Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
boston
An Aerosmith song starts playing through the speakers. Lowesy enters the dance floor from one side, and Penny from the other. She smiles shyly at him, her hands behind her back, and he runs his hand over his mouth, looking her up and down as they meet in the middle of the dancefloor.
I bring my beer to my lips, unable to hold back my smile. These two.
He offers her his hand, and they seamlessly slide into a simple, smooth first dance. He loves her. Recklessly. I respect anyone willing to love each other as loudly as these two do. I’ll never understand it, but I can appreciate it. It takes balls and a hell of a lot of vulnerability.
Forker leans back in his seat, the most adoring smile on his face. If there’s one guy who loves love, it’s The Beast.
Penny peers up at Declan with a soft smile. Declan gathers her close, singing her the words with each step, navigating her around the dancefloor with a gentle ease.
My eyes flicker to table number five, closest to the bar, where Lemmy, Ari, and Saltzy are seated. Only one of them is looking at me instead of the dance floor. I bet you can guess which one.
Ari angles her head and lifts her martini.
Ensuring her brother doesn’t clock it, I tip the neck of my beer toward her, returning the greeting. I’m not going to lie, seeing her and Reno all buddy-buddy pissed me off. Imagine my irritation when I discovered that Reno is also seated at her table with Cole and Oz.
The chorus of the song hits, and Declan tilts his head back, belting it at the top of his lungs. My attention gets ripped back to the dance floor. Penny’s smile is blinding, and within a second she joins him, both of them screaming it word for word.
I grin as the boys join in, waving their arms in the air like they’re at a concert and they’ve got the best seats in the house. The wedding party, one by one, starts to serenade the bride and groom. Say what you want about these idiots, but they’re some of the best people I’ve ever met.
As the chorus trails off into another verse, Penny pulls herself closer to her husband. Declan’s face softens, his hand trailing up and down her back.
“The way that woman looks at him will never cease to amaze me,” Forker says, eyes glued to the bride and groom. “Like there was never another choice but him.”
I take a sip of my beer. “Maybe there wasn’t.”
I feel his eyes burning into my face. “Tell me you don’t want that one day, Boss.”
I shake my head stiffly. “I don’t.”
“Come on.”
“I don’t,” I say again, glancing sideways at him. “Not my thing, Fork. Never has been.”
“I get worried about you,” he tells me, and I wait for a smile, but it doesn’t come. He just scans my face. “That you’re lonely. You’re one of the best guys I know. You don’t need to have a wedding and a bunch of kids, but don’t you want someone to share your life with?”
I stare straight ahead as Penny gazes up at her husband, stars in her eyes and her heart in his hands.
Forker might notice how she looks at Lowesy, but I can’t stop watching the way he looks at her.
Like he stops breathing every time he looks into her eyes.
Like he can’t fucking believe she ever agreed to marry him.
Like his happiness is entirely dependent on her.
That’s a lot of power to let another person have over you.
“Doesn’t interest me.”
Forker doesn’t say anything else, probably because he can sense the shift in my mood.
I clear my throat, glancing down the head table. Avery is fully sobbing into her napkin. Seth is beside her, arm around her shoulders, watching his two best friends dance their way toward their happy ending.
Arden reaches over, winding her hands around Forker’s bicep. He drops his drink to the table, glancing down at her, and he presses a kiss to her head.
I’m positive their time is just around the corner. Fork may not realize this, but he looks at Arden the way that Penny looks at Lowesy. There’s nobody but her.
My gaze flickers back to table five.
Lemmy and Ari are talking with their heads low, Ari’s mouth is moving one hundred miles a minute, like usual.
My stomach twists. I hope I haven’t come up in conversation between them.
Lemmy has discretion. She’d never air our shit out, but I don’t trust that Ari isn’t telling her all the ways she loves to rile me up.
Ari wouldn’t know discretion if it slapped her in the face.
