Page 35 of Hockey Wife

Georgia sipped her wine and took a bite of the pasta. Too much flour had turned it glue-like, and the sauce was far too sweet. She’d added sugar to counteract the overabundance of oregano after she practically tipped half a jar of the dried herb in. Yet Banks was tucking it away like a starving man. Maybe he had no taste buds. Maybe he was hungry after his workout.

Maybe he was just being kind to his pitiable wife.

She took another bite, taking her cue from him to add grated Parmesan to give it more—or some—flavor. A gulp of wine, and she tried to determine if the silence was awkward or companionable.

How did they get here? Was an abundance of alcohol necessary to bring out the selves that appealed to the other? Only they hadn’t drunk that much. She was near to sober by the time they made it down the aisle.

She was barely halfway through her meal, and he was already finished, wine in hand, sitting back in the chair and watching her.

“Thanks for cooking. I’ll do it next time when I’m home from this trip.”

Five days, he’d said. It would give her time to settle, though she wondered how she would ever be at ease around him.

“This is weird, isn’t it?”

He eyed her over the rim of the glass. “A bit.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“We don’t know each other all that well and this situation is contrived. Neither of us wants this for the usual reasons on which you base a marriage.” He paused, then added, “In a nutshell.”

“It would help if I knew your reasons.” And might make her more comfortable with her own.

“You asked for a favor. I’m giving it to you.”

“But why? You were so certain when I showed up in the bar that this wasn’t what you wanted.”

He looked at his wine, and a faint blush tinged his cheekbones. “I was still angry with you because I thought we should have talked before we signed the papers back in February. Seeing you again brought it all back. I wasn’t in the right headspace to be receptive to your request.”

“But you thought about it and now you’re okay with it. Purely because I asked?”

“Don’t you usually get what you want?”

Yes, but not what I need. A variation of Mick Jagger’s whine echoed in her woolly brain.

“Not always.”

He tilted his head. “How about this? Once the word was out that we were married, everyone had an opinion. Too many cocktails, too few brain cells, a night of regret. I don’t enjoy looking stupid. I figure I can do this for a while and save face.”

That’s what she had hoped when she saw the news in the Chicago Tattler, though she had no idea how it got there. This will change his mind. Yet she couldn’t imagine Banks caring what anyone thought.

Before she could question him further, he stood and cleared the plates, letting her know that the conversation about this matter was at an end. She hopped up to help.

“I’ve got it. You cooked.”

Standing on the other side of the dishwasher, she sipped her wine while surreptitiously watching his thick forearms as he rinsed and loaded. Incredibly underrated, forearms. The left one had been wrapped around her when she woke that morning in Vegas, and for the briefest second, the security she felt had been amazing. Then panic barreled in.

He finally broke the silence.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what happened that night. How we got here.”

You and me both. “Any conclusions?”

“We connected on some level.”

“Sex,” she murmured.

Had she said that aloud? Oh, those forearms were a menace! The house was not nearly big enough for that dynamic.

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