Chapter 18
PHOEBE
I watch Ollie leave the suite and look around.
There are seals on the beach near the pier where the hockey rink is.
They make me smile. I love seals and volunteer at the local marine mammal stranding center to help rehabilitate and release seals and other marine mammals who’ve been helped.
My phone rings as I enter the bedroom—Andie.
I sit in the armchair near the window and answer.
“Hi, Andie, how are you?”
“Phoebe! You’re really engaged? We made the show!”
“OMG! Really?”
Her Texas drawl is evident when she says, “Really. But let’s talk about you being engaged first. And how’s your wrist?”
All righty. “I’m fine. My wrist is healing fine. The team trainer looked at it and said it was good. Yes, we’re engaged.”
“No, you’re not! If you were engaged, you would have told me! You bake wedding cakes—you planning a wedding would have come up. Especially once he was traded here. Especially when you were going on dates with guys on the team.”
“We got engaged after the Sasquatch game.”
“And you didn’t say anything to me at work?” She sounds hurt.
“We were planning on keeping it to ourselves for a little while before going public. Someone in the ER must have overheard something and run with it.”
“Um…” Andie hums. “You know there’s this thing called dating, right? Where people who are attracted to each other attend events together and get to know each other better to help them decide if the relationship should progress. They don’t skip all of that and get engaged.”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that. Never really worked for me.
” It’s the truth. I never really dated someone; it was more having semi-regular sex with someone I knew.
Until we were done. There was no transitioning to a deeper relationship.
At least, not with me. Maybe with the next girl.
I was the fuck buddy, not the girlfriend.
Of course I didn’t always know that at the time, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
“Maybe it could this time,” Andie says. “You don’t have to completely leapfrog over it and go right to being engaged. Is this for real? Are you planning on actually getting married?”
Andie is my best friend. Other than Ollie, of course. I don’t want to lie to her.
“I don’t know. It’s been a couple days, and between my wrist and the storm, we haven’t talked about it. Ollie needs to focus on hockey. He wants to fit in with the Devil Birds, and he wants to do well. If us being engaged for the rest of the season makes it possible, then it’s worth it.”
“But what are you getting out of it?” Andie asks.
Time with a sexy man I have feelings for. The opportunity to pretend for at least a little while that I have the life I want.
“A diversion. All I’ve done since coming back from Paris is work and hang out with my sister or you. I want some cuddles and stuff.”
Ollie walks by. Shit. I didn’t hear him come back into the suite. Did he hear me call him a diversion? I don’t mean it, but I can’t explain everything right now. Especially because I don’t know myself.
“All right,” Andie says. “But be careful, Phoebe. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Don’t worry. Now tell me about the show! We really made it?”
Ollie walks into the room to hang up the garment bag holding his suit and my dress for our dinner date tonight. He turns and mouths, You’re on the show?
I nod. “Andie, Ollie just walked in, I’m going to put you on speaker so we can both hear about the show, okay?”
“Colby is here with me, so I’ll go on speaker so he can hear too. Okay, yeah, the show. They called and love that you’re engaged to a professional hockey player. We’re team Hockey Honeys.”
I hear how she emphasizes that one word and close my eyes so I don’t roll them. I can’t hide my cringe though. “Did they pick us because of who we’re romantically involved with or because of our talent?”
“Who cares?” Andie exclaims. “The point is we’re on the show, and once they see what we can do, we’ll win.”
“Yeah. ” But I do care. I went to school in Paris to learn my craft.
If I wanted, I could work in some of the finest restaurants in the world.
I don’t need the $10,000 prize. I have money from a trust fund from my parents and grandparents.
I could fund our space myself, but Andie doesn’t want to do that.
She wants to feel like she’s a partner and contributing, not riding my coattails.
Which I appreciate, but I don’t want to be on a show that doesn’t want me for my talent and only wants me because I’m today’s gossip. I’m a pastry chef, not a punchline.
“The producers know the guys made the playoffs and want to shoot video of us cheering them on at games and double-dating. If Colby wants to hang out—”
“I do!” Colby yells. I can almost hear Andie’s eye roll.
