Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
DECLAN
I’ve been pacing the kitchen since the minute I left the team facilities. There is no way I’m going to convince Alice to stay married to me. She couldn’t get away from me fast enough in the hotel room, like we were five years old and I had cooties.
Thanks to Duncan Fletcher—I seriously can’t believe he’s related to my old teammate Dax—I need Alice’s help more than ever.
Instead of filling out the papers to start the annulment process tonight, this is going to be a different kind of conversation.
“Hey, Alice. I know you wanted to get this marriage annulled, but how about staying married to me instead?” Even saying it out loud to myself sounds ridiculous.
A crash in the entryway breaks me from my wayward thoughts.
Alice. Coming in like a tornado.
The ball of fury blows into the kitchen. A baseball hat, complete with the Enchanted Petals logo, hides her hair. A white T-shirt, knotted at the waist, hugs her chest. Complete with black leggings and flip-flops, she looks relaxed, but I know she isn’t.
Waves of anger are radiating off her.
“What’s wrong, Alice?”
“What’s not wrong?” she huffs as she sets down a brown paper bag on the counter. Based on the smell, I know it’s my favorite empanadas.
I’m starving. I didn’t eat enough before meeting Cash at the arena for our workout, and once Troy showed up, it turned into two hours on the ice.
“Do you mind filling me in, Froggie?”
Alice adjusts her cap. A sign of nerves. Huh. That’s interesting. We’re both nervous.
“We need to stay married,” she blurts out.
“What?”
I couldn’t have heard her right. There’s no way. Staying married? Maybe this might solve my problem.
“Look, I know that’s not what we agreed on, but I need your help.”
I lean against the counter and fold my arms over my chest. “And this help requires staying married to you?”
“Yes.” Alice nods. “Do you have anything to drink? This would go down better with a drink.”
“Yeah.”
Pushing off the marble island, I open the fridge and grab her bottle of wine. The one that I keep here for her.
Getting a glass from the kitchen cabinet, I give her a healthy pour. She gulps half of it down immediately.
“Okay, use your words, Alice.” I clasp her wrist to stop her from finishing it off in one go.
“In order to get my trust fund, I need to be married.”
“Since when?” I ask. “I thought you got it on your next birthday.”
Alice shakes her head, walking over to the food and starting to unpack the bag.
“My grandfather apparently decided that in order to get it, I must be married. I’m sure my dad thinks that won’t happen—and that I will decide to go work for the family business instead so I can earn enough money there to make up for not having the trust. But I don’t want their money. ”
“I know.”
“But if I want to get Enchanted Petals when Leon retires, I need it.”
“Which leads us back to staying married.”
Alice spins on her heel and looks at me. She looks resigned to this fact. “If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. I realize I’d be asking a lot of you and it’s not fair, but—”
“Yes,” I cut her off.
Alice is stunned into silence. A rare thing for her. “You can take your time and think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it. If you need help, I’m there.”
“But—”
I hold up a hand. “I might also have a reason for saying yes.”
“Why?” Alice hops up onto the counter and sips on her drink.
I scrub a nervous hand over the back of my neck. “The league has been getting some bad press about players and their personal lives. Doing things that don’t cast them in the best light. The league isn’t happy about it.”
“Okay.”
“Basically, we’ve heard we are going to be held to an even higher standard. A player code of conduct, if you will.”
Alice looks confused. “I thought the league already had that?”
I wiggle my head back and forth. “That’s more on the ice. But now it’s going off the ice, too.”
I see when the lightbulb goes off. “And a quickie wedding in Vegas isn’t the way to support this new initiative.”
“Got it in one, Froggie.”
“So you need to stay married to me.”
I nod. “And you need to stay married to me.”
There’s a hard set in her shoulders. If Alice could get her trust fund any other way, I know she would.
I’d give her the money myself, but she would never take it.
All she has ever wanted was to own her own shop.
Something she told me the day we met. Which is why I know her favorite flower and how she earned her nickname Froggie.
Because she called me a ranunculus when we met because I’m charming and it translates to little frog.
