Page 30 of Lucky Puck

After what seems like a hundred signatures later, Bianca puts her hands on my shoulders and we call it quits. Sabien signals to the NHL officials, aka security, and they escort us through a shortcut out of there.

“I consider it a miracle that I got away without signing any boobs.” I grin at Bianca as we sit in the back seat of our Uber. She’s sandwiched between me and Sabien as we race back to the hotel.

She rolls her eyes.

“Maybe next time,” Sabien says.

“You didn’t have to leave early with us,” Brooks says.

“Sure I did. You think I’m going to miss the part where they saw his ring off?”

We finally arrive back at the hotel and my headache returns like a bad dream as I step from the car and through the doors. I can barely keep myself awake as I automatically walk toward the elevators, but Brooks tugs on my arm, stopping me.

“The jewelers are this way. They’re waiting for us.”

I turn, and Sabien turns with me.

“Do you really need to come with us?” she says to him.

“Absolutely. I need to see this charade through. And I’m curious as hell to meet the showgirl with the wicked sense of humor. I might want to thank her for slowing down the runaway train of the wild phenom.” He elbows me as we walk.

“If I weren’t so exhausted right now, I’d slow you down with a punch in the eye,” I say. I’m mostly not kidding.

Brooks takes my arm. “I’m sorry. I know you need to rest, but we have this one last stop before we get you to bed.”

That perks me up. “You tucking me in? You promised the doc you would⁠—”

She blushes. “I know what I said.”

Sabien cough-laughs. “Sorry. Brody, you’re as subtle as a peacock with neon feathers.”

“Is that some kind of French-Canadian saying?” I let Brooks take my hand as we walk through the hotel lobby. It’s an oddly intimate gesture because I’m not used to hand-holding. I tend to skip straight to the main course with women, right past the getting-to-know-you stage.

She’s holding the hand with the wedding band, and I watch it flash hypnotically like sin and the devil while I pretend I don’t see Sabien flip me his middle finger.

We reach the shop with a barely legible sign that says Gregoire’s Gems, I think, over the door. Brooks steps ahead of me and pushes through. An older, impeccably groomed, white-haired man who looks like he’s trying out to play Liberace in a biopic stands behind a spotless glass case of gleaming gems that make me want to reach for my sunglasses. Instead, I look away.

And there she is, star baby, my show girl turned thief and mischief-maker of disastrous pranks. The non-descript guy—average height, average weight, medium brown hair, brown eyes, and nothing special about his face—stands with her. Bigelow.

Something about him doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s the way he ingratiates himself too readily, and then when he thinks you’re not looking, he wears a calculating, almost sneaky expression.

“And you must be Ms. Brooks,” the jeweler says to Bianca, taking her hand, easily spotting the lady with the money from a mile away and sucking up to her good and—never mind.

I nod at star-baby, and she barely acknowledges me, keeping her eyes on her shoes as if she’s worried they’ll walk away without her.

“Thank you for helping us,” Brooks says to the jeweler. “How does this work? I mean⁠—”

I step forward and hold out my hand with the offending ring. “She means how do you get this damn ring off me without cutting off my finger?”

The jeweler chuckles, and I don’t like the nervous quality of the sound. “Follow me.”

If Brooks didn’t follow after me like we’re attached, I realize I would have insisted she come with me, resorting to physically dragging her if necessary. No way am I going to try and figure that out right now.

We head into a back room, and there’s a stainless-steel bench set up along a wall, gleaming with cleanliness. It’s empty save one small piece of equipment that I recognize as a miniature version of an electric saw. It looks like some kids playing butcher forgot their toy.

“Oh,” Brooks says, and I can almost hear her gulp. As it is, I tamp down the buzz of nerves that starts rising in my self-preservation system.

The jeweler directs me to sit on one of the two stools, and I do.