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She nods. “They had stuff to do. But I told them I’d wait for you.”
My heart rate picks up a beat.
Down, boy.
“I guess you need to work on your choice of drinks, huh?” she says.
“Funny girl,” I respond. “That was Tyler. He’s a massive practical joker. I think he did it because he knew you would be there. He wanted to embarrass me.”
“Were you embarrassed?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye.
I look at her for a moment and consider lying. Imply I don’t give a shit what she thinks about me, either as a hockey player or a person.
But I do care what she thinks.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, “I was embarrassed. I wanted to make a good impression on you.”
She says nothing, but then she doesn’t need to. A pink blush rises over her face, and she quickly looks away.
We head down the hall, when I hear some of the guys turning the corner in our direction, who don’t see us yet.
“Hanson’s new wife isn’t half bad,” one of them mouths off like an idiot. “I thought that since they met at an auction or something, maybe she’d be, you know, nothing special?—”
Fury rises in me. Not so much that some of my teammates are gossiping—although that makes me profoundly unhappy—but that Petal heard them.
I’m about to tell them to shut their big traps, when Petal beats me to it.
“Hi guys, I’m Petal Parker, Rake’s new wife. Thank you for saying I’m not so bad. I went through a lot of trouble covering up the scales on my arms.”
The guys’ mouths drop open, and Petal and I leave them there.
Leave it to her to handle a difficult situation better than I ever could.
23
PETAL
The rideback to Rake’s place in his giant Range Rover is quiet. Very quiet. And thanks to the blacked-out windows, for the first time today, I don’t feel like everyone’s staring at me.
Rake’s probably replaying the game in his head. I, on the other hand, can’t stop thinking about how freaking sexy he was on the ice today, stealing the puck from the other team and passing it to his own teammates.
No wonder he’s such a big star.
Not that I care about things like that.
I don’t know shit about hockey, but I did look over a couple YouTube videos before the game with the girls, not that I’m telling anyone that.
“I hope you didn’t mind being up on the jumbotron,” he says. “People are very interested in my ‘new wife,’” he says as we pull into his garage and park next to my car.
“It is weird, but you warned me. It’s to be expected, right?”
He nods, and while I get out of the passenger side of the car, he runs around to help me.
“Here,” he says, taking my hand as I lower myself from the giant vehicle.
I slide down the side of my seat until my sneakers hit the ground, and as I do, Rake places his hand on my waist to steady me. “That is one high car,” I say.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
