Chapter 27 Misty
MISTY
“Oh my god, did you have sex?”
“Sienna! You can’t say that word here.” I look around. It’s family day. That means all of Ryan’s extended family is in town.
They’re attending the Harbor Hawks home game. We’re going to hold a big family Christmas party then the family ice hockey game.
All Ryan’s aunts, uncles, cousins, and other siblings are in attendance.
They are all people from good, solid families—no divorces, people who check in on each other, they have real jobs, no one owns a legally questionable café like Granny Keagan, or had a child when they were a teenager like Mom, or hired a hitman then had messy, crazy sex with him.
I’ve never felt more like an outsider among the West family. Shoot, I’ve never felt more like an outsider just generally out in society.
“Is it obvious?” I ask her.
“Yeah, you smell like it,” Sienna says.
“I smell?” I sniff my sweater. “I showered.”
“With a bottle of Jack? You smell like you got fucked in a dive bar.”
I wrap my arms around myself and sip my overly sweet cocktail. “I don’t think… I don’t think it was very good.”
“What? Sex with a violent hitman wasn’t any good? How? There’s, like, a whole romance genre about that.”
“Not so loud!”
But no one’s paying us any attention.
Sienna and I are huddled at the back of the private owner’s suite in the stadium, at the end of the bar.
I’m blending into the background. The only nod I’m sporting to the team colors is the faded sweater I knitted back when Austen first made the team and I was hoping that he’d notice I made it in his honor.
He never did.
“I think I made a mistake,” I admit.
“Sex is never a mistake. Well, sex with Austen is a mistake. Probably sex with your stepdad, too, though Ryan is F-I-N-E!” Sienna sings the word before I can clap a hand on her mouth.
“Why does everyone want to sleep with Ryan?”
Ryan’s family members glance over at us. I clamp my mouth shut and give a half-hearted wave.
It’s the end of the first period. If we stay halfway through, you can leave, I promise myself.
Am I going home to check on my Crock-Pots? Am I going home to rub one out, wishing it was Talbot? Who knows, but at least I won’t be here.
“If you say,” Sienna warns, “that sleeping with Talbot hurts your chances of getting back together with Austen, I’m going to dump this drink all over your head.”
“No, I’m just—”
She picks up her glass of wine threateningly.
“What if Talbot doesn’t actually like me and he just used me for sex?”
“Austen uses you for free labor, and you got no ring and no babies and no alimony out of it. If Talbot wants to give you free orgasms, that is your God-given right as an American to take.” My friend signals the bartender for another drink and points at me.
“Don’t leave. I know you’re trying to sneak out, and if it was to see Talbot, I’d condone it, but you’re probably going to crochet or something. ”
Sienna then goes off to talk to her mom’s sister who’s gesturing her over. They’re all tall and svelte, athletic Swedes. The exact opposite of me.
No wonder Talbot didn’t want anything to do with me.
I lean against the wall and pull my laptop out of my bag.
I can tell the bartender is judging me, but the game is playing on the TV above the bar in the private owner’s suite.
It’s not like I’m completely checked out from hockey.
I glance up to follow the action as I search on my computer.
Austen completely fumbles a pass from Mason. My ex looks distracted out there.
Maybe he’s thinking about me?
Yeah, about what he asked me to do.
A million dollars. That’s a lot of money…
It is nice to be needed.
I chew on my lip.
Sienna’s still talking to her aunts in Swedish, and here I can barely remember my high school French. I know my friend loves me, but it’s so easy for her. She has an actual dad who cares about her, guys always wanted to date her in school, her family adores her, and she has a well-paying job.
All I have—well, had—was my relationship with Austen.
I’m moving on from Austen, I remind myself.
But moving to where? Driving around in a circle?
What if he’s legitimately having second thoughts? Shouldn’t I at least give it one more chance?
To that end, Austen is only going to give me another chance if I show him I’m serious about us.
