Down and Dirty (Hot Jocks #5)(7)
“Everyone always raves about Mykonos, but Santorini is really more our style,” Becca says, squeezing her fiancé’s hand as he chomps down on a piece of bacon. “Right, O?”
Owen shrugs. “As long as I have my angel by my side, I don’t care where we go. We could go to freaking Cleveland, for all I care.”
“We are not going to Cleveland,” Becca says sternly, giving him a pointed look.
Owen just chuckles and steals a piece of bacon from Becca’s plate while she smiles at him like he hung the moon.
I snicker along with the rest of the table, and Owen takes my smile as a free pass to sneak back into dangerous territory. A devilish look comes over his face as he folds his hands on the table, faking the most serious expression he can manage.
“So, Covey and Aubree. Where are you two going for your honeymoon?”
Before I can even process my anger, Landon has the situation under control. “Guys, can we let my wife eat her pancakes without any more comments, please?”
The table goes quiet again. Although it’s a little awkward, I can’t say my throbbing headache and I really mind the silence.
What I do mind is the fact that Landon just called me his wife. But I’ll deal with that later. With a hangover like this, you take your wins where you can get them.
3
* * *
Honeymoon for One
Landon
My drunken friends’ encouragement last night was one thing—but Teddy changing my regular room for the honeymoon suite while I’m in the hotel gym? That’s on a whole other level.
You’re welcome, is his text reply to the message I send the guys on my team when my room key no longer works.
I spent the entire last year getting pranks pulled on me—it came with the territory as a rookie—so there’s no reason to assume that my keycard has suddenly demagnetized or something as benign as that. I know my rowdy-ass teammates are to blame.
WTF? I text back, sweaty and standing in the hall, and he replies,
Go to room 2001. 20th floor.
Cursing under my breath, I take the elevator up from the ninth floor to the twentieth, and discover that room 2001 is the honeymoon suite. The irony isn’t lost on me. An envelope taped to the door is labeled LOVEY, the nickname they bestowed upon me during the first team skate.
A room key is tucked inside the envelope, which I use and then shoulder my way through the double doors. My suitcase is already there, parked beside a heavy mahogany table in the foyer.
The room is massive, and it certainly can’t have been cheap, but Teddy signed a four-year extension last year worth $12 million. He can afford to waste his money on extravagant splurges, but I can’t. Which is why when I found a crumpled receipt in my pocket during brunch from a luxury jewelry store—for a $30,000 three-carat oval-cut diamond set in a double-halo platinum band—I almost fell out of my chair. The ring on Aubree’s finger is stunning, there’s no denying that. But still.
With a defeated sigh, I head into the marble bathroom and strip out of my sweaty gym clothes. Cranking the faucet to hot inside the massive glass shower, I step under the rain-head fixture and close my eyes, but not before noticing you could easily fit another four bodies in this shower. Not that my night will involve anything is exciting as that.
After my shower, I explore the rest of the suite with a towel knotted around my waist. It’s an impressive space, but somehow that only makes me feel worse. It’s not the type of room you should have all to yourself. I grab a pair of black boxer briefs, relieved that the guys didn’t fuck with my suitcase.
One time on the road for a game in Montreal, they broke into my hotel room and stole all my underwear. I was forced to show up commando for the morning skate, where I paid one of the PAs a hundred bucks to run out to the store for me to buy more. Shaking my head at the memory, I grab a clean white T-shirt and a pair of black gym shorts.
There’s a living room with a velvet teal-colored sectional. It’s modern and low to the ground, one of those things that looks good but won’t be comfortable to actually sit on. A round glass coffee table is in front of it, facing a massive flat-screen TV mounted on the wall.
I bypass the living area and head for the bedroom, with its massive king-size bed dressed in white linens. Collapsing in the center of it, I read through the group text thread from my idiot friends.
Owen and Becca are heading to a nice steakhouse for a date night, and a few of the others are talking about getting tickets to see a comedy show. I notice Aubree hasn’t chimed in. I was clearheaded enough at breakfast to ask for her number, which I didn’t previously have. I’m almost surprised she didn’t put up more of a fight. She didn’t exactly seem pleased with me this morning. But a man needs his wife’s digits—this is a universal truth.
Another universal truth? A dude should never spend the night after his wedding alone in a honeymoon suite. This shit is depressing as fuck. I turn on the TV mounted across from the bed to distract me, but it doesn’t. In the back of my head, I can’t help but draw some rather somber comparisons.
All my life, I’ve prioritized sports over romantic relationships, telling myself it was the wise thing to do. Only, now I have to wonder. Am I destined to end up lonely and alone, just like my dad? It’s a sobering thought, one that doesn’t sit well with me.