Chapter 2 #2
“Don’t,” Reid advises.
I reach for another mug and barely get my coffee poured before Chase leans back with a grin.
“So, Lulu,” he drawls. “Catch any good podcast episodes lately?”
She narrows her eyes. “What?”
Zoe doesn’t even bother looking up from buttering her croissant. “He means the podcast you blasted down the street the other morning. Logan said the whole neighborhood heard.”
Lulu’s green glass pauses halfway to her mouth, and her blue eyes cut to mine. “You told everyone?”
I keep my face blank and sip my coffee slowly.
“Correction.” Chase smirks, raising his mug. “He just told us. During informal skate this week.”
The table erupts with chuckles from everyone apart from Eli, who was still in Cabo and doesn’t get the joke.
“What the hell are you talking about? What podcast?”
Tamara, who has clearly been filled in by Zoe, wipes tears from her eyes. “Clit Talk Confidential,” she manages between laughs. “It’s a sex podcast Lulu was listening to, that talks about—what is it again?—‘no orgasm, no moan’?”
“Oh my god, it was educational.”
“Educational?” Chase arches a brow. “Sounded like a live demonstration.”
Lulu presses her palms over her face, but then suddenly drops them, eyes gleaming with mischief.
“Exactly,” she says brightly, locking onto Eli and daring him to have an opinion. “No man gets the moan unless he earns the orgasm. Fair’s fair, right?”
Eli makes a strangled noise. “Jesus Christ, Tallulah.”
Chase nearly falls off his chair laughing, and Zoe’s smirk could slice through concrete. Tamara is dabbing at her eyes through chuckles, and Charlie is pink from choking on her mimosa.
I should keep my mouth shut, but the bait’s dangling, and I’m no saint.
“Whole street’s on board with that rule now,” I add.
Lulu’s head snaps toward me, eyes blazing. Under the table, her foot connects with my shin. I don’t flinch, just take another sip.
Worth it.
“Okay, but seriously,” Chase says, still chuckling. “What’s the average number of… you know.” He waggles his eyebrows. “For optimal moaning output.”
“I hate you, Walton,” Eli mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Depends on the effort,” Zoe says smoothly, sipping her coffee. “Half the guys out there think an orgasm’s one-and-done.”
Charlie nods, gently placing a hand on Lulu’s arm. “Bare minimum isn’t sexy. Stamina is.”
Tamara leans in, eyes sparkling. “A real man knows it’s a marathon.”
Jake clinks his fork down and gestures to baby Theo perched on his knee. “Children! There are children nearby.”
“Fine,” Zoe says, completely unfazed. “We’ll code it. From now on, it’s… fireworks.”
“That works,” Tamara says, nodding. “Explosive, bright, everyone knows when it happens.”
Lulu hums as she sets her green juice down, tilting her head. “Personally, I’m not sure fireworks exist. Mine have been more like sparklers. Three minutes of blah.”
The table erupts, and Eli’s loud protests tangle with the women groaning in outrage. Tamara clutches her chest, clearly about to organize an intervention, while Charlie shakes her head sadly.
“Oh, honey, no,” Zoe groans. “Absolutely not. No woman deserves sparklers.”
My jaw locks. Three minutes, she said. Three. Fucking. Minutes.
Lulu’s sitting there in sunlight, laughing like it’s nothing, casually tossing out the fact no guy’s ever made her come. No effort, no build. No wonder she thinks fireworks don’t exist. Where the hell does she find these undeserving losers?
“Sparklers can be festive,” Chase offers, waving his fork.
Zoe shoots him a look. “Oh, you gonna start serving sparklers?”
“Hell no, Zo Face—I got the Fourth of July on lock all year round.”
Tamara shakes her head, ignoring him. “Sparklers are messy, disappointing, and burn out in thirty seconds.”
“That does sound familiar,” Lulu muses, eyes glittering.
“LU-LU.” Eli’s voice cracks.
Charlie leans in, desperate to redirect. “Okay, let’s just—can we not?”
But it’s too late. The hijinks of the last few minutes have drawn the kids’ attention from their little table off to the side.
Noah looks up from his pancakes, syrup on his chin. “What’s a sparkler?”