Lemmy wouldn’t care, but she might offer more information than usual to protect Forker’s little sister.
I swallow, tearing my eyes away, and turn my head to find a pair of simmering brown eyes watching me very carefully from the cushion of her boyfriend’s arm.
I pause, meeting Arden’s stare. She doesn’t look away.
There’s a warning there.
A clear, distinct warning.
And I need another fucking drink.
Now that dinner is over, speeches are finished, and the party has started, I can breathe a bit easier. Lowesy is having the time of his life, Penny is dancing up a storm, and everyone seems to be in a remarkably good mood.
I even want to punch Reno less, so that’s a win.
I’m halfway to the bar when the pretty blonde in the baby blue dress slides directly into my path. I halt, cocking a brow, my near-empty drink pleading with me to be refilled.
“Hi, Wedding Date,” Ari says smoothly.
“Plus one,” I correct.
“Get a drink with me,” she says, and it’s not a question, so I can’t decline.
There is no avoiding her. She’s everywhere and I’m hanging on by a damn thread, hoping that ‘everywhere’ eventually places her directly in my way.
We head to the bar and she’s the one who orders.
“Whiskey and Coke and a vodka martini, please. Extra dirty.”
The bartender nods.
She taps her white fingernails on the bartop and then turns to me. I stare at the dancefloor instead of her face because I have to. I fucking have to.
“Are you having fun?”
“Yeah,” I say, dipping my chin. “Are you?”
“I have a good table,” she says, but there’s an edge in her voice. I don’t know if she’s referring to being seated with Lemmy or being seated with Reno, who I’ve now decided I hate again. Either way, I don’t love that answer.
“That’s good,” I say, keeping it short and sweet.
I am an idiot, so I glance down at her. I see nothing but softness and resignation in her eyes.
Don’t like that. Harder to ignore than shameless flirting.
Then, I say something fucking stupid, because I’m fucking stupid.
“What were you and Rossi talking about?”
She pauses and then breaks into a wicked smile. “Boston Black, are you jealous?”
“No,” I grumble. Yep. “But he’s known to put his dick in stupid places, so just be careful.”
“I’m not going to sleep with Reno.”
I shrug, like I don’t care, even though a wave of relief washes over me. I might care. Just a tad.
“I only have eyes for big, bearded defensemen with spectacular green eyes,” she continues, sipping her martini. “Extra points if they’d rather stab themselves in the eyes with a fork than give me any attention.”
I exhale a long breath through my nose and shake my head. She’s ridiculous and very, very wrong. Always so damn wrong.
“What?” she says innocently. “Is it not true?”
“You know that it isn’t true,” I mumble, thanking the bartender as he hands me my drink. “So, stop fishing.”
“I’m not fishing, I’m flirting,” she tells me with a beaming smile. “There’s a difference.”
It takes everything in me not to smile back at her.
She makes it so hard. She’s fucking captivating, and she’s definitely one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.
How do you not laugh at the funniest person you’ve ever met?
With little quips like that, I want to volley a comment right back at her to keep this game going, but I can’t.
She is off limits.
I can’t.
“Ease up, sweetheart,” I tell her, a warning in my eyes, but I keep myself in the game anyway because I think I’d collapse if I took myself out at this point. “You look fucking great, and the whole place knows it.”
That satiates her. I see the way it adds fuel to her fire, giving her the energy to keep pushing with me, just like I’d hoped.
Do I know what ‘off limits’ means? Yes. Do I remember that definition when we’re making eye contact? No.
“It wouldn’t hurt to hear it, though,” she gently pushes.
I shoot her a look. I just said it outright, and she still wants more. “You’ll have to hear it from somebody else.”
She pouts, blue eyes melting my shield of ice. “But that’s no fun. I want to hear it from my date.”
“I’m not your—”
“Leave him alone,” Carter says with a tired breath, strolling up to us.
She glares at him, which he ignores. He slaps his hand on my shoulder instead, pointing her toward the dance floor.