My sweet best friend. The one that got drunk and talked flowers with a complete stranger. One who never wants help from anyone and always insists on doing things herself.
“Why don’t we eat and discuss the logistics?” I offer.
Alice smirks at me. “You’re only hungry because you skated today.”
“And? You got my favorite. How can you expect me to not want to eat?” I nod toward the bag next to her. “You know I love Maria’s.”
“What can I say?” She hands over a Styrofoam container. “I was trying to butter you up.”
“Damn. I’m an easy target.” I open the lid and breathe in the spicy scent of chorizo and peppers. I shovel half of it into my mouth in one bite. “You could get me to say yes to anything with these babies.”
Alice smiles, taking a much smaller bite of her vegetarian one. “I’ll be filing that away for the future.”
“Okay, rules,” I say around another mouthful. “It’s safe to assume you already have a list?”
“I mean, nothing that I wrote down, but yes.”
“Hit me.” I set the container down on the granite counter next to me.
“You want them all?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Okay.” She wipes her hands on her leggings. “We’ll need to be seen in public. I’m thinking a few dates a month.”
“Well, we already hang out as it is, so I can work with that.”
“It will include PDA and holding hands.” A slight blush creeps up her cheeks.
“Again, that won’t be a chore.”
Actually, it’s an idea I very much like the thought of. Although now is not the time to be thinking about kissing Alice in public.
“We’ll need to post on social media. Make it look like we’re a real couple.” She holds a finger up as she ticks off her list. “Lovey captions and all that.”
“You might have to help with the captions, but done.”
“I’ll need to go to your games.”
“You already come to them,” I point out. “Does this mean you need to sit with the other wives?”
She nods. “Yes. It’ll help in keeping up appearances.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure I get with team management and get you on the list.”
Alice visibly swallows. “The last two you might have a harder time with.”
“What are they?”
Now I wish I had the foresight to grab my own beer from the fridge. I don’t want to let on that whatever she is thinking is making me nervous.
“I’ll need to move in here.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We can’t be married and not live together.”
Shit. I guess I really didn’t think about that. “I mean, yeah, I guess so.”
“I come with a lot of plants. I need room for them.”
I look around my barren house. Moving to Denver and finding a place to live was my top priority. Getting settled was a different story.
The living room has a TV and couch. The kitchen? All necessary utensils. My bedroom? A bed and that’s it.
Now that I think about it, it’s pretty pathetic.
“Uhh, Froggie? Look around. You can have the entire house for your plants.”
A spark lights up her face. “Actually, now that you mention it, your house needs furnishing. Maybe we can make that a date.”
“Wow. You’re taking your role as a wife very seriously.”
“Speaking of my role as your wife,” Alice starts. “No sleeping together.”
“What?” That was something I never even entertained. I’ve never let myself go there with Alice. It’s a line that can never be crossed. “I know that.”
“I mean it.” She points at me. “Not even sharing a bed. You have plenty of guest bedrooms in here that I can crash in.”
I smirk at her. “And no sleeping with strangers while we’re at it. If this is going to work, we can’t be seen with other people.”
“Considering I’m not dating anyone at the moment, not a problem.”
“Thank God for that. Otherwise this marriage would be starting off on the wrong foot.”
Alice buries her head in her hands. “God. I can’t believe the one time I throw my inhibitions to the wind, I end up married to you.”
“Hey.” I grab her hands and pull them away from her face. “At least it wasn’t a complete stranger.”
That earns me a smile. “I guess it could be worse.”
“See? Bright side. Is that the end of your list?”
“Yes. Do you have anything to add?”
I shake my head. “I think you pretty much covered everything.”
Alice hops down from the counter and stalks over to me. The resignation from earlier is gone. Now that I’ve agreed to this marriage, she seems more at ease.
She sticks her hand out. “Let’s shake on it.”
I take her proffered hand. I ignore how soft her hand feels in mine. How warm it is. The small calluses that have formed over the years of working with flowers.
“Deal.”