I’m a very frugal person; shoot, I’m living at my parents’ house for free. I clip coupons for things I don’t even need. Taking out a personal loan? It is a bad idea.
Several of the credit card companies I’m with offer personal loans, but a million dollars?
The bartender hands me another cocktail, and I quickly fill out the form for a personal loan from one company.
It can’t hurt to see what you’re prequalified for, right? Apparently, it’s for a lot more money than I thought.
I really should have financed the hitman with these rates. Shoot, I should have negotiated… something. Now I’m stuck with Talbot.
Gosh, it’s going to be awkward the next time I see him. If I see him.
He was just flirting with me because he was bored, because I’m making it hard for him to complete his hit job. I made it a whole thing. Someone like Brielle wouldn’t catch feelings for her accidental employee, she’d—
“Don’t tell me you’re working!” one of Ryan’s cousins teases me. “You can’t hide over here. Come sit with us.”
I don’t want to sit in the seats at the front of the suite. There’s always the threat of the stadium camera turning on you to get shots of the proud family, and then they’ll see me there eating my weight in fried oysters with chocolate on my chin.
Granny Keagan slaps the bar top. “Shots for the room. Put it on my tab.”
“Gran, it’s free...”
“Damn right!”
“Isn’t she a hoot?” Ryan’s cousin nudges me. She’s tipsy and giggling.
“Hey, Misty,” her sister butts in. “You’re on my team for the game tomorrow, right? I happen to be related to the person putting together the list, so I can make these things happen.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to have time...”
“You better! I have your new sex-on-a-candy-cane-striped-stick in the lineup,” she cajoles.
I knock into my drink and almost spill it all over my computer. My arm hits the laptop, mashing the keys. I slam it shut and lean on it.
“Erm, Talbot’s not playing.”
More of Ryan’s family is drifting over.
“Misty, you’re dating a non-hockey player?” Ryan’s uncle demands.
“The hell? Of course he can play hockey.” Granny Keagan jumps to my defense. “My granddaughter’s not dating some schlub. He’s damn better than Austen. Talbot at least wouldn’t have turned over those two passes.” She nods to the screen. “And he can fight and fuck.”
“Oooh!” Ryan’s female cousins all cackle.
“You have to tell me all about him, Misty.”
“Yeah, he’s the most exciting thing to happen in this family since Ryan met your mother.”
The way things are going off the rails, the last thing I need is to be associated with that incident.
“Girl, I need details.” Ryan’s older sister—the cool one, not Aunt Kathy—snaps her fingers at me. “I’m married to a dermatologist who has a board game hobby. Let me live vicariously through you.”
“She picked him up hitchhiking, and they had sex in a gas station,” Granny Keagan brags. “He can’t keep his hands off her. Also, he has tattoos.”
Ryan’s brother-in-law ambles over. “You need to be careful with tattoos.”
His wife points him away. “I love you, but we don’t need a lecture on tattoos and skin care. Go get something to eat.” She turns back to me. “So, how big is it, and is it covered in tattoos?”
“I-I—” I stammer.
“Like a Coke bottle?” Her sister mimes it.
“Is there a piercing?”
“He stuck his whole hand up there,” Granny Keagan crows.
“How do you even know this?” I cry through my hands covering my face.
“You shouldn’t touch your face.” Ryan’s brother-in-law is back.
“Honey, please.” Ryan’s sister rolls her eyes at her husband.
“That pipe runs right through your bedroom down to the laundry room,” Gran explains. “You can hear everything. I don’t even need my hearing aid.”
The women crowded around me howl. I want to die, especially when Grandma Pam stamps over.
“Your actual nieces and nephews want to have a photo in front of the ice.” Pamela corners me after the rest of her family heads off. “This is an important weekend for the family. I don’t need you to ruin it. If you care about this family, then you’ll stay out of the way.”
I nod, then I grab the laptop, stuff it in my bag, and flee.