in one of the two open spots next to me on our plane ride back from the west coast.
I couldn’t help the slight smirk that tugged at my face. “I can’t complain, Coach. She’s good to me.”
Coach nodded thoughtfully, looking as though he was thinking hard about something.
“In any case, you looked good back on the ice. And no fights for the entire west coast road trip. Well done.”
Coach Slanch was right. We’d just completed our week-and-a-half road trip, playing up and down the west coast, including California, Washington State, and Canada. We had ended the trip in Vancouver and were flying back to Chicago.
He moved in and took the seat right next to me, then looked around to make sure there was no one else close to us on theteam charter plane, which there wasn’t. Leaning in, he spoke softly.
“You think we have it this year?”
