Chapter 7 #2
Winnie holds her breath, heart drumming so loudly she can’t even hear what the host is saying but it doesn’t matter. She’s laser focused on the gigantic man slowly approaching the stage.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.
It’s him.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
The sound of ten million women across America shrieking all at once hits Winnie like a sonic boom.
Seriously. She staggers back as the collective scream of the studio audience fills her apartment, reverberating between her eardrums as it swells, grows, balloons across the city, across the globe, all the way into space like something out of a sitcom while she’s rigid with the shock. And why wouldn’t they scream?
The man who walks onto the stage is drop-dead gorgeous.
Like, literally. Winnie is slightly concerned the sight of him has sent her into cardiac arrest as the spotlights hit the golden-blond hair swooping dramatically over his brow in that messy way that only ridiculously attractive people make look sexy, while on everyone else it would just seem unkempt.
His square jaw is cut. His eyes pierce. There’s a bump on his nose that should wreck the illusion, but instead gives him this dangerous air that somehow makes him all the more appealing.
And his suit—good lord, that suit. The black fabric hugs his muscular hockey-honed frame almost indecently as he strides confidently toward the host. The man is a wet dream come to life.
More specifically, he’s Winnie’s wet dream come to life.
Because it is Tyler.
The boy she’s known almost her entire life.
The man she’s loved since she was thirteen.
And worse than all of that, he’s smiling. Not in a sardonic god, these people are the worst, I can’t believe my life has led me here sort of way. But in a charming way. In a melt your panties off way. In a find my future wife way.
Keith Holson drones on with a prepared introduction, but Winnie can’t pay attention.
She’s too transfixed by Tyler and that come-hither grin.
It’s not as if she hasn’t seen him around other women.
The man has been a star athlete since the moment she met him.
Girls have been after him his entire life.
But while, yes, she knows in some squished-down, repressed, far, far corner of her heart that he’s definitely not immune to those advances, she’s never seen him interested with her own two eyes.
He’s never chased women when she was around, not the same way her brother did.
The two of them usually hung back and made fun of Alex together.
She thought it was because of his general disdain for the rest of the world, but now she’s wondering if it was some weird respect thing.
Or, oh god, pity. The thought has never occurred to her before, but it’s suddenly so obvious.
He knows how much she was bullied growing up, and much as he tries to hide it, he’s a kind person.
Maybe he just never wanted to leave poor, pathetic, teased Winnie all alone at the club.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Winnie clutches her midsection as her stomach rolls.
Was that really it? All those times he hid out in her room while Alex was throwing a party.
All those times he stayed close at the hockey house, almost guarding her.
All those nights they went out in New York City when he and Alex came to visit. Was it really just pity?
Brotherly love she can handle. It’s not ideal, but at least it’s affection. At least it’s something the desperate, stubborn hope burning in her heart can fool itself into believing might change.
But pity?
That’s mortifying—absolutely mortifying. And her first kiss was a dissected bullfrog. Winnie knows mortifying.
This can’t be happening.
But it is. Bile coats the back of her throat as she searches his smile for a crack, a falter, any hint that he’s somehow being held ransom by the Mafia and forced to go on this show, that somewhere off-screen there’s a metaphorical gun being aimed at his head—or a literal one.
She finds nothing.
Which means he did this by choice. He wants to be there. He wants to find a wife. And he’d rather go looking for one on a reality television show than hop on a plane to New York and knock on her door.
And now I have to watch it.
Okay. She doesn’t have to watch it. But of course she will.
How can she not? It’ll be slow torture, yes.
There will be many, many pints of ice cream, ugly tears, and completely undeserved fuck yous involved, but still.
She’s only human. And even if by some herculean force of will she’s able to keep herself from sneaking out of her room at four in the morning to secretly binge the episodes she knows Sam tapes on the DVR, the news will be unavoidable.
His picture will be plastered on every rag across the country, and she passes five bodegas every morning on her way to work.
The town crier might as well be holding a bullhorn to her ear!
And, oh, dear lord, her mother.
Yetta loves that boy with all of her heart.
He’s like a second son. She’ll be watching—and commenting.
