Chapter 5
NICO
Hockey is all about teamwork, and I’m nothing if not a team player.
All of us as kids dreamed of being a top recruit, thinking we’d be the star player, hoisting the Cup above our heads after scoring a hat trick in the final championship game.
When reality is, the few of us who make it to the big league will spend most of our time on the bench, relegated to backing up the top-line players.
We may not be the lead scorers, but we’re the ones helping to keep the energy of the team up, giving our all for the ten or fifteen minutes of ice time, so the first and second lines can rest. While I may not be the most valuable player, I bring value to the team. I know my place and why it’s important.
And Jo? She has no idea.
From only these few minutes, I can see she doesn’t know her worth.
She’s clearly been pushed around in her past, and I’m not going to let that happen anymore.
She’s got me on her team now, and even if this engagement is fake, our little burgeoning friendship is not.
And I refuse to let her take this L, when I can at least make it a draw.
As her family files into the room, I stand, keeping her hand firmly in mine, clocking the tall dude’s attention on our fingers.
I’m going to need more in-depth information about all these people, but his slight frown makes me curious.
To test him out, I lean down and place a kiss on Jo’s temple before tossing a smile his way.
He immediately stands straighter, pushes his chest out.
Douchebag.
But Jo stays quiet, so I clear my throat, cueing her to say something and introduce me. She’s frozen, leaving me to take over. “I’m Nicholas Tremblay, but everyone calls me Nico.”
“I’m Tonya.” The woman who I can only assume is Jo’s mother hugs me once again. Where she has dyed platinum-blond hair and sun-damaged skin, Jo’s long hair is dark brown, her skin creamy yet pale. With a little mole by the left side of her mouth.
“I can’t believe it’s taken Bucky landing in the hospital for us to meet,” Tonya says, letting me go.
“Bucky?”
“Josephine,” she corrects with a smile, and I shoot Jo a confused look, but she merely shakes her head, so I shrug and move on to the gray-haired woman Tonya motions to. “This is my mother, Delia.”
“You might as well call me Mamaw,” she says with an Appalachian accent, opening her arms to me.
I accept her hug. “Okay, Mamaw.”
She embraces me tightly, her hands moving too close to my ass for comfort, and I do not like that, so I hop out of her grasp.
Then Tonya introduces me to Danny, Jo’s older brother, who has some weird grudge against Jo from the way he sneers at her, Lizzie, Jo’s pretty younger sister, and Lizzie’s boyfriend, Waylon, whose face looks like he’s trying to hold back a fart, eyes darting all over the place, permanent scowl in place.
In short order, I learn Jo’s father Ron couldn’t take time off to make the drive with them. Danny’s married with a kid on the way, but according to Tonya, “as soon as he heard his sister was hurt, he had to come.” Jo rolls her eyes at that. “And Elizabeth took off time to come. Isn’t that nice?”
I nod along because I feel like that’s the polite thing to do, but I’m not fully comprehending what’s happening here. It doesn’t feel right. I mean, they’re her family. She’s hurt, so they should come check on her, right?
At least, that’s how I always imagined families to be.
I don’t have a whole lot of experience with my own, only with Sheffy’s.
But they would go anywhere and do anything for each other, so this thing Tonya’s doing to make sure Jo knows exactly what everyone gave up to come here doesn’t sit well with me.
“I had to cancel some appointments,” Tonya goes on, sitting in the chair next to Josephine’s bed, “and Judy threw such a fit. That woman is in my chair every week. You’d think she could wait another day or two, but noooo.”
“I heard her husband’s been making some side trips,” Mamaw mutters.
“Side trips?” Lizzie asks, typing away on her cell phone. “He’s sleeping around?”
Mamaw presses her hand to her heart. “Well, you know I wouldn’t accuse anyone of doing something like that. That’s between him and the Lord, but I’d be doing some extra repenting if I were him.”
Danny sighs. “All right. Enough gossiping. What’s the plan?” He turns to Tonya. “Are we taking her home or what?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jo says, and Tonya laughs uncomfortably.
“Oh no, we weren’t planning on taking you anywhere.”
“No?” Jo juts her chin to Danny and Waylon, standing in the corner. “Brought them along for fun?”
“I told you, they wanted to come.”
“I didn’t want to come,” Danny says like a total dick, while Waylon remains silent, occasionally slanting his gaze toward me.
I help myself to sitting on Jo’s bed, placing my hand on her kneecap where she sits on top of the sheets.
She must’ve dug into all of the gifts I’d sent because she’s changed out of the hospital gown she wore yesterday and smells like springtime.
Could be the vases of flowers all around or maybe lotion.