“And why does Lulu sound sad about them?” asks Meadow.
Every adult starts talking at once.
“It’s a tiny firework, honey bee,” says Charlie.
“Safe! They’re totally safe!” babbles Jake.
Chase scoffs. “Doesn’t even go boom.”
“It’s the lamest firework, honestly,” adds Zoe.
Reid nods. “Disappointing.”
“Burns out fast,” Tamara agrees with a nod.
The kids look unimpressed, but turn back to their plates. Lulu’s shoulders shake, laughing so hard she’s nearly in tears.
But Zoe, casual as anything, tosses another grenade onto the dumpster fire. “Honestly, half the problem is men who don’t believe in foreplay.”
“ZOE.” Eli is about two seconds away from needing CPR.
Charlie winces. “She’s not wrong, though.”
Tamara points her fork at her pancake stack. “It’s like this. Pancakes are fine, but without syrup? Dry. Why even bother?”
Zoe raises her mug in toast. “Amen.”
Eli’s face is purple. “We are never doing brunch again.”
“Uncle Chase.” Noah’s voice suddenly rings out. “What’s foreplay?”
Charlie groans, Zoe chokes, and Chase goes pale. Jake looks like he wants to crawl into the oven.
The scramble begins again.
“It’s, uhh… like warm-ups before a game,” Chase says, fumbling.
Jake nods enthusiastically. “Yes. Drills. Important drills.”
“Stretching,” Zoe adds, blinking fast.
Chase hums in agreement. “Team bonding.”
“SYRUP,” Tamara blurts, barely holding on.
Hutch doesn’t look up from his coffee. “Some people skip it. Those people shouldn’t be trusted.”
There’s a beat where ten sets of eyes land on him, then everyone loses it while Jake shakes his head, and Charlie hides a smile.
Meadow frowns. “So it’s maple syrup?”
“YES,” Jake and Chase say instantly.
“Cool,” Noah nods, shoving another forkful of pancake in. “Then I think Logan needs more syrup. His pancakes look dry.”
Chase and Eli howl, while Lulu beams, clearly triumphant.
I scowl into my coffee. Not because I’m grumpy at the kid, but because I’m hanging on by a damn thread, trying not to picture the ways I could show Lulu exactly what fireworks really look like.
Luckily, I’m saved when Eli tries to desperately redirect the conversation to something more civilized.
“So, Lu—you get the house?”
She looks up from her gluten-free pancakes, eyes bright. “Signed the papers yesterday.”
Eli grins. “The one on Birch?”
“Yep.”
My brain stutters. “Hang on—Birch Lane?”
“Yeah, the one I told you I was looking at the other morning.” She tilts her head. “Why?”
“That’s…” I blink. “It’s my street, I just wasn’t—”
“Not just your street,” Eli interjects. “Number twenty-five. Right across from Casa de Pookie.”
My eyes swivel to hers. I knew she was looking in my neighborhood, knew she had looked at a place on Birch, but she hadn’t mentioned exactly where.
Hutchy makes a low, delighted sound beside me. “Guess you’ll have to start wearing pants to get the mail.”
“Oh, for fuck sake,” Eli groans as the table chuckles. “If I even hear about you walking out there in boxers, Miller—”
“It’s my driveway!”
“It’ll be her view,” Eli fires right back.
Lulu’s mouth curves in a quiet, unhurried smile that makes my stomach twist. “Relax, big brother. Doubt I’ll be staring at Logan’s mailbox.”
“Maybe his package, though,” Zoe says, smirking over her coffee as Eli shoots her a look and the table cracks up.
Lulu’s grinning into her smoothie as if she hasn’t just dropped the image of her bedroom window and mine lined up every night. And morning. And every minute in between.
“That’s gonna make mornings interesting,” adds Jake.
“Not for me,” I mutter, aware of Eli boring holes into my skull.
“Liar,” Hutchy says under his breath, the bastard.
Lulu’s eyes lock on mine for half a second, and her lips twitch before she turns back to Tamara and Charlie, launching into a discussion about a claw-foot tub and light fixtures.
Note to self: blinds. All the time.
