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“I want to talk to my wi—to Ivy. She had to rush to the office this morning, and we haven’t had a chance to discuss what happened.”

“Unbelievable. You hockey players are freaking un-believe-able. I have ideas for either route, so get your shit together and call me back when you know what angle you want to spin.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Cash?” she asks.

“Hm?”

“It would do your reputation some good to show that you’re settling down,” she says. “You hear me?”

I clear my throat. “Loud and clear, captain.”

“I’m supposed to call you that since you’re an actual captain.”

“I know, but you hate me right now,” I tease.

She laughs. “You’re keeping me gainfully employed, Cash. Of course I don’t hate you. You’re one of my favorite clients. You just…sometimes do stupid things. But no fear, I’m here to fix it. And another point of contention: this isn’t your first scandal. Your endorsements all have a morality clause, and if this is just another scandal, it won’t look good. They’ll likely pull their money, and you’ll lose them. Might not hurt to convince your wife to stick around a while.”

I blow out a breath. I knew about the morality clauses, but I guess in my drunken state, I didn’t really consider them. At all.

In fact, I didn’t consider much of anything at all. Including a prenup.

“I know, and I appreciate you, Gin. I’ll hit you back once we have a plan.”

We hang up, and I realize it makes no sense to call anyone else back at this point since I don’t have any answers yet.

But after dinner tonight, maybe I will.

Now I just need to figure out how to convince my wife to stay married to me.

I silence my phone since it continues to plague me with incessant notifications, and I head to the gym. I’m still a little hungover, and a good, hard workout is exactly what I need to get back to feeling like myself again.

Eventually I check my phone, mainly because I need to get Ivy’s address so I can go pick her up.

There’s a text waiting from her.

Ivy: I’m ready.

There’s another one from her with her address and the words, See you at 7:00.

The clock feels like it’s barely moving, but eventually it’s time to head out to pick up my date.

My date.

This feels weird.

I’m not a pick up the girl and head to a restaurant kind of guy. I’m more of a meet her at the bar kind of guy. Or, on the occasion when I’m taking a date to an event, I’ll hire a car service to pick us up and drop us off.

It also feels weird because I’m…nervous.

I don’t know how to broach the subject of possibly staying together for a little while when surely she’s going to want to talk about how we need to figure out how to get out of this.

I haven’t looked at the headlines yet. I’ve kept my phone on silent—which is why I missed Ivy’s message until I opened my phone to text her first.

And I’m also excited to see her again.

She’s fun. It’s not so serious all the time despite the fact that what we did is sort of serious.