Page 13 of My Pucking Valentine

Eli shakes his head once, his gaze never leaving mine. He opens his mouth, then closes it before he opens it again. “I’m supposed to be your best friend,” he rasps.

“And you’re the one who has judged me the harshest so far. Clara has been my one and only indulgence in life. My whole life has been dedicated to hockey. My nutrition and workouts, along with training, have been my priorities since I was ten years old. Clara is the only thing that has gone against everything in my life. And I fucking love it.”

He places his palms on the table before he presses them into the wood and pushes himself to stand. He’s still bent at the waist, his eyes still very much focused on mine when he speaks.

“You mean you love it because she’s forbidden and dangerous?” he asks.

Maybe I do.

“So what the fuck if I do?”

“That’s selfish, Luke,” he announces. “You’re willing to fuck your teammates over and possibly ruin Clara’s life, too, because you want to live dangerously for once by fucking her? Did you ever think about how she looks in all of this?”

I move toward him and don’t stop until his back is pressed up against the wall. When I touch my nose to his, every muscle in my body tightens. I am ready to beat the absolute shit out of my best friend and not feel an ounce of remorse about it.

“Say some shit about Clara again. I fucking dare you, Eli.”

“Fuck,” he hisses. “You love her.”

Taking a step backward, I don’t respond to him. Instead, I turn around and walk out of the house, and head straight to my car. I don’t think about his words. I don’t need to because I’ve been in denial about them for months, but I know that I do love her. I just haven’t admitted it yet, and now I probably won’t ever get the chance.

TWELVE

CLARA

Once my motherstops screaming incoherently in my ear, she asks me a question and actually waits for my response. I don’t have to even think about the answer. I’ve known it for months, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself, especially Luke.

“Yes, I love him.”

“He’s your brother,” she wails.

Laughing, I lean back in the chair and close my eyes before I let out a long exhale. “No, he’s not, Mom. We only met once when I was sixteen. Why does everyone keep calling him my brother?” I demand.

“Because I’m married to his father,” she snaps. “Which makes him your brother.”

I almost hang up on her because she is being beyond ridiculous and, besides that, hysterical. She acts like this is happening to her. She didn’t have three girls film her having sex and then sell said pictures and probably video to the media. She’s not the victim here. She’s just embarrassed—meanwhile, I’m mortified.

“What happens now?” she snaps.

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Luke yet.”

She lets out a cackle, almost as if she’s won some sort of victory. “Isn’t that just rich?” she asks. “He does this to you, and thenpoof, he’s gone. Typical.”

I don’t ask her what she means. I don’t have to. I know that was a dig at Luke’s mother. She has had some sort of vendetta against her since she started dating Luke’s father, which I don’t understand and probably never will.

“I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to,” I say. “I’m finished with this conversation. I love you, but this is not helping anything.”

She doesn’t say anything, and when I hear the silence, then the faint click, I know she’s ended the call. Whatever. She’ll get over it, or she won’t. My mother and I haven’t been close…ever.

She always put whatever man she was dating before me, which hurt when I was little, but as I got older, I realized it was a blessing in disguise because I didn’t want her kind of attention.

Now, I really don’t.

“Have you talked to the school?” Barbara asks as I walk out of my bedroom and into the living room.

Sarah is gone. She had a shift at the department store she works at on the weekends. I should have taken a second job like her. That way, I wouldn’t have had the time to fall in love with Luke.

“I haven’t,” I murmur.

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