“Arden wants you out there with her. Please stop harassing my teammates and go and have fun with my girlfriend.”
“Fine,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. She glances up at me, a gentle smile tugging at her mouth. “You look fucking great, by the way. In case you were wondering.”
She refrains from adding a ‘too’ to the end of that sentence so that she doesn’t reveal that I was gassing her up to her brother.
I thank her for it with a dip of my chin. She waltzes off, and Forker apologizes for her yet again, like she hasn’t been the best part of this trip. Like she hasn’t been the best part of any day of mine that she’s walked right into.
“Ten tequila!” Declan orders, exploding into our circle, eyes glassy. “For me and my boys!”
I grin, wrapping my arm around his neck. Our boy is a little drunk.
He brought the remaining Pittsburgh players with him to the bar, trailing behind him like little ducklings.
There’s emotion written all over his face, and it’s clear he wants to convey how much us being here means to him, but he won’t.
He used up all his poetry skills on those vows that we helped him memorize with each shot he took on net this morning.
Lark grins, leaning against the bar by his lanky elbow.
“Love you guys,” is all Lowesy says, glancing at every one of us. “Thanks for being here.”
“Aw,” Fork muses, reaching forward to smack him gently on the cheek. “We love you more, buddy. Best night ever, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says, his throat bobbing. He reaches for Saltzy and me on either side of him, pulling us into a weird, three-way hug. “You two are stuck with me forever, too, you know?”
I grin, dipping my chin. “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Remarkably, Saltzy’s eyes soften a bit. He says nothing; he just pats Dec on the back as the bartender hands out tequila shots.
This feels good. The teammates who are here tonight are the good ones.
Declan didn’t invite everyone, because yeah, some of them are just coworkers.
He invited those who truly matter. Could you imagine Tom being here?
With Morgan? No chance. Luka would be fine, but that means Emma would have to come along. Hell no.
“To our boy becoming a man!” Fork shouts, and we all echo it back, downing our shots.
Declan gives us the finger with a sloppy, drunken smile, but then One Direction blares through the speaker and two loud, shrill screams of excitement erupt from the other end of the ballroom. He freezes with wide eyes, his gaze darting around our circle.
“That would be my wife,” he says with a curt nod, shoving his glass in my hand. “Gotta go, before she breaks her neck.”
He vanishes into the crowd, and we all watch him go.
He finds his wife instantly, like his heart is tied to hers by an invisible string.
She and Avery practically leap onto him, completely airborne, and he catches them on either arm like this is a routine they’ve mastered over the years.
The laughter that echoes through that dance floor is the best song in the world.
They really are a lucky bunch.
My eyes flicker to the other bodies around them. To a blonde in a baby blue dress with a long, thick ponytail, dancing hand-in-hand with a redhead. I glance at Fork, who is watching them with a happy smile of disbelief.
“Couldn’t have worked out better for you, huh?” I ask.
He shakes his head, unwilling to tear his eyes from them. “If Ari didn’t like her, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Because his sister is his whole world. His sister has always been the only person who mattered until Arden. She is still the person whose opinion matters to him the most. He can act like that isn’t true all he wants, but Ari will forever hold that power.
I swallow, but that tequila shot is suddenly sitting weirdly in my stomach.
I’ve been dancing on a very thin line and I need to put a fucking pin in it. Now.
What am I doing?
Forker’s eyes snap up to mine. “I’m going to go and shake my ass out there. You in?”
I glance across the room and she meets my eyes, gesturing for me to join them on the dance floor, as if she didn’t just get sent away from me like a child being scolded. If I can’t trust myself with her in a room full of people with liquor coursing through my veins, I should stay the hell away.
I shake my head. “I’m going to go take a leak.”
“I’m going to get some air,” is all Callum says, and we all take off in different directions, leaving the rest of the boys at the bar, where they’re content to stay and get plastered.