Page 94 of The Puck Bunny

Fuck. That’s what I get for confiding private matters in a locker room—guys like Jonas overhear them.

“No, I didn’t tell you that.” I glare at him and avoid looking at Sara whose eyes I can feel burning a hole in my soul because who knows what she’s thinking right now. As soon as I let go of her, she’s probably going to run the other way, fast, and be thankful that she dodged the Quinn bullet. Fuck.

“You still didn’t explain what all is going on with you two. Are you a couple or aren’t you?”

“No,” Sara says.

“Yes,” I say.

Jonas cackles and Delaney takes her time examining us like an inquisitor deciding on the best torture.

“For the record,” I say, clearing my throat in the interest of total honesty and to give Sara an out I suspect she desperately wants, “Sara declined the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.”

Delaney’s eyes pop and she aims her beady eagle eyes at Sara “Is this true?”

Sara nods.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Delaney says, “You’re crazy not to take him up on his offer.”

“You should definitely go for Thanksgiving dinner,” Jonas jumps in, probably thinking he’s doing me a favor.

Sara looks at me. Delaney and Jonas are watching her and waiting for her to respond.

I look at her and I’m not sure what my eyes are saying, not sure what I want her to say or do, but, after a few tense beats, she finally responds.

“Okay. I’ll go.” She says to Delaney, “You talked me into it.”

She doesn’t look at me, studiously avoids my gaze, so she doesn’t see my grin.

Jonas slaps my back and whispers, “You can thank me later.”

Delaney says, “Enough bullshit. You boys get your asses into the locker room. You have an important practice I’m told.”

CHAPTER 29

SARA

Running up the stairs from the practice rink to the corporate office floor three flights up might have been a bad idea with my heels, but I have too much pent-up energy to wait for the elevator and I needed to get some distance between me and Delaney while she was distracted on her phone. When I reach the office, I waste no time tracking down Billie Mae and rip her from her cubicle. Luckily, she had time to hang up the phone or the phone would have been coming to the ladies’ room with us.

“What the hell?” she says under her breath while Martha pulls down her gold-and-black knit hat and gives us a curious look as we rush past her, again standing at the file cabinet doing who knows what.

“The hell is, I told Quinn I would do dinner with him and his family.” My heart pounds with exertion and the strain of confusion as I tell myself to calm down. I take a deep breath as Billie Mae scowls. Her face says Don’t be a fool. Or that could be my conscience talking, my rational mind.

“You’re serious? I left you back there with the jerk because I figured Delaney would make a great chaperone. What the fuck happened?”

“I know, but she was the instigator. And Jonas, that brat. He set Quinn up.”

She shakes her head while I explain how Quinn came to my rescue from Delaney.

“None of it matters because even though I said I would, I’m not going to dinner. I have a wedding to attend.”

She gives me a you’re a terrible liar look. “That’s the lamest cover I ever heard, but whatever. You go with that.” She pats my shoulder.

“The crazy thing is that I don’t even care about my job. Delaney can fire me tomorrow and I wouldn’t care—okay, I might care a little about being fired because it looks bad on a resume or when someone checks references—but I would quit in a heartbeat if I thought I was going to get Quinn in trouble and Delaney…” I take a deep breath while Billie Mae stares at me like she’ll die if I don’t finish my sentence. “Delaney didn’t care a whit about us having a relationship. She said I’d be crazy not to go with Quinn.”

“What? That sounds—” She stops short and clamps her mouth shut.

“What? It sounds like what?”