I kiss the back of one of her hands and reflexively drag the tip of my nose over her wrist because she smells so good. “I’d like to see you try to take Josephine away from me.”
Tonya swoons. Mamaw claps. Danny huffs. Lizzie’s eyebrows practically erase off her face. Waylon, as I guessed, seems pissed.
There is a story there, and I am very interested in learning it.
“So, tell us about yourself, Nico,” Lizzie says, leaning into Waylon’s side, cell phone up as if she might research me on the internet. “What makes you love my sister?”
I turn my focus to Josephine, and there really is something fishy about all of this.
Jo’s back to being her closed-off, anxious self, shoulders curved over, teeth massacring her bottom lip, and I suspect that the reason she was nervous with me yesterday and nervous now stems from the same problem—her family.
I will eventually find out whatever they did to this poor girl, but in the meantime, I’ll put on a good show.
Dragging my knuckle over her chin, I tilt her face up, forcing her to meet my eyes, and offer her a reassuring smile.
Then I tug that lip out from under her teeth and soothe it with my thumb.
“I love your mouth. Don’t do that to it,” I murmur before turning back to her family, finding them all slightly stunned.
“What made me fall in love with Josephine? I can’t put my finger on it because there are so many things. ”
“Like what?” Mamaw asks, fully invested.
“Her humor.”
Lizzie is incredulous. “Her humor?”
“Yeah.” I clasp both of my hands around Jo’s left one, urging her to lean into me, use me for support. She does, and I rest our hands in my lap, staring at her sister. “She laughs at all my jokes, and she’s got a great smile.”
Danny and Lizzie outright scoff, while Waylon turns a shade of pink. Tonya frowns at me as Jo mumbles something I don’t catch, but I feel her stiffen beside me.
I don’t know what’s so weird about my answer and glance back at Mamaw, who has hearts in her eyes. So I tell her, “Jojo has a gentle spirit, and in my world, there aren’t many people with tender hearts. I want to protect hers.”
Mamaw makes a pleased sound, hands on her chest. “Oh, what else?”
“What else,” I muse, turning to Jo, her dark eyes shiny with unshed tears, and I don’t know if it’s because of me or them, but I keep going, on a roll now, thinking of all the things I know about her. It’s not much, but I consider myself a pretty good judge of character. And Jo is…she’s special.
“She’s creative, a talented photographer, and she helps me relax. I have a hard time settling sometimes, but she’s my quiet place. My soft place to land. I—”
Lizzie interrupts me with a sputter. “You play in the NHL!”
“What?” Waylon grabs her cell phone from her hand.
“NHL?” Danny eyes me. “Like hockey?”
I nod. “I’m a hockey player for the Philadelphia Iron.”
Tonya gasps. “You’re a professional hockey player?”
“I am.”
Lizzie’s eyes are wide as saucers, bouncing back and forth between Josephine and me. “I can’t believe it.”
“That I play hockey?”
“That you’re engaged to her.”
Jo goes stiff as a board next to me, and I squeeze her hand, once again feeling that knot in my stomach. I try to laugh it off. “I was surprised when she said yes too.”
Lizzie huffs and takes her cell phone back to keep researching me as Danny tells me, “We’re a football family. We don’t do hockey.”
I shrug. “That’s all right. We can’t all be perfect.”
He turns away from me, rolling his eyes.
“Are you going to bring him to Granny’s birthday?” Tonya asks Jo, and I raise my brow at her in question.
“My great-grandmother is turning one hundred.”
Tonya bats at the air. “We’re planning a big party for her. You have to come.”
Mamaw nearly throws herself at me, hands wandering once again, and I’d hate to have to put Jo’s grandma in her place, but I will.
You do not touch anyone, especially strangers, without their consent.
I remove her hand from my hip, though she doesn’t notice, too excited as she chirps, “She’ll just love you!
She’s still a firecracker. You know, the women in our family live a long time. Will you come to the party?”
I glance over at Jo to find she’s a deer in the headlights, so I offer Mamaw a smile. “If it fits in my game schedule.”
“I hope so. You have to meet everyone. You’ll—”
“Your mom is Paulina Luciano!” Lizzie shouts, and there is so much going on, I don’t know where to look. If this is what Jo puts up with all the time, no wonder she’s stressed.
Danny whips his head around to his sister. “The model?”
“Pauly who?” Mamaw asks, her arm around my waist.
Reading over Lizzie’s shoulder, Waylon says, “Paulina Luciano is an Italian supermodel, born in—”
“That name sounds familiar.” Tonya’s brows knit together.
“Because you buy her skincare,” Lizzie says, and Tonya gasps.