Mister Hockey (Hellions Angels #1)(15)

“Breezy Jane Angel!” Using the middle name. Mom was dragging out the big guns.

“Here’s the deal.” Breezy took a deep breath. Better to avoid a bald-faced lie in favor of a delicate dance of omission. “My mom and grandma are yuuuge hockey fans. My big sister is a sports journalist. I catch lots of random gossip on players.” All true. In the way that she could also say “last night I ate chicken for dinner” . . . double cheese chicken BBQ pizza. A whole medium. Alone. In underwear while watching Girls on HBO.

Details, shmeee-tails.

She ducked out of the kitchen before he could respond. All her fun fangirling felt a whole lot less creepier before meeting him, before seeing him as an actual person and not a scruffy masculine jaw and chiseled six-pack.

“Look at my arms?” Her mother hiked up her sleeves as she slipped into her room. “I’ve got chills.”

“Not me. I’m hot, hot, hot.” Granny Dee did a hip shimmy that was so wrong that it made the full three-sixty turn back to right.

“Shoo! Go home, you two!” Breezy waved toward the front door. “And call Neve. She’ll explain how this all came to pass. I’ll fill in the rest. Later.”

Mom took a few halting steps in the direction of the front door, but Granny Dee hurtled the coffee table and tore off for the kitchen. Guess those fish oil tablets she swallowed with her morning orange juice paid off. While her fitness was impressive, it would be nice if it wasn’t used to do gossipy reconnaissance.

By the time Breezy caught up, Granny had a ballpoint pen out and was rummaging through her purple leather handbag. “All I have in here is my dang checkbook,” she muttered. “It’ll have to do. I’m not leaving until I get an autograph. The ladies in my water aerobics class are going to pee the pool when I tell them how I met Jed West.”

“Sorry,” Breezy mouthed over the top of her head.

Jed signed a stub and passed it over. “You’re my number one fan?” he teased.

“I like you fine, boy, but Patchy has my heart.” Granny had a thing for Patrick “Patch” Donnelly, the ginger-bearded goalie, probably because he was a former seminarian, a good Catholic boy. “Anyway your number one fan is—”

“I think this has been enough excitement for one afternoon.” Breezy grabbed her grandmother by the elbow and steered her out the kitchen, propelling them toward the front door. “I’ll see you both at the picnic.” The Angel Fourth of July party was in three days and a firm family tradition. “Now get home safe before the streets flood. And before you ask, Mom, no I haven’t bought the flag cake ingredients, but never fear, I’ll bring it.” Her specialty, she made the dessert for the party every year.

Granny Dee’s look indicated she wasn’t fooled, not even a little. Still, she allowed herself to be ushered out onto the covered porch. “You bringing a date to the picnic? Seeing as you are a single and all.” She spoke the second sentence loudly from out of the corner of her twisted mouth.

Breezy cringed. This was a habit among the women in her family. They said anything they pleased under the mistaken belief that if it happened to be uttered from the corner of their mouth, no one would ever be the wiser.

The problem was . . . everyone with functional eardrums heard too, even road construction crews jackhammering out on I-70.

“Why not invite Jed?” Granny stage-whispered. “See if he can bring a friend.” She waggled her thin drawn-in brows. “Maybe the Hellion defensive line.”

“No way.” Breezy shook her head. “Why would he ever want to come to that?”

Mom appeared to think it over. “Mention Neve will attend if she doesn’t have to do the work trip.”

Resentment sluiced through Breezy’s stomach, a familiar gnawing envy that burned her insides. “What’s that mean?”

“Look how he came to your library at your sister’s request. I bet he likes her.” She glanced at Granny with visions of rink side season passes dancing before her eyes. “Imagine that. Jed and Neve.”

Jed and Neve?

Jed and Neve!

Over Breezy’s dead body.

She swallowed back the “What am I? Chopped liver?” retort.

No point.

In Mom’s eyes, Neve had always come first. Not only by birthright but also affection. It wasn’t that Mom didn’t love her. Breezy didn’t have a sad childhood locked under the stairs playing second fiddle Harry Potter to Neve’s Dudley. It was that Mom always seemed to see something in Neve . . . some invisible potential that appeared lacking in Breezy.

Extraordinary Neve had enjoyed skating and done well, then worked hard in journalism school in Boulder and made it through the ranks in a tough, demanding profession covering the competitive sports beat.

Breezy worked hard too, but face it, she was a librarian who could barely chew gum and walk in a straight line.

Safe.

Simple.

Uncomplicated.

Ordinary.

Neve and Breezy never discussed their mom’s favoritism. What was there to say? Mom had coached group and private kid lessons at a family ice arena in the suburbs for years. Neve had found modest success with the sport while Breezy gave up in favor of reading romance novels in the rink bleachers. Her mother refused to read anything longer than a Martha Stewart Living magazine.