I’m tossing the last bits of trash from the bathroom demo into the dumpster, when a familiar voice calls, “Hey, stranger.”
I turn to see Everly crossing the street to me. Tyler’s little sister just graduated high school and spent the past month travelling with some friends. France, London, Amsterdam, and a few other stops.
Tyler’s been worried sick. Not that he said that out loud, but I heard from Ash that Ty was texting Everly twice a day and scoping out international news on the hour.
“Hey, Little Sharpie.”
“I leave for a month and you get married?!” Her eyes widen in surprise and, I think, excitement before Everly lifts up onto her toes to hug me around the neck. She pulls back and searches my face. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come back for something like a wedding.”
I search for the right words. Everly is eighteen, young and a little naïve. She’s had a hard life growing up with parents who didn’t care for her like they should have. They kicked her out after one too many screw ups and she was forced to live with her brother. She then fell into a shitty relationship with an older boyfriend who freaking hit her. But, somehow, she still has this innocence about love and relationships that I don’t have it in me to squash it by telling her the wedding wasn’t real.
“Ty told me you were doing Jade a favor,” she says, reading my mind, but I don’t see any surprise or judgment on her face at that added bit of news.
Well, shit.
“Actually, Ash let it slip, but Ty and Piper confirmed it. What’s been going on?”
I give her the brief version, ending with, “Please don’t say anything.”
“I would never.” She looks appalled at the suggestion otherwise. “I was really curious why you randomly wanted help picking out a guest bedroom set. Did she like it?”
“Yeah. You have expensive taste, by the way.”
Totally worth it when I saw the look on Jade’s face.
“I figured you were good for it after signing that seven-year contract.” She punches my arm lightly. “Congratulations, again.”
She texted me from a café in Paris when she heard the news. Ev and I are tight. When she came to live with Tyler, I recognized something in her. She was angry and acting out, which is why her mom tossed her out. I knew that feeling though, like your whole life was in front of you but held nothing good.
I was young when I went to live with my grandparents, so my acting out was different, but it stayed a constant in my life until I was about seventeen. My granddad passed suddenly, a heart attack in his sleep, and it shifted things for me. I was still angry, but I realized that I could either hold on to that anger or decide to let it go and see what else there was out there for me.
In some ways, being angry was easier. Living life, that’s hard. If you let people in, they can disappoint and hurt you. I already knew that lesson, but what I learned when my granddad passed was that sometimes people slip past your defenses anyway. I was angry, but I still loved him, and it hurt worse knowing I hadn’t been the kind of grandson I should have been to him. He gave me a chance, and I repaid him by being a shithead.
I shake the thoughts and smile at Everly. “Thanks. Want to see how the place is coming?”
“Definitely.”
I show Everly around the house. She loses interest about five seconds in, and I give up the tour, grab her a Monster energy drink from the fridge, and ask her about the trip. She is animated and excited as she tells me stories and shows me pictures.
She looks different. Her hair is straight and shiny, and she has on a preppy skirt and midriff shirt with spotless white shoes. She’s a far cry from the girl I met almost a year ago in scuffed boots and dark eyeliner. She’s figuring out who she is, finding her place in the world, and it makes me smile. She deserves it.
When she’s done telling me about her trip, she hops down off the counter in my kitchen and says she has to go. As I walk her out, Jack is pulling up.
He gets out of his car and comes up short when he sees me and Ev.
“Hey, Jack,” she says.
He has sunglasses on, hiding his eyes, but a muscle in his cheek flexes at the sight of her. “You’re back.”
“Yeah, late last night,” she says.
He just stares at her.
“It’s good to see you too,” she quips. She rolls her eyes and then waves at me one last time, before jogging across the street to Ash’s house.
Jack watches her go and then turns his attention back to me.
“What’s up?” I ask. Jack and I are old friends, teammates for eight years now, but he’s the kind of guy that shows up with a purpose.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. Have you been online this morning?”
“No. Why?”
“Dude, you and Jade are everywhere.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The magazine came out today,” he says, and looks at me like I’m supposed to know what that means.
“So? It’s just an article with some pictures from the wedding.” Unease prickles up my spine. “Right?”
“Not exactly.” He pulls something up on his phone and then hands it to me.
“Holy shit,” I mutter as I look down at the picture of me and Jade on the cover of I Do magazine.
She looks gorgeous. Of course, she does. She’s always stunning. But she looks up at me with a look of pure happiness, and even crazier, I’m staring down at her like she completes me. Something was definitely in the air that night.
“There are a bunch more inside the magazine. Like a bunch. And local news reports are picking it up. I even saw one of those Instagram WAGS accounts tagging her and referring to her as the new queen.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Congrats, buddy. You’re the uglier half of America’s new favorite couple.”
“I better go.” I hand his phone back to him. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Call me if you need anything.” He whistles under his breath as he walks backward to his car. “One week of wedded bliss and already making national news. You should have held out longer on your contract.”
He waits to give me time to respond. I don’t. Then he adds, “Maybe I should get married.”
I flip him off and he finally gets into his car. I pull out my phone and my gut churns seeing fifty notifications. Oh, hell.
When Jade gets home from work, I’m three beers in and still not sure how I feel about everything. Leo and Ash wandered over after they heard the news, but they make their excuses when my wife walks through the door.
“Hey,” Jade says, coming into the living room.
She’s avoided me since we got back from the honeymoon, mostly staying in the guest room. Her room.
“You saw?” she asks, sitting on the edge of the couch.
“Yeah.” I tip back the bottle and drain the rest of my beer.
“I had no idea,” she says, and pulls the magazine from her purse. “Melody made a last-minute decision to swap out the cover and delay another feature to give us double the page space.”
She twists her fingers together in her lap. “Are you pissed? I can’t read you.”
“No.” I sit forward. “I’m…not sure how I feel. I wasn’t expecting this to blow up like this. I had to turn off my phone today.” I have so many interview requests, they could fill my schedule for the next two months. “It’ll blow over though, right?”
Jade’s expression makes my pulse pick up speed. “Melody wants us to…lean in.”
“Lean in?”
I sit quietly, while Jade explains that her boss has given her a spot in the print issue for the next twelve months to cover our first year as newlyweds. I can tell by the excited glint in her eyes that Jade is all in. This is probably a good opportunity for her, but it’s a lie. Does she really want to keep perpetuating that?
Melody also wants us to attend a few functions, ritzy things that I get invited to all the time for hockey, but rarely attend. Local PR fluff. James, my agent, would be thrilled, but I just signed a contract, and I don’t care about additional endorsements. Though, maybe I should. That feeling of not knowing what’s next still sits just below the surface at all times, reminding me that I don’t have anything except hockey.
When she’s finished, she asks, “What do you think?”
I run a hand through my hair and then rub at the back of my neck. “I don’t love the idea of putting myself out there like this.”
A flicker of disappointment flashes in her eyes. “Okay. Yeah, I understand.”
“If you’re going to do this,” I pause and restart, “if we’re going to do this, we need some boundaries. I don’t want personal details of my life out there as cheap fodder to sell a life that isn’t real.”
Some of that disappointment lingers, but she nods. “Of course. I will run my articles by you first, and I’ll choose only the top events for us to attend.”
She waits for my agreement. I’m still uneasy, but she looks so damn excited, and I know how much it means to her. In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. “I’ll get you a copy of my schedule.”
I barely get the words out before she lunges for me, hugging me tight around the neck. “Thank you. It’s going to be good for both of us. You’ll see.”
