Slapshot Bride (Slapshot #1)

1. EASTON

EASTON

Runaway Bride

The light’s been red for ninety seconds.

I know because I’ve been counting. Practice ended an hour ago.

My hip flexors are screaming, my lower back has that specific knot it gets when Coach Brennan runs the breakout drill four times in a row like he’s punishing us personally for something one of us did in a past life, and I have nowhere to be except a quiet house in the hills that I bought because the realtor said it had good bones and I was too tired to argue.

I’m counting because if I don’t count, I’ll think. And I’ve been doing a real good job not thinking lately.

My phone buzzes in the cupholder. I don’t look. I know who it is. I’ve been ignoring her for three days now, which is either a new low or a new high, depending on how you measure these things.

For a moment, I could swear I’m in a sleep daze when the passenger door flies open.

A woman throws herself into my car.

In a wedding dress.

“Drive,” she says.

I don't drive.

I stare. Because there is a bride in my passenger seat.

An entire bride. Tulle exploding across my center console, a veil half-attached to her head like it lost a fight with the wind, mascara smudged in a way that suggests either crying or sprinting or both.

Her chest is heaving. There’s a sprig of something—baby’s breath?

—caught in her hair. One of her heels is missing, and she’s holding the other, the pointy 5-inch weapon pointing at me.

She’s also, I notice in the small functional part of my brain that hasn’t short-circuited, very pretty.

“Drive,” she repeats, slamming the door behind her. “Please. The light’s about to—”

The light turns green.

The car behind me lays on the horn.

“— change,” she finishes weakly. “Cool. Okay. So. Hi.”

“Hi to you too,” I say.

“I’m going to need you to drive the car now.”

“Why?” My eyes lock on her green ones. She looks back, brows furrowed, panic settling on her features.

I take a minute to drink her in. She looks a mess.

A hot mess. The train on her dress is tangled, the white now browning in some places, and her auburn hair, although still pinned, a few strays are out and about.

A light sheen of sweat is on her temple.

My eyes track the rest to her neck and chest. Her breathing is frantic. Her gaze returns to mine, pleading.

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere will work. I just…” She glances back again, her fingers on the door. “I just need to get away.”

The horn behind me intensifies. I glance in the rearview at a man in a Tesla who looks like he’s seconds from having a stroke about it.

I look back at the bride. She’s gripping the door handle like she’s considering jumping out at the next light if I don’t comply. Her knuckles are white.

I press the gas, and we move.

For about half a block, neither of us says anything.

I’m waiting. She’s catching her breath, which gives me a chance to actually look at her, the way I’d assess a player coming off a hit.

Pupils normal. No visible injuries. Just adrenaline and what I’m now fairly sure is fear underneath the attitude.

The attitude is doing most of the talking, though.

“Okay,” she says, smoothing tulle down from where it’s encroached on the gearshift. “First of all, thank you. Second of all, I'm so sorry. Third of all, wait… that’s not correct,” she frowns. “Scratch that.” She heaves. “I promise I’m not a criminal. Fourthly, do you have water?”

“Glovebox.”

She opens it. Pulls out a warm bottle of Smart Water that’s been rolling around in there for approximately two months. Drinks half of it in one go. I watch a single bead of it run down her chin and disappear into the neckline of what is, objectively, a very expensive dress.

“You’re staring,” she says, not looking at me.

“You’re a bride.”

“Astute.”

“In my car.”

“Also astute.”

“There’s a…” I gesture vaguely at her hair. “You have a flower situation.”

She reaches up, finds the baby's breath, plucks it out, examines it, and then tosses it out the window.

“Littering,” I observe.

She rolls her eyes.

“Sue me, but if you’d please just watch the road? I’m escaping from my wedding, and seeing the Lord isn't exactly in my plans for today.”

I laugh before I can stop myself.

“Fair point.”

Her words stay in my head for a minute longer. Escaping from my wedding. The moment she demanded I drive, I knew what it was, but hearing her say it is a different thing. Fully confirms it’s actually happening. I’m the getaway driver for a runaway bride. Classic LA.

She fully looks at me for the first time, and I get the full hit of her face—green eyes, freckles across her nose like someone flicked a paintbrush at her, mouth still parted from running. Whatever she sees on my face makes her laugh. It’s a short, surprised sound, like she didn’t mean to.

“You look like you’re being forced to commit a crime.”

“You’re a bride! A runaway bride, and you somehow chose me to be your getaway driver. I can only hope the cops are not coming for our heads.”

