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She says it almost whimsically, as if she never had that with the dumbass who cheated on her. But my brother’s eyes lock with mine, as if to say, you two spar together. I quietly scoff. It’s true, Sienna and I bicker nonstop, but there’s no love lost there.
After a couple of hands of cards, we’re all chirping each other, even Sienna. I think the unintended consequence of this game of cards is that she’s dropped the resting stone-face for a few minutes and seems almost human. Maybe it’s because this group is the Vegas crowd, so Sienna and I don’t have to pretend around them. They were all there in Sin City and the morning after. They all know our marriage is a sham.
As soon as the plane touches down in Washington, Sienna slips back into her professional persona. She and Bianca – who is the bubbly antithesis of her temporary boss – direct the team how to walk off the jet like putting one foot in front of the other is rocket science.
“Since the league stopped stipulating game day suits for uniform, all the hockey BookTok girlies want to know what you’re wearing,” Bianca says.
I was annoyed about the change in rules. I got a kick out of turning up to games looking fine in one of my tailored suits and heading to a bar after the game looking fly. Plus, I spent a small fortune on amassing a closet full of suits and didn’t have to overthink what to wear to a game.
Today, I’m wearing tailored pants and a button-down, with a suave new jacket. I look good still but it took an extra ten minutes to get dressed this morning. Ten minutes that I could have been sleeping.
We’re ushered onto a coach and driven out to a hotel near the arena. It’s a small boutique place, which the team has hired in full. Part of the reason is it stops us being hounded by fans. Theoretically, it also makes it harder for us to sneak girls back after curfew.
I needn’t worry about that, since I’m room-sharing with my marital chastity belt. She’s taken to wearing a gold band on her wedding finger that’s simple and something she already owned. I kept watching it on the flight as we were playing cards. I stand in front of her in the hotel foyer while we wait for the key to our room and I roll the band between my fingers.
“We still need to replace this,” I tell her. “I don’t want people to think I don’t look after my girl.”
She snatches her hand back and gently presses my chest, nudging me away as she glances around us.
“This one is fine, Jax,” she says. “It’s only ten more weeks.”
She’s counting down. I guess I should be, too. My own space again, free of judgment and moody pouts. Nevertheless…
“That was one of my rules,” I tell her. “And I know how you love to play by the rules.”
She’s about to roll her eyes at me for the millionth time, I think, when the Team Manager hands us a key card each and me an envelope containing my per diem. “King room for the newlyweds,” she says with a wink.
I lean down to Sienna’s ear. “Come on, wifey, let’s go christen our bed.”
“In your dreams, hubby,” she gripes back, lips to my cheek.
“Every. Single. Night.”
She drags in a deep breath, chest rising toward me. Then she whacks me on the arm as she struts off ahead of me to the elevators.
No one stomps a stiletto against tiles quite like my angry wife.
17
SEPTEMBER
Sienna
Only One Bed
I was so unprofessional on that flight. I was ogling Jax. Full-blown staring, at times, until I caught myself. I’ve always loved that the hockey league enforced suits on guys because, come on, a hockey guy physique in a suit, who couldn’t get on board with that? But the way Jax looked today in his tailored pants, that fitted button-down and jacket. If I forgot for like a second that he is the most immature twenty-six-year-old I’ve ever come across, I’d be totally hot for him.
There was no way I could turn up to the jet with him looking like that. I took so much longer than usual to get ready for work, hanging back intentionally to take a ride with Bianca to the airport and blaming it on my beauty regime, when in fact my hormones were doing hurricanes for my fake husband. As soon as I heard him leave, I went to my bedside table, checking my watch then staring longingly at my vibrating bullet. I’m trying my best not to think of Jax when I make myself come. It feels like a line I can’t cross if I want to stick to the rules. But this morning, I thought about it, contemplated it, almost did it. Boy did I? I slipped my hands into my panties and I was already slick with lust. I closed my eyes as my own fingers drew a line over my clit and I sat down to the edge of the bed, eyes closing.
Then I panicked as a clear image invaded my mind, from my memory. Jax’s head, thick dark waves of hair with my fingers laced through them, between my legs as I sat propped up on a vanity unit wearing a minion dress coverall. I panicked because God he looked hot, it felt wild and untamed, smooth and decadent.
And I think it was… real?
Must remember he is also the man who cannot cook, cannot shop for himself, cannot tidy up after himself, is a complete imbecile. The man who married me drunk because I cried, then failed to get the thing annulled immediately, and let his brother expose us online. Okay, the last one is not entirely his fault and I probably should have checked whether TJ needed support over that girl betraying his trust, instead of being wholly focused on my own collateral damage. But all the rest… I must remember.
Except I forgot, again, on that flight, when we were playing cards and it was easy because all the guys at that table knew that Jax and I weren’t really together so it was almost like being in Vegas again, just two people who know each other hanging out and for my part finding my card-playing buddy inappropriately desirable.
Then came the card and room-key distribution disaster. I don’t know how this was going to play out of my head but standing in the foyer of this exquisite boutique hotel, with a full team and coaching staff around us, waiting for our joint key, to our shared room, that only has one king bed. It was more mortifying and the height of unprofessionalism.