“ —and that kind of stuff. Video of us baking too, of course.”
“Of course.” I meet Ollie’s eyes. We need to stay engaged because of the Pastry Pro Championships. If there’s any kind of public-vote aspect, we need to be a couple for the press. He nods and gives a slight smile. He understands what’s not being said. He’ll do this for me. For us.
“Jack said we can use the bakery to film in,” Andie says, “but we should probably use your condo since we’re on the show as home bakers and that’s where we’ve worked for our other videos.”
“Andie, I gotta go. Can we catch up later and figure out the show stuff? We need to get ready for dinner.”
Andie chuckles. “Of course. Have fun.”
I flush. Our night won’t be spent the way Andie and Colby think it will be.
A huge smile graces Ollie’s face.
He stands and pulls me into a tight hug, lifting me off the ground, and gives a partial twirl. We’re face-to-face, and I’m so close I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. His lashes are so long they could almost brush my cheeks when he blinks.
“Phoebe, you made the show! That’s wonderful!”
It would be so easy to press my lips to his and finally kiss him the way I’ve been longing to.
But his first kiss should be his choice, not something I take from him.
I rest my head against his shoulder and tuck my face against his neck.
I need to be close to him but don’t want to give in to temptation.
He sits on the bed and arranges me so my legs are draped over his lap.
We hold each other, and Ollie slowly runs his hand up and down my back.
It’s so soothing, I close my eyes and relax.
I could drift off to sleep like this. I think I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head and sigh, wishing he went about six inches lower.
“You okay, Phoebs?” he asks, so quietly it’s more like I feel his words than hear them.
“Yeah,” I say, following it with another sigh. “They picked us for the show because of you and Colby and the attention it will bring. Not because of the audition video Andie and I submitted.”
His hand stops its soothing trek along my spine. “You don’t know that.”
Reluctantly, I straighten in his embrace.
“Yeah, I do. They already told four teams they were in, and they’ve been posting on social media.
These types of shows usually have four teams of two, and now they’ll have five.
It feels like we were a last-minute addition to capitalize on your notoriety and the gossip about our engagement. We’re like clickbait.”
Ollie’s brows furrow, and I can see the happiness drain away. Damn it. I wish I hadn’t said anything.
“I’m so sorry, Phoebe.” He gently cradles my cheek. “I didn’t mean for my mess to splash on you. But it’s like Andie said—it doesn’t matter how you got on the show, you’ll knock their socks off with how well you do. I believe in you.”
I close my eyes and revel in the soothing sweep of his thumb along my cheekbone. It’s lightly calloused and almost feels like the rasp of a cat’s tongue.
“It’s nice someone believes in me. I should try it sometime.” I give a humorless laugh.
He pulls back and I miss him immediately.
“You should,” he says, his eyes shining with sincerity. “You’re wonderful. You’re talented, creative, smart, funny, beautiful…”
I gasp. “You think I’m beautiful?”
His hand shakes as he reaches out to gently lift my chin. His tenderness has tears swimming in my eyes.
“Phoebe,” he says achingly. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You are perfect.”
He’s never been the chubby chick the “nice guy” on your university’s soccer team hooks up with so they can say they fucked a fatty and collect on a twenty-dollar bet Monday morning.
After that, I decided university wasn’t for me.
I followed my dreams of going to Le Cordon Bleu Paris and getting diplomas in patisserie and boulangerie.
He’s never been the girl the gorgeous man in your chocolate class flirts with because, obviously, the plus-size woman knows the most about chocolate.
That one hurt. I thought he cared about me.
We talked about taking time off to travel Europe together after graduation.
Everything sounds more romantic with a French accent.
Even when it’s the guy you thought you were falling in love with laughing about you with the tiny blonde German girl who’s been a bitch to you for months.
He's never had to deal with a two-timing mentor calling him special, promising to divorce his wife, but keeping the relationship secret until after graduation. On graduation day, I discovered he does this every year. His wife cornered me in the restroom to let me know “for my own good.” She didn’t care herself because she had lovers of her own, but she wanted me to know he wasn’t leaving her, and he’d pick someone else to sleep with in the next class.