Page 28 of Hockey Wife

“We met a while back when I was visiting Dex O’Malley, one of my teammates. He’s kind of an idiot, but Georgia’s beyond patient with him ’cause she’s a saint. Anyway, we ran into each other in the elevator. She’d dropped a couple of oranges out of her grocery bag and one of them went rolling down the hallway. I chased that sucker like it was a puck heading into the blue zone.”

“The blue zone?” her mother asked, enthralled by Banks’s easy manner.

“Where I score goals, Penny. On the ice rink. Anyway, I scooped up that orange and returned it to Georgia and we got to talking. That was what—how long before Vegas, honey?”

Honey. She looked up into the gorgeous, lying eyes of her husband and tried to get with the program. He was helping her save face, framing their relationship as something historical, planned. Solid.

“A few months, maybe?”

“Yeah.” Another little squeeze of encouragement, maybe even approval that she was finally on board the Origin Story train. The people pleaser in her morphed into a praise whore on the spot while he went on. “We didn’t go there to get hitched, but when in?—”

“Vegas?” her father offered.

“Yep, Marcus, it seemed like the best idea in the world. Only …” He leaned in, like he had a secret to tell. “She got cold feet after we did the deed.”

“She did?” Her mother turned accusing eyes on Georgia, the big bad of the story once more. How could you do that to this lovely man, darling?

Georgia spluttered, “It all happened so quickly!”

“Too quickly,” Banks said with a chuckle. A chuckle! “I kind of strong-armed her into it. Georgia wasn’t completely sure, and the day after, she hotfooted it out of there. Once we got back to Chicago, I had to beg her to give it a shot. She was being the sensible one, y’know. She wanted to live apart at first so we wouldn’t be overwhelmed with setting up house. Or letting that honeymoon period weigh too heavily on the facts. Too much pressure.”

“That sounds very reasonable,” her mother said, though it hadn’t sounded reasonable at all. He had spilled the beans about her running away, but her mother wasn’t focused on that. She was too busy staring at Banks as if every word out of his mouth was utter perfection. “It’s nice to see you’re approaching this with a modicum of common sense. I’m guessing it’s because you’re a little older, Dylan. A calming influence.”

Good grief, had he not just told a version of events that painted Georgia as the sensible one? No getting out from under that misconception.

Her mother turned to her daughter. “I just wish you’d told us. We want to get to know our new son-in-law.”

She smiled at Banks, a warm, generous smile that she usually reserved for the beneficiaries of her charitable largesse.

He returned it, holding her gaze until she dragged it away and blinked in confusion. Dylan Bankowski, Mother-in-Law Whisperer.

“Oh, Marcus, there’s Mitzy Layton. We really should talk to her.”

“Indeed,” her father said. “We’ll catch up later. Good to meet you, Dylan.”

“Likewise, sir.”

He kept his hand on her waist as her parents walked away, then inclined his head, his lips brushing her ear again.

“I think we need a drink, don’t you?”

Banks signaled to the bartender. “Gin and tonic, and an IPA.”

Georgia looked up at him with those big blue eyes. “You remember my drink?”

“We shared quite a few of them in Vegas.”

He looked around the ballroom, about as glitzy as you’d expect for a gathering of wealthy do-gooders. Everything was gilt-edged and shiny and a little bit phony, including Georgia’s parents.

The Goodwins were rightly suspicious of him—after all, they’d never heard of him until now. Obviously not hockey fans. He’d expected to wing it once they met, but that skeptical look from Mama G had inspired some light improvisation. They had the connection in O’Malley, so why not use it to give the story more weight? Hopefully no one would delve deep enough to discover he hadn’t moved to Chicago until after Vegas.

She took a quick breath. “You saved my ass back there. I know we should have discussed the backstory beforehand, but I’ve obviously not thought this through. And there you were, with all the answers.”

“Just thought it would sound better if we said we’d known each other from before. Makes it seem less weird.”

“A little bit less.”

“A tiny bit less,” he countered and watched her lips curve into a gorgeous smile. Jesus, he would come up with any number of lies and cheats to see that flash of sun.

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