Samantha gasped and dropped the bag of icing she was holding. She assumed the whole thing had splattered on the floor, but she was too stunned to check because that wasn't the most important thing going on right now.
Fletcher Keris was coming to Chicago.
Her mind started spinning thinking about what that meant. Did he ask for the trade to be closer to her? He had mentioned his scoring slump was still going on so maybe he just needed to get out of Los Angeles and try something new and this had nothing to do with her. Or maybe it had everything to do with her. But they hadn't talked about moving in together and any minor thought she had of doing that involved her going to Los Angeles. But Fletcher was coming here? That was something she never expected.
Then she started to wonder if maybe he had tried to contact her or tell her. She would have to check her phone, but it was in the office and she had blue buttercream all over the floor and...
She looked up and her friends were staring at her. Riley was doing that weird thing when he raised one eyebrow and stared at his sister after she said something frustrating. Samantha had never been on the receiving end of that eyebrow until now.
"You want to share with the rest of the class?" he asked.
"What?"
"You seem to be more shocked than I am that the Otters picked up two players from California."
"Let me help," Georgia said sweetly before turning to her brother. "Samantha and Fletcher have a thing."
Riley's eyes narrowed as he stared at his sister while Samantha was trying to process the fact that Georgia knew about her and Fletcher.
"What do you mean a thing?" he asked.
"They were together in the bakery a few weeks ago, but I don't know why."
Samantha was trying not to hyperventilate or freak out or anything. "How did you even know that?"
Riley's head snapped around. "So you're not denying it?"
Busted. She walked right into that one.
Samantha thought she might have to tell the truth sometime, but she was hoping she could put it off for awhile. Maybe her relationship with Fletcher wouldn't be a relationship at all and then she would never have to talk to her friends about it and all would be forgotten.
But her mind was a jumbled mess right now and things weren't making sense.
"Wait, how did you know Fletcher was here?"
Georgia shrugged. "The security cameras. They send me an alert if there's movement in the store."
"OK?"
"And you let in some guy one night while you were cleaning up after we closed and it was the guy from the game show and then I remembered his name was Fletcher because I had to hear Riley complain about how the show had a hockey player from a rival team on your episode."
"It was not a coincidence," Riley said.
"Anyway." Georgia rolled her eyes and pulled out a stool to sit down at the island. "Do you want to explain the whole thing to us now or wait until after we clean up the blue frosting?"
The blue... Oh crap. Samantha forgot about the blue frosting. Again.
"Actually, I would like to hear more about Fletcher first," Riley said. "Like is he going to be a good teammate or do you know why he's in a scoring slump and--"
"Is he good in bed?" Samantha's eyes went wide as all of them turned to Georgia. "OK, fine. I only asked that to piss off Riley."
Cora gave her boyfriend a warm smile and pushed herself away from the island. "How about we start with the blue frosting and then work up to that?"
Samantha was thankful for the distraction and grabbed the bag of icing from the floor as they cleaned everything up and she got started on a new batch of blue frosting.
"Don't worry about Riley," Cora quietly told her. "Just give him a little time. He'll come around."
"Thanks."
