Good Boy (WAGs #1)(4)

I’m in heaven.

When the plates are cleared, it’s time for dessert. But I have to set aside my chocolate mousse temporarily for a very important reason. It’s time to roast the groom and the groom, and I can’t let J-Babe beat me to it. In fact, it looks like she’s making a move, so I hurry to stand up first. I move so fast that I hear my chair thunk to the floor behind me, but it’s all good because now I have everyone’s attention.

“Ladies and gentlebeasts,” I begin.

At the other end of the table Jess’s beautiful brown eyes narrow.

“As Wes’s best man, it’s my obligation to embarrass him tonight.”

There’s a ripple of laughter, and Wes just shakes his head.

“But it’s not gonna be easy,” I admit. “’Cause Ryan Wesley is a helluva friend and a helluva teammate. I mean, the guy is full of shenanigans. But the man who witnessed all of those—the public nudity in Lake Placid and the drunkenness and the trespassing—is marrying him tomorrow. And he wouldn’t give me the dirt I need.”

That gets me another laugh.

“This year he played a season of hockey that was the opposite of embarrassing, so there’s no material there. Honestly? The only thing that’s embarrassing these days about Wes is how much he loves Jamie.”

“Awwww,” the whole family says in unison.

Wes looks at his coffee cup.

“I mean, I could just stand up here and tell you some of the stupid shit that Wesley has said. Like that night in the bar after a game against Philly, he argued—vehemently, I might add—that penguins weren’t mammals.” I give a little chuckle just remembering that ridiculousness. “He wanted me to believe they’re birds.”

“They are,” Jess mutters under her breath, because she loves to bait me.

“But I thought it would be more fun…” I wave to the waiter who’s watching from the door, and he carries in the extra-big tablet I rented for this. I get up and stand where everyone can see me, and I fire the thing up. “…to let Wesley embarrass himself, you know? It turns out that he wasn’t always such a great hockey player and such a studly guy. Thought you all should know.” Then I press play on the video I made and hold it up.

The sound is working—that’s good. The first strains of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” emerge from the speakers on this thing. The intro text I made lights the screen, and it reads, Ryan Wesley, Ladies and Gentlemen. Then it changes to say, Super Stud. The first picture dissolves into focus, and it’s a two-year-old Wes gripping a hockey stick in his chubby little hand, looking quite deranged.

There’s a gasp from the other end of the table. Jess’s eyes are the size of my dessert plate.

“Awwww!” Cindy Canning says, clutching her heart.

“Look at you!” Jamie crows, reaching over to rub his fiancé’s back. Wes just leans forward, staring at the screen in confusion.

“It’s a good thing the Toronto management didn’t have access to these babies.” I chuckle as the next photo fills the screen. It’s Wesley in a snowsuit at age five, I think, those fierce eyes already recognizable. He’s on a pond somewhere, skating hard after two kids about twice his size. He doesn’t have a prayer of catching them. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

But nobody’s laughing. Jamie has his arm around his boyfriend now, and his eyes look a little shiny. Cindy Canning is standing behind them both, an arm around each shoulder. And everyone else is smiling.

“Where on earth did you get these?” someone murmurs.

Then comes the really good stuff. A video clip plays of Wesley at eight, kitted out in a full uniform, a determined look in his eyes. He sends a slapshot toward the goal and…misses! And because I’m just that funny, the clip is followed by Wesley missing shots on goal three more times at various ages. There’s one where he’s kind of tiny and skating face-first into a snow bank.

Finally, I get a laugh. Tough crowd here tonight.

More pictures flash on the screen—Wesley at twelve, accepting a trophy. Wesley with a mouth full of braces and a serious case of bedhead. The music swells because my video is coming to an end.

“Brace yourselves,” I tell my audience.

Next we get Wesley at fourteen, grinning, a big pimple right on his nose.

The final shot is my pièce de résistance. It’s the only photo I had to steal. I took it out of Wesley’s wallet one night in D.C. during the playoffs. We were all so exhausted after the overtime period of our game that a single glass of whiskey made us drunk and silly. I’d swiped the photo and had it scanned by the hotel concierge. (Tipped the guy twenty bucks.) It was safely back in Wesley’s wallet a half-hour later.

There’s a chorus of awwwws and sighs as the photo of sixteen-year-old Jamie and Wes together fills the screen. They’re standing on top of a hiking trail somewhere near Lake Placid. Jamie is making a goofy face, but Wes is looking at him with such love that it gives me a big ol’ ache in my chest just to see it.

I check my teammate’s face and find red spots on his cheekbones. Maybe he thinks I’ve embarrassed him with this picture, because it reveals so much. But I haven’t. It’s only embarrassing to declare your love for someone who then betrays you with it.