“Perfect! I was really hoping you’d say that,” she says cheerfully.
We make a plan to meet two days from now, and Avery tells me she’s looking forward to seeing me again before we hang up. I stand there for a long moment, Percy meowing at me for not leaving yet, and it’s not because I don’t want to leave—I amreallygoing to be late now—but because I can’t. My mind is spinning with so many scenarios that I can’t even begin to sort through them.
Callum telling me he wants a divorce. Me walking out once again. His heart breaking all over again.Minedoing so too.
It’s all too much, and just like the card sitting in the drawer, I don’t have the time to deal with it now. So, I don’t. I take a steadying breath, shove all the thoughts into a box, and tuck it into the back of my mind, then push my shoulders back.
I have a dress to find.
CHAPTER 18
KELLER
“May I have this dance?”
“No.”
“What? Come on! Just dance with me!”
“No.”
“Please? Please, please, please?”
“I swear to fuck, Lawsy, if you don’t walk away from me in the next five seconds, Iwillbreak your kneecap, and you’ll be the next member of the Seattle Serpents who misses playoffs.”
“Pfft. You would never do that. You love me, even if you won’t admit it. You—hey, hey, hey!” he says as I push out of my chair and move toward him. He holds his hands up and backs away slowly. “I was kidding, I was kidding. Mercy!”
He looks over at Chloe like he’s looking for help, and I step into his line of vision.
He laughs. “Oh, jealous Keller is a fun Keller.”
“Get lost, Lawson.”
“Fine. But only because I spy Rory, and I’d much rather dance with her than you.”
“That’s a lie,” Fox says into the water he’s been sipping on all night. I think most of the players here are doing the same thing.We might be on break, but nobody is risking everything we’ve worked so hard for with a hangover.
“It is not!” Lawson looks at me. “Okay, so maybe Idowant to dance with you, but only because I bet you’re secretly really good at it.”
“He is,” Chloe says, and I shoot her a dark look as I settle back down beside her. She laughs and shrugs. “Sorry, but it’s true. Remember our honeymoon?”
Between school and hockey, we weren’t able to take a trip until our fifth wedding anniversary, but fuck, it was worth the wait. And I don’t just mean because of the lounge chair we broke when she rode my cock.
No, it was the dance we had at sunset, in a little secluded spot I found one afternoon while she was taking a nap. I wrapped her tight in my arms and kissed her, and we swayed back and forth for what felt like hours. We didn’t take it any further, and I don’t think we even fucked that night, but it was easily my favorite of the trip.
Before I can respond, Hutch says, “Fuck, I can’t wait for our honeymoon.”
With the season resuming in just three days, it’s no surprise the newlyweds are waiting until later this summer to celebrate their nuptials. I always wondered what made them want to get married in the middle of the season, but Hutch just kept saying it had to happen because, when he won the Cup for the first time, he wanted to hand it to his wife. He’s that convinced it’ll be ours this year.
“I can’t either. Where are we going again?”
Hutch glowers at Lawson. “Weare not going anywhere. My wife and I are going to Barbados.”
My lips twitch at the two words he’s uttered at least fifty times tonight since they saidI do. I get it, though. After Chloeand I got married, I couldn’t stop saying wife because I couldn’t believe it had happened. In a lot of ways, I still can’t believe it.
“Boo,” Lawson says, jutting out his bottom lip. “I was going to invite you to mine, bro.”
Hutch sneers. “We arenotbrothers. Go find Rory or something.”
