Charming as Puck(36)

“Just how broken-hearted are you?” I ask.

“Why?” Josh wants to know.

“If we have another date, will it be about us, or about them?”

His eyes dart to the side.

And weirdly, I’m not so disappointed.

Or maybe not weirdly.

“I just broke up with Nick Murphy,” I tell him, because why the hell not? Josh and I clearly aren’t going to be each other’s soul mates. We might as well be honest friends.

His eyes go round. “The hockey player?”

“Yep.”

“Holy shit. And now you get this? That’s a serious demotion in the dating world.”

“Nick Murphy who’s having a shit season?” Sean asks, suddenly stopping. “Is he having a shit season because you broke up with him? Dude. You gotta get back together. He’s my boy. And we gotta win that back-to-back championship. I already bet next year’s tuition on it.”

“When did you break up with him?” Sarah demands. “Was it before or after that horrible game in New York?”

“We weren’t actually dating,” I say quickly.

“It was before!” Sarah shrieks.

Sean shakes his head at me. “I don’t care what you want to call it, you need to give that man more love. We need him stopping pucks.”

“He really is having a shitty season,” Josh says.

“Dearly beloved, we’re about to begin,” a man calls at the front of the room. “If you could take your seats, please?”

“How long were you dating?” Sean whispers around Sarah, who’s also watching me with eyes way more alert than they were a minute ago.

“We weren’t—eight months,” I whisper, because I’m not interested in explaining the entire situation.

“You got him through the championship!” Sarah shrieks.

“I—”

“Wait. Wasn’t that when the whole team was sent to charm school?” Josh asks.

“You know about charm school?”

He nods, all the tension gone. “Yeah. I read that blog—you know, the This Chick Loves Hockey blog?”

I gasp. “That’s my friend Maren’s blog.”

“Whoa, you know Maren? She’s fucking hot,” Sean says.

The minister clears his throat, but it’s hard to see his glare with him backlit by the lights coming through the ocean water.

“Could you introduce us?” Josh whispers.

“You get your booty on your own time,” Sarah hisses. “We need to get Murphy back to the top of his game. Now, why did you break up with him?”

“The wedding’s about to start,” I whisper.

“Fuck them, cheating bastards,” Sean says. “What did he do? He didn’t cheat on you, did he? I’ll put him through the fucking wall if he did.”

“He forgot my birthday, okay?”

Both men stare at me like I’ve sprouted a unicorn horn, but Sarah nods. “Good for you, honey. Good for you. Bob forgot every one of my birthdays for thirty years, and now look where we’re at.”

“We’re talking about the Thrusters winning,” Josh reminds her.

“You can’t ask a woman to screw a guy just so a sports team will win,” Sarah shoots back. “What’s in it for her?”

“Uh, diamonds?” Sean says. “Unless he’s cheating. Is he cheating?”

“I don’t think so,” I sputter.

“Is he at least smart enough to realize you’re his good luck charm and he wants you back?”

I pause.

To the best of my knowledge, Nick has never apologized to anyone voluntarily.

And in addition to the teddy bears, roses, singing telegram, pizza, and dog biscuits, I’ve gotten thirty sets of tickets to Thrusters games—including a few at other arenas, and those came with hotel vouchers and plane tickets—and when I switched on the radio the other day on my drive into work, the DJ kept announcing that every song that morning was dedicated to Kami, from the dum-dum-head who forgot her birthday.

“Oh, he does want you back, doesn’t he?” Sarah says.

Someone at the next table shushes her. Caroline is walking down the aisle, which is really just Caroline walking through the door from the tunnel.

“Did he send flowers?” Sean asks.

“And…then some,” I reply.

“He knows he fucked up?” Sarah brightens. “Oh, honey, you have a chance. You really have a chance. Plus, you’d get way more in alimony than I am if it ever goes south.”

“Would you all be quiet?” someone in front of us hisses.

Sarah flips him off. “Father of the bride,” she murmurs to me. Louder, she replies, “If you didn’t want us here, you shouldn’t have invited us.”

“Mom,” a young woman in pink hisses three tables to our left.

Sarah shrugs. “Sorry, honey. You know your father’s a dickweed.”

“Getting what he deserves,” Josh adds.

And three minutes later, we’re all being shuffled out the door.

“You guys want to go get some drinks at Chester Green’s?” Josh asks.

“And we’ll steal Kami’s phone and call Murphy to see what it’ll take to get his game back on,” Sean agrees.