We looked deeply,deeplyinto each other.
“Oh my God, his fan accounts are having a heyday with this,” Kate reported, scrolling on her own account. “A bunch of them put together that you’re the girl from the broadcast a couple weeks ago, so that video is resurfacing.”
Jeremy flashed his phone in my direction, already laughing. “Look at this headline, ‘Has Utah Star Defenseman found Mrs. Wright?’”
“No way people care this much.” I took another bite of macaroni salad as I scrolled through the top of the article. “This is so insane to me.”
“At least seventy people have reshared that article alone,”Kate said. Seventy felt more reasonable than they’d both been making it sound, which was more like seventy thousand. It’s not like millions of people cared if Barry Wright had a girlfriend, right? Not that Iwashis girlfriend, but still. “This post on a hockey gossip page has over a hundred comments. Not to mention Barry’s post, which has over eleven thousand likes.”
Barry’s publicist and agent both urged him to post something about the baby before the rumors could get out of hand, and I acquiesced that he could make a post if he didn’t share any details. Before the game, he posted one of the pictures he’d snapped on his phone last night—the one of us standing side by side in front of the crib, not even touching, me smiling at the camera, him smiling down at me. The caption just read, “Oh, baby!”
It was his first post since he’d been traded, and his eighty-sixthousandfollowers quickly flipped their shit.
“Look, Han, all these girls are coming for your man.” Jeremy handed me his phone.
“He isn’t my man,” I grumbled.
“He really, really is,” Kate said.
I peered down at Jeremy’s screen, scrolling through posts mostly resharing Barry’s picture or one of the video clips with their thoughts—many just the sobbing emoji, or a picture of a very grumpy looking kitten overlayed with “HAPPY FOR YOU. REALLY.”
One account that had Barry as their profile picture called me fat, which was met by many comments defending my pregnant body, another guessed that I was an influencer, and yet another reposted asking why a pregnant woman would be out partying anyway? #Irresponsible.
“He really is kind of like a celebrity.” I don’t know why I kept being surprised that professional athletes are famous, at least to the millions of fans of that sport. I think I could have named zero hockey players before starting my job at the practice facility, andmaybe five before meeting Barry, and even then only by first name.
“As I’ve been telling you,” Jeremy groaned and snatched his phone back. “I bet they’ll put you on the broadcast again.”
“Means that you’ll be on there too.” I poked his side until he swatted my hand away.
“Are you Hannah?” someone asked, startling me away from my siblings. I looked up to find a beautiful woman with long black hair and legs a mile long eagerly smiling down at me. She was wearing a corduroy team jacket I’d never seen, NILSON 27 written on the right pocket.
“Yes?” I squeaked.
She held out a manicured hand to me and damn, she was beautiful—very white teeth. “I’m Hunter Nilson. I’ve heard a lot about you from Jacob, who’s heard a lot about you from Barry.”
“You’re married to Jacob Nilson?” Jeremy asked, like this was the coolest news ever. Jacob Nilson, Barry called him Nils, was one of the star wingers,alwaysscoring goals.
Her eyes sparkled and she nodded.
“That guy plays good hockey,” Jeremy said with a sort of reverence.
“I would hope so—we like it here.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Your nails are so cute.”
She smiled and held both hands out so I could get a better look. Kate leaned closer, both of us pointing at our favorites of the designs. They had little Santas, wreaths, and ornaments. Cute as hell.
“Lucy—she’s another one of the WAGs—she does them. I can give you her number if you want.”
I had somehow gone unnoticed by the WAGs (wives and girlfriends) of the other players, and that had been fine with me. To be honest, they intimidated mebad. I saw them on Instagram, and all of them were somehow uniformly, perfectly beautiful with very chic clothes and shiny hair that Kate swore was mostly extensions, but I thought looked real.
Not that I was Barry’s girlfriend, but if Iwas, I didn’t think I fit the WAG bill, even before I was heavily pregnant and only wearing the same pair of overalls every day—today included—a big home jersey overtop. None of them were janitors, I could guarantee that much.
“They’d get wrecked at my work, but thank you.”
“What do you do for work?” she asked, but the lights overhead flashed in the way they do when the team was getting ready to come onto the ice. I stood.
“I work in facilities at the training center,” I said. To her credit, her eyes lit up like this was really cool and interesting.
