Page 13 of Hockey Wife

“Except getting married!” As if it was a mere trifle. But what he really meant was—oh.

An accidental wedding should have been the Vegas-shaped dildo in the room, but apparently not. It was sex. The sex that neither of them had.

“Sure, you wanted to,” he said. “But I was a gentleman.”

Before she could get off a biting retort, he abandoned her—which seemed appropriate payback for her cowardly exit the morning after they became man and wife.

5

He waited a day.

It was hard to say why. He had practice and appointments with his nutritionist and his trainer, not to mention a stint on Jordan Hunt’s Hockey Grrl podcast. He’d expected a bunch of stupid questions about his favorite hot sauce or the best clubs in Chicago, but Jordan knew her stuff and asked him about adjusting to the move and his hopes for the rest of the season. Being married to one of his teammates probably meant she knew which levers to pull.

Suffice to say, that day’s delay fucked him good. He found out just how much when he put a call into John Delaney, his college roommate who had gone on to become a lawyer because he couldn’t hack it on the ice. No way was he going to run to the Rebels legal department to fix this.

“Delaney, I need a favor.”

“Lovely to hear from you too, Banks. The wife’s doing great. The kids are awesome.”

“And that problem you had with your dick? That worked out?”

“Baby number three is on the way.”

“Congratulations, I suppose.”

Delaney sniggered. “Right back at ya, B-dog! I’m touched you’d call to tell me in person. I’m guessing you need a post-nup, but given your new bride’s wealth, maybe she’s the one who needs?—”

“Come again?”

“You and Georgia Goodwin? She must be quite the gal to have locked B-Dog down.”

Delaney knew her name. He knew she existed.

His phone buzzed. Then again with multiple messages incoming like rapid-fire bullets, mostly from his Rebels teammates interspersed with ones from his former cronies in Nashville.

Congrats, man!

Awesome news!

You registered anywhere?

(From Hudson Grey, who was now first on Banks’s shit list.)

He blinked at the phone. Delaney was still talking.

“… that time you took Mariah Jones to the Copa and she was expecting you to propose?—”

“Where did you hear about this?”

“Where the world hears about everything. Twitter. Or X. Some gossip site.”

Fuck. “I was calling to find out how I can get out of it.”

A pause, then … laughter. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me. All Stars game in Vegas?”

“Yep.”

More laughter, bordering on maniacal.

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