Page 11 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

There was a kissy face emoji. An endearing Ma-ism. I’d started to type a response, but she came back with her second text, then a chain of them, and it punched me in the gut.

Ma: Guess who I ran into at the store this AM?

Ma: I’ll tell you

Ma: Sharon! She looks fine, but not as happy without you around, of course

Ma: Have you heard from her lately?

Ma: I think she’d be happy to see you

Ma: Okay, enough meddling, love you! Xoxo

The damage had been done, though. I heaved a heavy sigh as I tucked my phone back in my pocket.

Though I’d broken up with Sharon over a month ago, my mom still asked about her near daily, refusing to accept that we were done for real. On some level, I got it—we’d dated long enough that Ma thought we’d get married, and since all of our extended family had adored Sharon too, Ma wasn’t the only one of my relatives gunning for us to reconcile.

They wanted me to be happy. But the Sharon they knew, always charming and offering to help with family dinners and so pretty with her wide smile and green eyes and expensive haircut, was nothing like the one I had in private. I had no idea how unhappy I’d been with Sharon for a while before I finally bit the bullet and ended it. Well, at least I’d tried.

Sharon always had a way of getting what she wanted. And though I hadn’t felt like she liked me very much when we were dating, she wanted to keep her claws in me. To keep the status symbol of dating me, and maybe to even keep me around as a plaything.

When we were dating, she’d started out affectionate and sweet, giving me all the attention I’d never had back when I was a nerdy kid. I was still pretty nerdy looking when we met, honestly, besides the height I’d gained since my teen years and the muscle I’d worked so hard to build. Sharon had shown me that I could be the kind of attractive she valued, with nicer clothes and contacts instead of the glasses that she told me just hid my “pretty eyes” from the world. And the more she guided me, the more I knew she never would have liked the version of me I’d been before.

There was a shallowness to Sharon that I only saw in flashes, after I’d already fallen head over heels for her—or at least theattention she gave me. I was blinded by the alluring concept of dating the pretty girl who would have been a high school cheerleader, the ultimate nerd’s fantasy. How she cared more about how she looked in photos than the memories we were trying to capture. How she made comments about other peoples’ clothes when we were out in public and scoffed at comments I made that doing that wasn’t cool.

It took a lot of little cracks in the facade, along with me noticing the mean streak she’d even turn against me toward the end, before I realized we just…weren’t suited to one another. No matter how many times we’d been told by my mom and hers that we were “such a beautiful couple.” That we’d have cute kids someday.

When Sharon kept talking to me, checking in after the night I told her it was over, I thought at first that she was just trying to be mature. Courteous, even. Asking how I was doing, making sure I knew she still cared for me even if she wasn’t my girlfriend. Then I wondered if I hadn’t been clear enough in our last conversation, even though I’d flat out said,“I don’t think I can be with you anymore.”

But the longer it went on, the more I’d come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t ignorant. She was just…ignoring what I’d asked for, disregarding the boundary I’d tried to set. Sure, she framed it like she was “fighting” for me, for the love she thought we still shared, and that even made me feel a little bad. All textbook manipulation. And now she was talking to my mom? That was low.

Kind of an evil genius move, though. My mother was a saint, had raised me on her own after her husband (and my sperm donor) left when she was still pregnant, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit I was a bit of a mama’s boy. It wasn’t hard to be a mama’s boy when Phoebe Robbins was your mom, though. She’d always supported my nerdy interests in things like trading cards andmodel planes when I was a kid, and maybe it was the closeness I’d shared with her that had kept me from branching out of the perfect son uniform for so long. The only thing I gave Sharon any credit for was her help with my fashion sense—it was a confidence boost to not be in Mom’s polos and khakis anymore.

Still, dumping Sharon had come easier than I thought it would, since she was the first real relationship I’d ever had, because I knew I wanted someone who would have loved me regardless of the dorky clothes and dorkier interests. Someone who could see past the hockey star veneer. Someone who’d like just Wes.

Maybe it was something about growing up scrawny with glasses, an easy target for bullying, but it was still hard to believe I could find that. I knew what I wanted, unlike someone like Sawyer or Roman—I just wasn’t always sure there would be anyone out there for me besides Sharon. Anyone who would want to fight for me the way she did, misguided as that fighting may be. Maybe the best I could do was being Sharon’s trophy husband.

Even thinking of myself that way made me want to gag, though. I wasn’t a trophy by any means. For some reason, I flashed back to the night of Michael’s sister’s party. How Rachel Henning, the girl I’d fawned over for most of my youth, had called mearrogant.And the shame I felt at that prospect, mixed with disgust at the idea that she thought I was full of myself. Hell, I played it cool on the ice, but inside I was still the shy, insecure kid that had followed her around like a puppy.

Fuck.

“Hey, fellas!” Our team manager called across the ice, and we all looked around to see him standing just off the rink, a woman behind him. “Gather round, guys! I’ve got someone I want you all to meet.”

This must be our new marketing director, since Marissa had just left. We’d kind of all seen it coming, since she clearly had the hots for Roman, and there was no way he’d pass up the opportunity to have an inappropriate workplace relationship with a pretty, breathing woman. We all gathered like Ray asked, and when I was closer, I was shocked to find that it wasn’t just any woman standing behind our manager, but Rachel Henning herself.

“Team, I want you all to meet our new marketing director, Rachel Henning. You may recognize her name, since she’s twin sister to our boy Mikey!”

“But that in no way means I’m going to prioritize my brother in our marketing initiatives,” Rachel clarified with a little bit of a smile. “We were together in the womb. I’ve had enough of him for a lifetime.”

All of the guys snickered, but I just couldn’t stop staring at her. In the dark outside of Candy Cane Jane’s, I hadn’t really gotten a good look at her, and I wouldn’t have dared look too closely when Michael re-introduced us before the party. He knew about my crush on her way back when, so he’d be keeping his eyes peeled for any hint of it resurfacing. But now that she was in front of me and I was encouraged to look at her, I could see the ways in which she’d grown up, become a professional woman in the years since I’d seen her last.

She wore a dark pencil skirt that hugged her hips, black heels that emphasized the length of her legs, and a deep purple blouse that looked lovely against her creamy skin tone. In combination with the work-appropriate but slightly sultry makeup she had on, the artful way her hair fell in loose curls around her face, she was fucking gorgeous. Hell, she always had been, but now there was an extra layer of maturity and confidence giving it all a shiny new veneer. It was captivating.

I’d grown up a lot since she last lived in Mistletoe too. I knew that much was true, even if I wasn’t sure how confident I’d become. It made me wonder if she even really remembered me. Of course, Michael had addressed the fact that we knew each other after the friendly. But Rachel was hard to read, and I hadn’t exactly made a huge impression on her back in the day. She’d been so far out of my league, we weren’t even playing the same sport. As far as I knew, she only knew who I was as a concept. Her brother’s friend and teammate. But not me, not Wes from next door.

“I’m excited to get to know you all as I work on pushing the team from a marketing perspective,” Rachel explained to all of us, her warm, low voice making it easy to listen to her but hard for my starstruck brain to really comprehend what she was saying. “We want more attendance at games, more publicity—all the good attention we can get to help you guys out so you can focus on tearing up the ice. And on that front, I want to start with profiles on each of our players, as well as a themed photoshoot. We could use some updated promotional photos, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

Some of the guys were buzzing about this idea, but I was instantly vibrating with anxiety just from the prospect of a camera being pointed at me. Christ, I wasn’t a model. I could hardly stand being in family photos, or the occasional selfie Sharon had made us take for her social media.

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