Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jason
“So,” Abernathy says, skating over to me as we watch the newest recruits run some drills with a few of our other senior players.
Dozer got tapped for this, and I can tell from his body language that he’s annoyed with these younger guys who think they’re hot stuff because they’re the top scorer on their Juniors team.
Little do they know, most of us were the best players on our Juniors or college teams too.
I’m not worried about their arrogance, though.
One of them could be a rare one whose arrogance is merited, though that’s doubtful.
Even if that’s true, though, they’ll all figure out that if they want ice time with the Emeralds, they have to learn to be a team player.
Coach doesn’t put up with that kind of bullshit, especially not from rookies.
“So,” I echo, glancing at him as we lean against the wall in front of our bench.
“You gonna have a reception or anything?”
“Ah,” I nod, understanding why he approached me now. Silly me, thinking it was about hockey. “Well, we had a small reception after our ceremony.”
“I’m still hurt you didn’t invite me.” He punches me on the shoulder, and I take a couple steps sideways, circling around to get back to my spot.
“Careful,” I warn. “You’ll piss off Coach if he sees you getting in a fight with me.”
Abernathy sniffs. “Nah. I think he’s pissed at you too.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d’you figure?”
“Well, we’ve all heard you got married.” I can’t help grinning at the mention of my wedding, and my mind flashes back—yet again—to the memory of holding Hailey in my arms and getting to kiss her for the first time …
“And yet,” Abernathy continues, interrupting my thoughts, “only Dozer and Bouchard have met this woman. Even they’re being cagey about her, though.
So what’s the deal? Why are you keeping her a secret?
Is this some kind of shotgun wedding? Did you get her pregnant and her dad marched you down the aisle? ”
I bark out a laugh at the thought of either of her parents caring enough about her to do something like that, though doing something that would get her pregnant would be fun.
But god, what would her parents have done if she’d gotten pregnant before this?
I suppress a shudder at the thought. Just having car trouble made them decide they knew how to run her life after over a decade of basically ignoring her—and I’m sure they would’ve gone on basically ignoring her once they had her back under their thumb as long as she didn’t rock the boat too hard.
But if she needed help with a child? Not just money, but support and presence and babysitting? God. The thought of her struggling like that makes me want to hurl. And punch someone.
So I punch Abernathy.
“Hey!” he protests, moving back to his spot next to me. “What was that for?”
“Being a nosy asshole. And the only reason we invited Dozer was because you need two witnesses to get married, and Bouchard volunteered to be the officiant. He can’t be a witness too. So I asked Dozer, and of course Marissa came too.”
“That still doesn’t explain why all the secrecy. Why we’ve never heard of her. Why the rush.”
I cock an eyebrow at him, then refocus on the drills going on the ice in front of us. “Aren’t you supposed to be paying attention to this?”
“I am,” he says, leaning on his stick and watching too. “I can still listen to you, though. ‘Splain. Now.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” I grumble. “I’ve known her for ages.
We reconnected over the summer. I didn’t really have time to introduce her around because she got sick as soon as she got to Seattle.
She had some things to wrap up in Madison before coming out here, so she didn’t get here until early September.
And why the rush? Well, when you know, you know.
And also, I didn’t want to try to get married during the season, so it was either small and quick now.
Or wait a year. And I didn’t want to wait a year.
And you shouldn’t feel too bad about not being invited.
Our families weren’t even there.” There.
That’s all true, even if it’s not the whole truth.
He doesn’t respond immediately, instead waiting for the drill in front of us to finish, then turns to face me, his eyes narrowing behind his visor as he studies me.
“Okay. Fine. I can accept all of that, though I still find it strange that you did it so fast that you didn’t even invite your families.
That does explain why you wouldn’t invite the whole team, though.
Sort of. I just want you to realize that everyone’s pissed that you hid this from all of us and almost no one was invited.
So. I’m going to ask again. When’s the reception? ”
Scratching my nose, I shake my head. “I’ll look at the calendar and let you know.”
He grins and slaps me on the shoulder. “Good man.” And then he skates off.
When I get home that evening, it’s with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
The more I’ve thought about Abernathy’s suggestion—well, demand—that we have a reception for us and the team, the more I like the idea.
It does kind of suck that no one got to celebrate with us.
We could schedule a reception on our long weekend the beginning of October.
And there are home games bookending that break, so we wouldn’t even be traveling.
We could invite my parents. Hailey’s too, if she wants.
If we’re acting like it’s all real, we have to have some kind of celebration.
It’s what people expect. Abernathy’s right that it’s a dick move to not let our friends and family celebrate with us, even if our tiny ceremony at the park and dinner with our friends afterward felt pretty perfect in the moment.
I’m greeted by the sound of violin music when I open the door, and I close it quietly behind me, not wanting to disturb Hailey while she’s practicing.
I found her YouTube channel while she was sick and listened to a few things she’d posted there, but she’s clearly not super active there, and the most recent videos were a couple years old.
She had several videos of her playing with a quartet at events, plus clips from what I assume was her recital in college.
This is only the second time I’ve heard her play live, though, and I’ve been craving more.
I still can’t get over how amazing she was that day she was busking in the park, even if I know she doesn’t consider that music difficult.
I know she likes playing it, though. It was obvious, watching her light up like that.
She was gorgeous out there in the sunshine, playing music and dancing with the kids while she played.
