Chapter 7
seven
. . .
Bex
one year ago
My book club meets on the third Thursday of every month. It’s a bring-your-own-booze situation, and I’m in desperate need of a drink. There’s something depressing about drinking by myself, and I’m not interested in putting myself in a vulnerable position by going to a bar alone.
In a few weeks, I start my new gig working with the Boston Grizzlies as their neurological consultant, and I can’t be more excited.
It was scary, leaving Harvard and the world of academia I’ve been entrenched in for my entire adult life, but I’m ready to do something new.
Put all my education to use. The Grizzlies won’t prohibit me from publishing research based on my findings, so long as I redact any players’ names, and half my friends are involved with the team, so it’s a built-in social network.
As someone who grew up hating hockey, resenting the attention showered upon my hotshot hockey-star older brother, it’s kind of mind-boggling that this is what I’m doing now.
For my dissertation, I researched athletes of various sports, but the Boston football team wasn’t interested in working with me, the rugby team didn’t reply to my inquiries, and frankly, baseball is boring as fuck.
And I have a vested interest in making sure boneheaded hockey players like my brother don’t end up with mush for brains.
Sadie, the owner of the bookstore where my friends meet, is already in the back section when I arrive, organizing the snack table.
She gives me a hug and a wide smile as she accepts the two bottles of wine I brought.
Over the next twenty minutes, more friends arrive, and before long, everyone is assembled to drink, snack, and talk romance books.
Somehow, all of my previously single friends have tripped and fallen into happy, healthy relationships.
I don’t begrudge them happiness, but being the last one standing is lonely.
My red flag is that I don’t want to date.
I just want to magically end up in a long-term and emotionally secure relationship.
Even though I’m married to my work, I still want my own happily ever after.
I know better, though. Wishes don’t come true. Not for girls like me.
At least I still have Ceci.
“I’m heeeeeere,” Cecilia Ramos sings as she bustles into the bookstore in a flurry of caramel whiskey perfume and hairspray.
She’s in her early forties, drop-dead gorgeous, and a bona fide billionaire thanks to inventing some sort of computer chip twenty years ago.
She’s the only rich person I know who gives back to charity because they want to and not solely for the tax break.
Like me, she spent most of her teenage and college years studying. Her education and then career came first, just like mine. And now, she’s a total horndog and not shy about it. She’s making up for missing out now… whereas I am definitely not.
Hello, dry spell. I don’t even want to think about how long it’s been because it only depresses me, and I’m not about to start crying about my lack of sex life in front of all my friends who are getting it regularly.
She’s actually one reason I got the job with the Grizzlies. She’s on their charitable foundation’s board and shared my CTE research with the president of the team. A few meetings later, I officially landed my dream job.
Over the next twenty minutes, more friends arrive. We’ve assembled a good core group of people over the last few years, and the number of them connected to the local hockey team never fails to remind me how small the world is.
I thought Elsy marrying my brother, and her best friend playing in the league, was bad enough… Now that I’ll be working with the Grizzlies, I can’t wait to see how it brings us all closer.
Vanessa, my college teammate and former roommate, works for the team, too. She’s married to Sven, one of the forwards, and I’m their son Leo’s godmother.
Her college boyfriend, Robby, is the assistant equipment manager.
Audrey’s husband Seb and Rachel’s husband Jake are the two goaltenders.
Sadie’s partner Jared is part of the team’s broadcast show.
Hailey’s brother Aidan is the captain, and her fiancé Ryan is his best friend and a defenseman.
Everyone knows everyone, and they’re always up in each other’s business, and sure, it’s a little incestuous, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ceci settles in beside me, a s’mores bar in one hand and a red Solo cup of wine in the other. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she says, taking a bite of the dessert. Her berry lipstick remains perfectly intact. I hate her.
“It’s been busy.” As I glance around the room, I take in my friends, cataloging who I can talk to about this.
All of my usual go-tos are affiliated with the team, so they’re out, and I don’t know that I want to talk about this with some of the newer people.
“What are you doing after this? Want to grab coffee?”
Her eyes widen, and she lifts her plastic cup to her lips and chugs the wine. “I think we’re going to need something stronger than coffee.”
With a laugh, I agree. “It all depends on how wasted I get here.”
“How about we get something fried and terrible for us?” She gives me a wicked grin. “I could go for a basket of those honey chipotle cauliflower at that dive bar on Dalton Street.”
“You just want a taste of the hot bartender.”
“Have you seen him?” She exaggerates fanning herself.
“You know hipsters aren’t my type.”
The guy has a handlebar mustache and exclusively wears flannel and skinny jeans.
He’s also about twenty-four. If I wanted to hook up with someone younger than me, I’d give Luke a chance.
But I don’t want to mess things up with my new bestie.
We’ve grown close in the last few weeks, talking all the time.
He still flirts outrageously, but he doesn’t ask me out, and that’s really all I can ask for. We’re just having fun.
Ceci raises her brows. “So what is your type? I can’t remember the last time I saw you take someone home.”
That’s because I’m all talk and no follow-through. It’s hard enough to let my guard down around my friends, much less someone about to see me naked.
“I don’t even know what I like,” I admit. “I just know it when I see it.”
Looks aren’t the big attraction for me; it’s what’s inside that gets me going.
Typically, I go for bigger guys in bars and apps.
Muscles are nice to look at, and they’re not the be-all and end-all, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m about to break a short, skinny guy in half when I climb onto his lap and ride his cock.
I thrive on praise and encouragement, and a well-timed “good girl” can nearly make me come from that alone.
But that doesn’t happen often with a one-night stand, and I’m not girlfriend material. I care too much about myself and my career to hold space for someone else in my life.
For years, my parents praised my brains and my drive, but my mother has never had a single nice thing to say about my appearance.
My hair is too red, my face too chubby, my freckles too pronounced.
And don’t get her started on my size. She was a college cheerleader, the flyer at the top of the pyramid, and she’s never let me forget the fact that I’m five foot eight and take after my father’s family—in both frame and face.
To this day, she brags about her pregnancy weight.
I’m a good hundred and twenty pounds above that, and her pointed comments about weight loss drugs and exercise routines got old years ago.
She doesn’t like that I weigh more than my professional hockey player brother.
As much as I try not to let it bother me, to accept my body for what it looks like, the poison she injected into my brain as a kid—and continues to spew—is never far from my mind.
I stopped being able to wear her shoes by the time I was ten, and I’ve been taller than her since I was twelve. When I was growing up, playing hockey, field hockey, and then college lacrosse, my wider build was an asset—to everyone except her.
My sister-in-law Elsy is plus-size, just like me. Until she and Wyatt got together, all of his exes were thin, blond supermodel types. So were all the women his friends dated. It’s hard to love my body when I’ve never seen someone who looks like me get their fairy-tale ending.
For a minute, in that Ohio hotel room, I almost thought it was possible—that it was real. But I know better than that.
Now I cut out before I can get disappointed. Put the brakes on before he can do it first. I’m willing to put myself out there, though. I have to try. Because if I don’t, there’s no chance of it happening. I can do this. I can do hard things.
Even if it’s fucking terrifying.