Oh, the commenting. Every phone call for the three months Tyler is on the show will be a play-by-play of every date, every kiss, every moment.
Postgame analysis with Alexandru Rusu has absolutely nothing on Yetta Rusu’s ability to gossip.
I’m doomed.
There’s no way around it. Tyler is going on this show. And Winnie will devour every minute of it from the sidelines whether she wants to or not.
Something rattles loudly against the floor.
My phone.
Winnie follows the sound and lunges at the sight of the caller ID. “Sam?”
“You’re already panicking.” Her roommate sighs, never one to hide her true opinions. “I knew it.”
“I am not.”
“The very subtle shriek to your voice says differently.”
“I’m just excited for you. And your cowboy. You’re engaged! Yay!”
“I was engaged before I left for LA. You’ve seen the ring. You tried it on. Don’t change the subject.”
“What subject? There’s no subject.”
Sam snorts. “Oh, how the turntables.”
“Don’t haughtily quote The Office at me, madam.”
“I’m sorry. Do you or do you not remember when I called you in my hour of need, freaking out about my illicit attraction to a completely off-limits cowboy, and your response was, Sleep with him.”
“I vaguely remember saying something along those lines…”
“Actually, I believe the exact quote was, Sleep with him right now or I will never forgive you.”
Winnie rolls her eyes. “You needed a kick in the ass.”
“And so do you.”
“These situations are not the same. You were falling for a totally available and freakishly hot cowboy, and it would have been stupid to let a little thing like you being a complete idiot get in the way of that. I am head over heels in love with my brother’s best friend and he doesn’t even know I exist. Added bonus—he’s a multimillionaire professional hockey player who can get literally any girl in the world he wants despite the three broken noses.
Or maybe because of them. Your happy ending was a matter of semantics.
Mine is just…” Winnie groans. “Never going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Well, it’s a lot less freaking likely now that he’s about to date thirty ridiculously attractive women on a show that almost always ends in a proposal.”
“Exactly.”
Winnie makes a face. “I’m not following.”
“The show, Win. The one I just finished filming.” Sam pauses, as if waiting for the dots to connect, but Winnie can’t form the picture.
“I know all the producers,” her friend continues slowly, giving the words time to sink in.
“I know how they think. And they would absolutely live for the drama of Tyler’s childhood friend coming on the show as a surprise guest to confess her undying love for him. ”
“What?” Winnie gasps, her heart launching like a rocket into space. “Absolutely freaking not. Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”
“You’re right,” Sam concedes in a way that Winnie knows is one hundred percent fabricated and will immediately be followed up with an annoyingly effective counterattack.
“What am I thinking? You should just keep doing what you’re doing.
It’s working out really well for you, pining after him in secret while self-sabotaging every possibility of ever having a real relationship. ”
Winnie releases an offended puff of air. It’s the only argument she has. “I do not self-sabotage.”
“If you say so.”
“When have I self-sabotaged?”
“Please!” Sam laughs outright into the phone. “Going out with that thirty-year-old creep when we were in college. You know. The clock guy. What was his name?”
Jonathan Freaking Doherty. “Okay. Fine. I’ll give you that one.”
“That one? I’m just getting started. What about the guy who worked at the Korean Karaoke bar we used to love who didn’t speak a lick of English?”
“I’m not going to let a language barrier get in the way of true love.”
“You couldn’t even pronounce his name!”
“We didn’t speak through words.”
“Okay. What’s your excuse for the guy who was a furry?”
“I don’t judge.” Plus, she thought he was the school mascot at the time.
“The nose picker?”
“Hey! I didn’t notice that until after our first date.”
“You went out with him again!”
“Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“Just admit it. You pick guys you know you’ll never fall for because then the door will always be just a little bit open in case Tyler ever pulls his head out of his ass and realizes how amazing you are.”
Shit.
Do I do that?
She’s honestly never thought of it that way before, but much as she’s loath to admit it, Sam might be onto something.
“You need to tell him how you feel.”
“And blow up my entire life? He’s practically my adopted brother, Sam. Every holiday, he’s there. Every phone call home, he’s mentioned. Our lives are too intertwined.”