Parental Guidance (Ice Knights #1)(3)
Kill me now.
“You fill out those, the app will match you with a few possibilities,” his mom said. “Then I’ll pick out your new girl.”
That buzz saw in his ears? It turned into mortar fire, deafeningly loud and almost certain to fuck up his world. He looked at Lucy and Coach Peppers, desperate for another option that wouldn’t include him having to get the letters on the screen to stop moving the fuck around when they shouldn’t or putting his mom in charge of his dating life. When Lucy and Coach met his gaze without blinking, he turned back to the woman way too happy to have her control-freak fingers all up in his life.
“Whoever you pick, I’m not going out with her past date five,” he said. “This is a publicity stunt only. Nothing more.”
“No one is saying you have to or that you should,” Lucy said. “The point of those little exercises is to change the narrative and clean up your image. What is more wholesome than a boy’s mother helping him pick out a date?”
Had he fallen into a parallel universe where it was the total opposite of reality? His mom in charge of his love life? “That’s not wholesome. It’s creepy and wrong.”
“Well, unless you have a better plan to fix this disaster so you have a chance at a leadership position within the team and Petrov isn’t sent packing,” Peppers said from his spot across the room, “then you’re stuck with it.”
Having his balls dipped in battery acid sounded like a better idea to Caleb at the moment, but he had no real alternate plan to offer. This parental-guidance-type date looked like the best option.
His toes itched as badly as that time when he’d skipped using his shower shoes at hockey camp when he was in middle school, and his headache went from rumba-throb to death-metal hammering.
He turned to Lucy. “And you’re behind this plan? Really?”
“You dating a woman your mom picked out is a story that will grab the media’s attention away from that stupid viral video of you and your teammates being jackasses. This is a plan that will work—for everyone,” Lucy said.
Translation: You are so screwed…so very screwed.
He couldn’t agree more.
…
Zara Ambrose was neck-deep in one-twelfth-size alligators, and all of them looked like shit. Okay, to someone who didn’t spend their life devoted to the care and creation of miniatures, the alligators probably looked normal. Cute, even. To her, though, they were an abomination.
“I’m gonna have to toss them all and start again,” she said, accepting the shot of sympathy tequila her bestie, Gemma MacNamara, handed her. “There’s something wrong with their eyes. They just don’t look right.”
“No, there is something wrong with your work-life balance,” Gemma said, tapping her paper Dixie cup against Zara’s. “And it’s time you do something about it.”
It was the same line she’d been feeding Zara for the past two years—basically ever since her friend had met and fallen for the accountant next door. Yesterday, he’d proposed. Tonight, Gemma had shown up at Zara’s apartment with a bottle of tequila and a smile that sparkled almost as much as the diamond on her left ring finger. They were holed up in Zara’s miniatures studio, otherwise known as her loft apartment, supposedly celebrating Gemma’s impending wedding. Too bad, with that last comment, this was starting to feel like a well-laid trap.
“What is this, the Gemma MacNamara version of an intervention?” she asked.
“Yes,” Gemma said without hesitation.
She took a sniff of the liquid in her little paper cup, and her eyelashes nearly melted off. “Isn’t Patrón the wrong thing to be serving at one of those?”
“Not for you.” Gemma shot back her tequila like it was Dr Pepper and eyeballed Zara’s shot. “Girl, you need to loosen up and stop working like your life depends on it.”
Her tequila days were long gone—her dad always said she was the oldest twenty-eight-year-old he’d ever met—but that didn’t mean a little revisiting of the old days wasn’t warranted. Zara could let loose. She went out gambling. So what if it was bingo night with her grandma? She went out for girls’ night dinners with Gemma. That still counted even if she was back home at eight so she could curl up with a book while her Great Dane, Anchovy, snuggled up next to her on the couch. Then there was… Her mind went blank. She really couldn’t think of anything else she did on a regular basis that didn’t involve work. Fuck. She didn’t want to have to admit that to Gemma—as if her bestie didn’t already know. Bringing the cup up to her lips, she threw back the shot, the alcohol burning its way down her throat in the best possible way.
“Well, my life does depend on my ability to work hard if I want a roof over my head and food in the fridge.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that.” Gemma nodded in agreement. “You’re one of the best miniatures artisans in Harbor City. It’s gonna happen for you. I know you’re going to break out.”
“I love you for thinking that, but you’re the only one who does.”
She poured another shot for both of them. “Then the rest are idiots.”
They drank to that. Then they drank to true love—well, Gemma did. Zara drank to her good luck to never have that particular curse befall her. Then they drank to Gemma’s brand-spanking-new engagement. Within the hour, they were giggling like they always had together.