I doubt Hunter would like to know I’ve been thinking about that moment when I’m alone in the shower …
For her audition, she’s careful to practice when I’m not home, and I’m not sure if that’s just because she doesn’t like being overheard or if it’s because she’s afraid of bothering me.
Something about the music changes, and I hear her cursing and muttering before she starts again.
I can’t help grinning. If that’s how she is when she’s practicing, maybe it is because she doesn’t like being overheard.
Not so much the music, but her reactions to her mistakes—not that I could tell what she’s frustrated about. She sounds amazing to me.
I sit on the couch and browse local event venues and event planners.
If we’re doing this in just a few weeks, we’ll definitely need an event planner.
I don’t want Hailey to feel like she has to plan everything.
If she wants to be involved, then of course she will be.
But I’m perfectly content to give an event planner a few guidelines—colors, menu, things like that—and let them go nuts.
“Oh my god!” Hailey shouts, standing in the entrance to the hallway, her hand covering her upper chest. “I didn’t even know you were home. How long have you been here?”
Shrugging, I check the time. “I dunno. Twenty minutes, maybe?”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Or stop me?”
I shrug again. “You were working. I didn’t want to interrupt. Plus, you haven’t played for me since that one day at the park after your gig. I like listening to you.”
She gives me that squinty-eyed look that means she’s not sure if I’m bullshitting her, crossing her arms and studying me for a second.
Turning back to my phone to show that I’m unbothered by all of this, I say, “You don’t have to wait for me to leave to practice, you know.
I mean, you have plenty of time on your own while I’m at the rink, and you’ll have even more when I’m traveling for away games, but I have no problem with you practicing while I’m here.
” Glancing up at her, I offer a gentle smile.
“This is your home. I want you to feel comfortable here.”
“Thank you,” she mutters after a second, and I bite my lip to stop myself from chuckling at how disgruntled she makes a statement of gratitude.
“It’s … strange,” she continues. “For me, I mean. While Whitney wasn’t a terrible roommate or anything, she definitely didn’t enjoy listening to me practice.
She said it was too loud, and it made it so she couldn’t enjoy her shows.
So I’m used to scheduling my practice time when my housemate isn’t around.
” She settles on the other end of the couch, pulling her legs up so she’s sitting cross-legged.
“I’ll probably still do that, honestly. At least on days when you’re gone for a chunk of time.
I guess it’s nice to know I won’t bother you if I practice on your day off or something. ”
“Practice as much as you need. Schedule lessons too. Oh, and you never sent me the link to the violin you were talking about.” I fix her with a stern look. “We talked about this.”
She rolls her eyes again. “I’m still deciding which one I want!
It’s not like I had one all picked out before.
It was one of those, ‘Oh, it’d be nice if I could get that,’ kind of a thing.
Not a ‘I’m seriously shopping for a carbon fiber instrument’ kind of thing.
I’m considering all the options and reading reviews and asking for recommendations.
I promise to let you know when I decide which one I want. ”
“Fine. But if you haven’t decided by the end of the week, I’m going to pester you some more.”
“Oh, nooooo,” she fake wails. “You’ll pester me? However will I survive?” She puts the back of her hand to her forehead and pretends to faint into the corner of the couch, and I chuckle at her antics.
“I’m sure it’ll be a true challenge, but I believe in your ability to withstand it.” Clearing my throat, I look at my phone again. “Speaking of challenges …”
She straightens, giving me a suspicious look. “What now?”
That reaction makes me laugh. “My team captain—”
“Abegnale?”
“Abernathy. Isn’t Abegnale that con-man they made a movie about a long time ago?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe. Anyway, what about Abernathy?”
“He told me that we have to have a reception for the team to celebrate our wedding.”
That has her shrinking into the corner of the couch now. I preferred her fake swoon. “Oh?” Her voice is so small.
Clearing my throat, I scroll through the listing of event planners.
“Yeah. I know you didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but since everyone’s found out, they’re hurt that they weren’t included.
I told Abernathy that the only reason Dozer and Bouchard were included was because of the legal requirement for witnesses, and that seemed to help, but he essentially informed me that I would be throwing a reception.
So. I’m going to contact a couple of event planners and find someone to do the hard work for us—find a venue, hire a caterer, all that jazz.
There are a couple of weekends where I don’t have games for a five day stretch in October and November, so I’m figuring we can see what spaces are available then and pick the one we like best. I know things like this are a lot of work, but a good planner can do the majority of the work on our behalf, with us only needing to weigh in on big decisions, like the date, the space, our menu preferences, and color choices.
A good planner can come up with a handful of options, too, so it’s less overwhelming. ”
She clears her throat. “I bet Maggie knows good event planners in the area. I’ll text her and see if she can recommend anyone.”
“That’s a great idea. Perfect. Beyond that, I have a couple of questions for you—how involved do you want to be?
Do you want to run this thing, with the planner checking for your approval on everything?
Do we want to let the planner have essentially free rein once we nail down the date and venue?
And, perhaps most importantly, do you want to invite your parents?
I’ll be inviting mine, but with how you left things with yours … ”
“Oh.” Her eyes go wide, and she seems to shrink into herself even though she hasn’t moved, the way she does when she’s surprised by something. “Um. I’ll have to think about that.”
I nod. “I thought so. I just wanted to bring it up so you’d have time to figure out how you want to handle it.”
“Thanks,” she mumbles, and I put my phone away. I know her well enough by now to know that this isn’t the time or subject to push about.
“What should we do for dinner tonight?”