She winces. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Past who?”

She’s quiet. Then glances at the back seat.

“Hockey?”

“What?”

“You’re huge. And the gym bag in the back has a stick poking out of it. Call me Sherlock.” She flashes her brows, and I shake my head.

She’s deflecting.

Fine. Two can play that game. “Seriously, I need to know if I’d be in jail.”

She goes quiet again, and with every passing minute, my curiosity grows, but I let her have the silence.

The jokes are interesting, though. Whatever she’s running from, she still has enough fight in her to give me shit.

That has to count for something.

I look at her hands. They’re shaking. A lot.

She’s gripping the water bottle like it’s the only thing tethering her to the car, and her knuckles have gone past white into something almost blue. Her shoulders are doing that thing where they’re trying very hard to look relaxed and failing.

The joke in my throat dies.

“Hey,” I say. She tries to fake a smile, but it comes out strained.

“You okay?”

“Define okay.”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

She thinks about it. I take a left I hadn’t planned to take, which puts us heading away from downtown, away from wherever she ran from, toward the canyon roads where there’s less traffic and fewer red lights and nobody can see into the car.

“A three,” she says finally. “Maybe a two. I’m reserving the right to revise downward.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I’m driving you. I most definitely want to know.” I keep my eyes on the road, but fail because they’re back on her. I force them away, so I can keep us alive while I wait for an answer.

“My fiancé,” she says, “is a piece of shit.”

“Okay.”

“That’s the abridged version.”

“Want to give me the unabridged?”

“Not really.” She exhales, and for the first time since she got in, her shoulders slump. “I just want to get away.”

I nod.

We drive. The canyon opens up around us, dry hills and that specific LA afternoon light that makes everything look like a movie nobody’s filming. She fiddles with the hem of her veil, and I quietly watch her from my peripheral vision.

“He’s been cheating on me,” she finally says in resignation, like she’s dealt with the truth and is ready for the world to hear it.

“For... I don’t actually know how long. That’s the fun part.

I found out twenty-three minutes ago. I was in the bridal suite.

He was in a hallway. With my second cousin.

Who is also named Riley, which is going to make Thanksgiving very confusing. ”

“Wait, your name is Riley.”

“Brooks. Hi. Meet Riley Brooks. I would shake your hand, but I’d like to keep both of mine on this water bottle.” She draws my attention to her trembling hands once more. This time, they’re not shaking so much, but it’s still there. “What’s yours?”

“Easton.”

“Easton what?”

“Just Easton, for now.”

She tilts her head. “Mysterious.” Her eyes switch to mine, and they light up. “Wait… that has a nice ring to it. Easton Mysterious!” She dramatically spreads her hands in front of her face to demonstrate.

Then she takes me in for another second. “Or Hulk? Would you prefer that? Easton Mysterious Hulk?” she throws her head back in laughter. The sound is contagious, and I join her. She’s bubbly and carefree. If she wasn’t in her wedding attire, I swear I could forget she’s escaping.

I take another turn. We’re properly in the hills now. The road narrows. I don’t know where I’m taking her, which is a problem I’ll solve in roughly three minutes when we run out of road.

“So, Riley Brooks. You found out twenty-three minutes ago.”

“Twenty-four now.”

“And you…what? Walked out?”

“Sprinted, actually.”

“And your family? No notice to them?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Her jaw works. The shaking in her hands has stopped, and she’s started picking at the beading on her bodice in small, methodical movements, like someone who needs to be doing something with her hands or she’ll come apart.

“They wouldn’t believe me,” Her voice drops an octave. “He’s the picture-perfect guy. The textbook definition of good guy.”

“And you’re telling me they’ll take his word over yours?” I find it difficult to believe, but I don’t say it.

She laughs. A dry sound, devoid of humor, unlike her usual bubbly one.

“You haven’t met Preston.”

“Preston?”

Even his name pisses me off, which is fucking ridiculous considering I didn’t know Riley half an hour ago.

“Preston Sinclair.” She says the name the way you’d say a medical diagnosis, flat and clinical.

“You probably know him. Most people in this city do. He likes it that way. He’s…

” she waves a hand, searching for the word, “connected. He knows everyone. He has lunch with everyone. He gets quoted in the LA Times about housing policy, and he sits on three boards, and he hosts a podcast nobody listens to, but everyone pretends they do. He’s very good at all of it. ”

“Sounds charming.”