Sincerely, The Puck Bunny (Totally Pucked #2)(83)

“Olive juice, you’re supposed to wear it, not eat it.” She laughs. Fuck, I love that sound. Even more when she’s in a bikini.

Down, Briggs. Christ.

We’ve been under the large beach umbrella most of the afternoon, aside from the few minutes that Maddison went for a swim. When she comes back, the tops of her shoulders are tinted pink to match her cheeks.

“You got some sun, babe. You wanna head in? I think your grams is going to spend the evening with Olive, so I was thinking we should go for a boat ride, just us?”

Maddison’s eyes light up at the mention of the boat. My girl loves the lake, and the boat even more. My mind drifts to the first time that we met, and more than anything, I want Maddison to look back on those days and think of them with nothing but fondness.

That’s why I wanted to come back this weekend, get away from the city, and after the situation with my parents, I wanted to see my girls happy. I needed it.

I knew this was the perfect place for that to happen.

A place where Maddison calls home and anywhere that she’s at… well, that’s where I want to be. She and Olive are my home.

“I would love to take the boat out. It’s the prettiest day. I can bring her to Gram then take a quick shower?”

I nod then stand from my spot next to Olive under the shade of the umbrella, then walk over to Maddison and pull her to me, my hands sliding around the warm, sun-kissed skin of her back, pressing her firmly against me.

“I have plans for the bed in that houseboat.” I smirk.

Her brow lifts. “Do you? Well… better make that shower quick then.”

Her eyes twinkle with mirth.

I almost groan aloud when she sashays back over to Olive, swinging her hips, and with each step she takes, her sweet ass shakes. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

We pack up our bag and make our way back to the Inn. While Maddison goes to meet Grams and get Olive ready for her sleepover, which she insisted on so Maddison and I could have some alone time, I take a quick shower and wash off all of the sand. Then, I throw on a pair of khaki shorts and a polo shirt.

I love my Olive girl more than anything, but I love having her mama alone too. I can’t wait to have an entire night with her all to myself.

Maddison lets herself into the room a few minutes later and smiles when she sees me scrolling on my phone.

“Hi handsome. Gonna take a shower really quick. I feel like I have sand… everywhere.” She squinches her nose. “In every crevice.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “Probably a waste of time since I’m going to dirty you up…”

Rolling her eyes, she drops a quick kiss to my lips then she disappears into the bathroom, and I hear the water turn on.

My phone chimes with an alert and I glance back down at the screen and see an email notification. The other day at the rink Coach said there’s an event coming up that he needed us at, and Samantha, the public relations girl, would be sending us an email with all the details.

When I open it up and see an email sitting in my inbox from her, I click it open and then my screen goes black.

Fuck, of course my phone dies right when I go to check it. I fell asleep last night before I set it on the charger and using the GPS to the lake today must have drained it. Damn it.

“Babe, gonna use your phone really quick to respond to Samantha’s email,” I call to Maddison over the sound of the shower.

“Okay.”

I grab Maddison’s phone from the nightstand. Her passcode is the easiest thing for me to remember, Olive’s birthday, so I quickly type it in and unlock the phone. Everything seems to be color-coded, so I quickly find the pink “emails” folder and open it.

Before I can even log out to input my information to log into my email account, what I see stops me in my tracks.

Stops my heart in my fucking chest.

Dozens… no, maybe hundreds of emails addressed to The Puck Bunny.

What the fuck?

Surely, I’m reading this wrong. There is no fucking way that Maddison is…. The Puck Bunny.

My mind immediately flits to the last time I read something from The Puck Bunny, and I realize it’s been months. With Olive and everything going on with Maddison, I honestly hadn’t really thought about the fact that she’s gone silent. I assumed it was because I wasn’t giving her things to report about and because it was the off-season but...Is it because it’s Maddison?

The timing... No.

There’s no fucking way; I refuse to believe that.

Now that I’ve seen this, though, my mind continues to race, playing all scenarios out in my head, connecting things that may not even be there.

Maddison is studying journalism. That’s what she wants to do as her career. Is it really that far fucking fetched to think that she couldn’t be The Puck Bunny?

That would mean that she lied and that from the very first day that she met me, she knew who I was. She had written about me for… years. What. The. Fuck?

I open one of the emails with the subject line “TIP.” It’s an email from someone sending an anonymous tip about a center from the Bears.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I swallow, trying to process everything I’m reading, but with my heart pounding against my ribs, my pulse sounding in my ears, I can’t focus.

“Briggs?” Maddison’s voice startles me. She’s standing in front of me, her hair still dripping from the shower, wrapped in a white towel, looking at me with wide eyes.