Page 29 of Falling for the Forward

I turn onto my side, facing away from him. I’m feeling more nervous than I expected over the two of us sharing a bed.

I wonder if the archaeologist ever slept here? Oh God. He probably banged her here. That’s a weird feeling.

I can handle discomfort for five hundred thousand dollars, though. He’ll be gone a lot of the time for road trips, and this will get easier. As long as we’re both adults about it, this is all going to be fine.

Just fine.I tell myself that on repeat to calm my racing heart as I try to fall asleep, running my fingertip over the diamond on my wedding ring.

CHAPTER TEN

Carter

“I fuckin’hate those guys.” Our goalie Isaac tosses his jock back into his locker. “Bunch of hosers.”

We’re playing Montreal tonight, and Isaac is still salty about the last time we played them, which was at their arena. Our equipment manager stacked all our equipment bags outside the visiting team locker room there and some Montreal players fucked with Isaac’s equipment.

They covered his jock with Vaseline, and no amount of cleaning got all of it off.

“I heard Mariano’s getting divorced,” Bash says.

Montreal’s team captain is actually a really decent guy. I played with him for about two months at the start of my career.

“No shit?” I say.

“Yeah, I don’t know anything else about it.”

“I’ll have to text him and see if we can catch up sometime.”

“You gonna give him some marriage advice? With your twenty-four hours of experience?”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Isaac asks. “You never mention this woman at all and now you’remarried?”

“Whirlwind courtship,” I say, sitting down with my stick and a roll of tape.

“She’s his nanny,” Bash explains.

“Ah. Okay.” Isaac grins.

I scowl at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I get it. My sister’s nanny is hot as fuck.”

“Whatever, man. Suki and the girls are coming to the game tonight, so don’t be an asshole to her.”

He looks offended. “When am I ever an asshole to women?”

“Only when you’re dating them,” Leo quips.

Isaac flips him off and turns back to me. “Suki, huh? Is that an Asian name?”

“She’s named after her great-grandma, who’s Japanese.”

It’s one of the few personal details I know about Suki. We’re both working on lists about ourselves for each other that we can study on our fake honeymoon this weekend.

“Wonder if anyone ever pronounces itsucky,” Leo ponders aloud.

“I’m sure emotionally immature dipshits like you can’t resist the urge,” I say.

My phone is sitting next to me on the bench, and I pick it up when the screen lights up with a new text. It’s a photo from Suki of the girls, all three of them smiling and wearing Crush sweaters. Charlotte is holding Darling, who’s wearing a little Crush hoodie, the sleeves rolled up to accommodate his short legs.

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