I catch myself watching her, the way she makes whoever she’s talking to feel like they’re the only person in the room. No rush, no edge. Just open. The opposite of every conversation I grew up with.
Chase leans around Zoe. “At least the commute to work will give you more time for glue sticks and glitter.”
The smile Lulu gives him is polite. “It’s more than glitter.”
Chase grins. “Yeah, but isn’t it mostly just fun and games with the kids all day?”
Lulu’s smile doesn’t falter, but I see the subtle shift. Shoulders settling, chin tilting just so. “It’s teaching, Chase. You know—math, science, history, shaping little humans into people who might not belittle someone else’s career over pancakes.”
Zoe elbows him hard enough that he almost sloshes his coffee.
“Ouch,” Hutchy says under his breath.
My fork stalls halfway to my mouth, and I hear Chase mumble an apology, which she graciously accepts. It’s such a Lulu comeback. Sweet, sharp, impossible to argue with.
She’s always telling stories about her students; sass sharp enough for a locker room but delivered by sixth graders.
Sunshine might be her default, but there’s steel underneath—the kind that turns chaos into laughter and makes a class full of kids feel safe.
She carries their scraped knees and heartbreaks with the same gravity as algebra.
They’re lucky to have someone like her in their corner.
My old man only cared about ice time and stats; my mom preferred quiet and order.
Lulu is none of those things. She’s star charts and lesson plans, a sharp tongue that still cries at Disney movies.
Glitter and logic. Soft and fierce and all the best contradictions that shouldn’t fit together but somehow do.
People don’t know what to do with her, so they often underestimate her.
I don’t.
The conversation splinters into preseason schedules and travel, plus the looming home opener.
We’ve got a brutal stretch of back-to-backs in the first month, the kind that makes rookies groan.
But I’m wired for it. Double sessions, early conditioning, late nights reviewing tape—this is the life my dad drilled into me before I could even hold a stick.
He still calls weekly with unsolicited strategies, as if the Storm doesn’t have an entire staff for that.
Easier to nod along than admit I’ve built my whole routine around proving him wrong.
A burst of laughter from the other end of the table pulls my attention. Lulu’s angled toward Zoe, Charlie, and Tamara, phone in hand.
“That’s your bio?” Zoe’s whisper-shouts.
“You’ll have a hundred matches by dinner,” says Charlie.
Tamara shakes her head and leans in, voice low as she glances at Eli to ensure he’s still distracted by hockey talk. “Do not let Eli see that profile pic.”
“Oh please, he can’t stop me.” Lulu scoffs defiantly.
My fork stabs into my eggs, yolk bleeding across the plate.
“Relax,” Hutchy murmurs without looking at me. “You’re scowling so hard I can hear it.”
I don’t respond. My eyes are still on Lulu as she tips her head back to laugh at something Zoe says about swiping right. She can swipe right on the whole of Denver if she wants, not my problem.
Eventually, the kids start scattering toward the backyard, squealing with glee as Chase runs after them. Eli and Jake are clearing plates, and Tamara’s corralling Theo before he can take a nosedive off Charlie’s lap. I push back from the table just as Lulu does, our chairs scraping in unison.
We walk toward the back door together, the buzz of brunch fading behind us.
“Congrats on the house,” I say.
“Thanks.” She glances up, lip caught in a sheepish grin. “I promise I was going to tell you.”
I shrug, feigning apathy. “You can live wherever you like.”
Her eyes twinkle as she nudges me with her elbow. “And I promise to keep the noise down.”
That won’t be hard if you keep dating losers.
“Optimistic. You’ve got a laugh like a foghorn.”
She feigns a gasp. “Good thing we all know you love early wake-up calls, Pookie.”
The nickname grates and pulls in the same breath, especially from her lips. “One of these days, that name’s gonna cost you.”
She tilts her head, all fake innocence. “Looking forward to seeing how you collect.”
Her smile flashes slyly, then she turns toward the backyard, hips moving in that damn floral skirt with a rhythm my eyes shouldn’t chase. My jaw flexes as they do anyway.
Eli’s sister. My teammate’s sister. My alternate captain’s sister.
The universe couldn’t script a bigger red flag to follow.
So I stay put, because I know better.
Or at least, I’m supposed to.