“Of course I do,” he says, ducking into the fridge but not before I see the smile he’s failing to suppress. “Oh, and Hailey?” he adds as he pulls out the steaks. “Pick the one youactuallywant. Not the cheapest one you can find.” Closing the fridge, he locks eyes with me. “Got it?”
I roll my eyes, but I know better than to argue with him at this point. “Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jason
“So,”Abernathy says, skating over to me as we watch the newest recruits run some drills with a few of our other senior players. Dozer got tapped for this, and I can tell from his body language that he’s annoyed with these younger guys who think they’re hot stuff because they’re the top scorer on their Juniors team.
Little do they know, most of us were the best players on our Juniors or college teams too. I’m not worried about their arrogance, though. One of them could be a rare one whose arrogance is merited, though that’s doubtful. Even if that’s true, though, they’ll all figure out that if they want ice time with the Emeralds, they have to learn to be a team player. Coach doesn’t put up with that kind of bullshit, especially not from rookies.
“So,” I echo, glancing at him as we lean against the wall in front of our bench.
“You gonna have a reception or anything?”
“Ah,” I nod, understanding why he approached me now. Silly me, thinking it was about hockey. “Well, we had a small reception after our ceremony.”
“I’m still hurt you didn’t invite me.” He punches me on the shoulder, and I take a couple steps sideways, circling around to get back to my spot.
“Careful,” I warn. “You’ll piss off Coach if he sees you getting in a fight with me.”
Abernathy sniffs. “Nah. I think he’s pissed at you too.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d’you figure?”
“Well, we’ve all heard you got married.” I can’t help grinning at the mention of my wedding, and my mind flashes back—yet again—to the memory of holding Hailey in my arms and getting to kiss her for the first time … “And yet,” Abernathy continues, interrupting my thoughts, “only Dozer and Bouchard have met this woman. Even they’re being cagey about her, though. So what’s the deal? Why are you keeping her a secret? Is this some kind of shotgun wedding? Did you get her pregnant and her dad marched you down the aisle?”
I bark out a laugh at the thought of either of her parents caring enough about her to do something like that, though doing something that would get her pregnantwouldbe fun. But god, whatwouldher parents have done if she’d gotten pregnant before this? I suppress a shudder at the thought. Just having car trouble made them decide they knew how to run her life after over a decade of basically ignoring her—and I’m sure they would’ve gone on basically ignoring her once they had her back under their thumb as long as she didn’t rock the boat too hard.
But if she needed help with a child? Not just money, but support and presence and babysitting? God. The thought of her struggling like that makes me want to hurl. And punch someone.
So I punch Abernathy.
“Hey!” he protests, moving back to his spot next to me. “What was that for?”
“Being a nosy asshole. And the only reason we invited Dozer was because you need two witnesses to get married, and Bouchard volunteered to be the officiant. He can’t be a witness too. So I asked Dozer, and of course Marissa came too.”
“That still doesn’t explain why all the secrecy. Why we’ve never heard of her. Why the rush.”
I cock an eyebrow at him, then refocus on the drills going on the ice in front of us. “Aren’t you supposed to be paying attention to this?”
“I am,” he says, leaning on his stick and watching too. “I can still listen to you, though. ‘Splain. Now.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” I grumble. “I’ve known her for ages. We reconnected over the summer. I didn’t really have time to introduce her around because she got sick as soon as she got to Seattle. She had some things to wrap up in Madison before coming out here, so she didn’t get here until early September. And why the rush? Well, when you know, you know. And also, I didn’t want to try to get married during the season, so it was either small and quick now. Or wait a year. And I didn’t want to wait a year. And you shouldn’t feel too bad about not being invited. Our families weren’t even there.” There. That’s all true, even if it’s not thewholetruth.
He doesn’t respond immediately, instead waiting for the drill in front of us to finish, then turns to face me, his eyes narrowing behind his visor as he studies me. “Okay. Fine. I can accept all of that, though I still find it strange that you did it so fast that you didn’t even invite your families. That does explain why you wouldn’t invite the whole team, though. Sort of. I just want you to realize that everyone’s pissed that you hid this from all of us and almost no one was invited. So. I’m going to ask again. When’s the reception?”
Scratching my nose, I shake my head. “I’ll look at the calendar and let you know.”
He grins and slaps me on the shoulder. “Good man.” And then he skates off.
When I get home that evening, it’s with a mix of excitement and trepidation. The more I’ve thought about Abernathy’s suggestion—well, demand—that we have a reception for us and the team, the more I like the idea. It does kind of suck that no one got to celebrate with us. We could schedule a reception on our long weekend the beginning of October. And there are home games bookending that break, so we wouldn’t even be traveling. We could invite my parents. Hailey’s too, if she wants.
If we’re acting like it’s all real, we have to have some kind of celebration. It’s what people expect. Abernathy’s right that it’s a dick move to not let our friends and family celebrate with us, even if our tiny ceremony at the park and dinner with our friends afterward felt pretty perfect in the moment.
I’m greeted by the sound of violin music when I open the door, and I close it quietly behind me, not wanting to disturb Hailey while she’s practicing.
I found her YouTube channel while she was sick and listened to a few things she’d posted there, but she’s clearly not super active there, and the most recent videos were a couple years old. She had several videos of her playing with a quartet at events, plus clips from what I assume was her recital in college.
