Pucking Strong: An MM Workplace Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 4)

I flee down the steps, taking them two at a time. I have to get out of here. I can’t fucking breathe in this goddamn sweater. It feels like him and smells like him, and I feel like I’m fucking suffocating. I all but trip on the last step as I tug the sweater off, stripping down to just my T-shirt and jeans.

Fine, his jeans. Whatever. Semantics.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I’m about to order an Uber when I see fifteen missed calls and messages. Shit. My phone has been on silent for, like, two hours because of all the interview stuff. Two of my three sisters tried to call. Twice. Each. Then they left voicemails. I’m sure they’re both over five minutes long.

Look, it may be juvenile, but I’ve been taking a “what they don’t know can’t hurt me” approach to this whole “I married a famous Swedish hockey player and have joint custody of his niece” thing. By not telling them I married Henrik, I get to spare myself the pain and humiliation of all the women in my life telling me I’ve made a terrible mistake.

I know I made a mistake. I don’t need them to fucking tell me. It’s all I can fucking think about.

On paper, my life is perfect right now. Karro is awesome, the apartment is getting better, and I think I might be more in love with Henrik than ever. He’s thoughtful and attentive. He genuinely cares about my comfort. I fall asleep on the couch, and he covers me with a blanket. I skip a meal because I’m too busy playing with Karro, and he brings us both sliced apples and cheese. He doesn’t know I’m strictly a peanut-butter-with-apples guy. But still, it’s a really nice gesture.

This professional athlete, who smashes men into boards for a living, is as gentle as a lamb. He draws me baths and rolls up my clean socks. He’s quiet, and noble, and loyal, and I fucking love him. Sounds perfect, right?

Wrong.noveldrama

Because while I’m falling more in love with him and his adorable niece every day, I’m ultimately just part of a problem he’s trying to fix. Sure, he put on a good show for the interview. He was looking at me adoringly, brushing my locs off my shoulder, laughing at my jokes. But that’s all it fucking was: a show. Henrik was acting. The man’s had years of media training. They started rolling those cameras, and it’s like he became a different person.

Well, I wasn’t fucking acting. I don’t know how to pretend to not be in love with my fake husband. I don’t know how to keep myself from brushing Karro’s hair and singing silly songs to make her laugh. But it’s like I told Henrik the other day, I made this bed, and now I’m gonna lie in it.

Or cry in it.

Both.

One thing’s for certain. My window for not telling my family is closing fast. Until now, Poppy’s been enforcing a total press gag about us. Not a crumb has leaked out to the media about Sweden, his sister, the marriage, any of it. It was easy to do because the season hadn’t even started yet. All spotlights were off.

But Janine said the ESPN interview will go live in three days. Then the whole sports world will know. And tomorrow night, Poppy’s gonna prop me up right on the plexiglass and make me take pictures with Henrik. Those will be the first photos she intends to leak, along with an official Rays press release announcing our marriage.

She showed us the article tonight, the written one they already finished. It’s got a bunch of well wishes from the team and some pics of all of them cheering for us at the airport. Henrik’s quote has been rattling around in my head for the last two hours: “Teddy is kind and generous to a fault. I’m honored he chose me as his partner.”

Generous to a fault.

In Henrik’s eyes, my generosity is a fault. I know it’s true. I’m too kind, too obliging, too willing to help. It leads people to take advantage of me. Friends, coworkers. My god, don’t even get me started on my past romantic partners. When you’re generous, people take from you. They fucking drain you dry. And you’re too goddamn nice to stop them. You would let the life drain from your own eyes if it meant you were seen by others as a good person.

It’s why I’ve been dodging all my family’s calls and ghosting them in the group chat. I don’t want my sisters to hold a mirror up to me and show me my own lifeless eyes. I just wanted more time to pretend this wasn’t happening, pretend I was satisfied. Pretend I wasn’t putting three lives at risk with my reckless choices.

But I’m out of time. I have to tell them what I did. If they find out from the media, shit’s gonna get a thousand times worse. So, I unlock my phone and go to tap Natalie’s name. Of all my sisters, she’ll be the least likely to make me cry. She’ll just listen to me. She’ll leave it to our mom to bring down the hammer.

Before I can tap her name, a new text pops up in my notifications. It’s from Tess Langley:

What? Coming where? I tap our text thread and see the message she sent two hours ago:

I check the time. It’s only a little after seven o’clock. And Rip’s is less than twenty minutes away. I could be fashionably late. And I was lying to Henrik. I don’t have plans with Colin. I just needed any excuse to fucking leave. I’m sure if I called Colin now, he’d be up for a drink. But the texts from Tess have me intrigued …

Just as I’ve made up my mind to call Colin, a new text pings from an unknown number.

Before I can suck in a righteously indignant breath, there’s another ping.

Oh, what the actual fuck? Why is Caleb Price texting me? And apparently, he’s with Tess? Is there some kind of team dinner? Henrik didn’t mention anything earlier. Dinner out with the team is definitely something he would have mentioned. Unless he just intends to go without me …

No, he was going home to relieve Hanna. He wanted me to go home too.

But what if he gets home and decides he wants a night out? I swear to god, if I take an Uber over to Rip’s and find him there? If perfect, pretty Hanna is feeding him French fries dipped in mayo, I’m gonna fucking lose it. Our big coming-out won’t be him blowing me kisses through the plexiglass at tomorrow night’s game. It’s gonna be grainy cell phone footage of me throwing a barstool at the wall.

I may be generous to a fault, but no one fucking cheats on me. Especially not my fake husband.

Decision made, I order my Uber. Destination? Riptide’s Bar and fucking Grill.