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The first shit storm blew the next morning while Lexie spoke with the contractor renovating her store. Before Sean set foot in Arizona, an “anonymous” source contacted the Seattle Times with Lexie and Sean’s star-crossed-love story. Within an hour of the “leak,” the story appeared on the paper’s online site and was quickly picked up by the gossip sites. Each added their own brand of snarky commentary with headlines like:
Sean Knox Out Pete Dalton
Hitchin’ Bride Ran Away With Hockey Star
Pete Dalton Put on Ice for Sean Knox
Lexie Kowalsky Scores With Hockey Player
TMZ stoked the flames and fueled the story with a photograph of Sean stepping onto the ice at Gila River Arena in Glendale.
Before Sean had left her apartment the night before, he’d reminded her of their agreement to talk to her parents first. He didn’t want any distraction while on the road and demanded that the news not happen until the Monday after his return. Lexie tried to negotiate the leak date, but he’d been totally stubborn and wouldn’t budge.
Too bad everything got mixed up.
She’d put her anonymous source, Marie, in charge of the leak, and Marie being Marie overthought her assignment. Her friend insisted that they needed a layer of plausible deniability and had handed it off to her anonymous source, Jimmy. Jimmy being a nincompoop jumped the gun five days before Sean’s return. From the road, he’d sent a “What the fuck?” text to her prepaid phone. She’d explained the mix-up but wasn’t sure if he believed her. She’d received pretty much the same text from her mother and father. She’d texted them back with a lie, “I love him,” and they’d agreed to table the discussion until the team returned that Sunday night, giving Lexie time to make a detailed memo. Of course they’d discussed the plan, but she always felt better when everything was written out. She created sections and subsections, complete with highlights and bullet points, then she’d sent it in a file to Sean’s phone. By the time the Chinooks returned from the road, and she met Sean in the belly of the Key Arena, she was feeling almost confident of the plan. The only weak link was Sean himself, but as long as he stuck to the script, everything would turn out fine.
“Has my dad been hard on you?” she asked next to Sean’s ear as they embraced the night of his return. His hair smelled like woodsy shampoo and fresh air, and if anyone was watching, they looked like a couple in love. “Has he yelled or cursed at you?”
“No more than usual.” They stood just outside the Chinooks locker room. “But the I’m-going-to-pound-on-you glare has returned to his eyes.” He pulled back and looked down into her face. “The guys on the team discovered Gawker and TMZ, and their chirping is relentless.”
That was bound to happen with hockey players, who considered chirping a moral obligation. “Did you read the memo?”
“I glanced at it.”
The memo needed to be absorbed, not glanced at. The anxiety pounding in her heart kicked up a notch. She took his hand and tried not to look worried as they walked into her father’s office. She didn’t know what scared her more, the frown on her father’s face or that she and Sean might contradict each other.
“Explain this to me.” John Kowalsky waved a hand toward them as she and Sean took the chairs across his desk. “The story on the Internet is crap.”
Looking at her parents added a heavy dose of guilt to her anxious heart. “It’s not crap.” Section one outlined the story they would tell her parents. It was always best to stick as close to the truth as possible. Unless the truth needed to be covered with a big fat lie. “I love Sean.” She turned to her mother sitting beside her father. “We met in Pittsburgh, and it was love at first sight.” She squeezed Sean’s hand so he paid attention to the story. Instead he untwined their fingers and loosened his blue striped tie.
“The two of you?” Her father pointed at her, then at Sean. “You want me and Georgeanne to believe this fairy tale?”
It wasn’t entirely a fairy tale, at least not like the one she’d carefully detailed and planned to tell the press the next day. She turned her gaze to her mother. “You fell in love with Dad the first day you met.” She’d been conceived on that day, too. Very few people knew that her mother had once been a runaway bride, too. A runway bride who’d jumped into John “The Wall” Kowalsky’s little red Corvette, but now wasn’t the time to talk about the first seven years of her life and the impact her parents’ own bad choices had made in her life.
Her mother’s green eyes worried over Lexie’s face and piled on even more guilt. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me that the man in the picture played for your dad.”
Because she hadn’t known. “I’m sorry. Everything was so crazy and confused.” That much was true, and she glanced at Sean to see if he was paying attention. He looked straight ahead as he unbuttoned the collar of his blue dress shirt, and she couldn’t tell. “I didn’t know if my feelings for him were real.” That was close to the truth if she stretched it a bit. “Then Sean sent a note to me at the Fairmont and I just knew I was still in love with him.” She hated lying to her parents, but needs must. According to the terms and conditions she had sent Sean, they’d “break up” in May but remain amiable. She’d wanted to give the story time and credibility, but in one of the few texts Sean had actually returned, he’d insisted on the third week in March, three weeks before the Stanley Cup playoffs. He di
dn’t need any distractions and wanted enough time for the story to completely die before he and the Chinooks made a race for the cup.
Lexie had agreed because she didn’t have a choice. She needed Sean more than he needed her. One more lifeline had been tossed her way. She wasn’t about to let this chance to save herself and her business slip through her fingers. This time she gripped it in a stranglehold and wasn’t about to let go.
“We love each other.” She reached for Sean’s hand resting on the arm of his chair. Their declaration of love might be more believable if he didn’t look like a dead man walking and she was the executioner leading him to the gas chamber.
The legs of her father’s chair hit the floor and his gaze locked on Sean. “I’ve heard Lexie mention love a few times now. I haven’t heard Sean mention it. In fact, Knox, you haven’t said much of anything.”
If he blew it, she would punch him. Knee him really good, too.
“It happened pretty much like Lexie said,” Sean finally spoke up. Now, all he had to do was recite subsection two from the outline. “I waited aboard the Sea Hopper, not knowing if she’d even show up. Then I saw her running toward me, and I just knew. I checked her in to the Harbor Inn so she wouldn’t feel pressured and took her to meet my mother the next morning.” It wasn’t exactly what she’d outlined, but close enough. He covered her hand with his and gave a little squeeze. “The two have a lot in common and really hit it off.”
The last was not part of section two and set off alarm bells in Lexie’s head.
“You haven’t mentioned the word ‘love,’” her father persisted.
Sean looked down at her and smiled. “There are so many things to love about Lexie.” That wasn’t in any section or subsection, either. She’d made it simple and really didn’t think she could have made it easier:
I love her. a. Never stopped loving her.
