Page 45 of Puck You Very Much

He nodded and hesitantly added so softly that no one else could hear, “I would have bought you a bigger ring.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “What?”

“If I had truly been your husband, I would have bought you a bigger ring.” He briefly ran his index finger over her ring, now back in its original place, before releasing her hand.

The corners of her mouth twitched and she glanced down at her hand. “No,” she whispered. “If you had truly been my husband, you would have given me this exact ring because you would know that it was my mother’s and that it means everything to me.” She smiled cautiously at him and continued on her way…letting out the breath she had been holding.

She probably wouldn’t receive a better peace offering, but it was fine. At least now they could get back to normal.

Chapter 14

Nothing was normal. Everything was wrong.

All last week it had gone that way, even more so than before, if that was possible. Only this time, Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. Okay, not nothing, but at least he couldn’t claim the lion’s share of the past seven shitty days, as that honor undoubtedly belonged to Lucy.

Dax felt like he had negotiated a truce with her but hadn’t read the exact terms properly. Point one seemed to be that they maintain a safe physical distance. He wasn’t sure if Lucy was doing it consciously, but she never came within six feet of him.

Point two was that they no longer swore in front of each other. Dax couldn’t explain how that had happened, either. It probably had something to do with the fact that they both felt they had to watch their words as soon as the other was in the same room.

Point three was that they didn’t talk about what had happened. That evening at the Snow Hut had been deleted from their history. Then there were a number of other unvoiced points that Dax couldn’t name, but they had everything to do with the fact that he and Lucy were behaving like wooden puppets before a fire pit, wary, constantly aware that one wrong move could result in their destruction. It was damn exhausting: every conversation stilted, every meeting an ordeal.

He wanted the old Lucy back, the one who unnerved him but was honest with him. The one who didn’t treat him with kid gloves because she knew he didn’t need that and certainly didn’t deserve it. The only consolation was that his teammates didn’t know anything about it.

“Hey, did something happen?” Matt asked, frowning. “Between you and Lucy?”

Dax’s head shot up so quickly he hit his chin on the beer bottle. “What? No. What are you talking about?”

His friend shrugged, leaned back on the couch, and put his feet on the table in front of him while giving Dax a worried look. “I don’t know… You two are acting very strangely lately. Saying please and thank you, not insulting each other.”

“Put your feet down, Payne,” Fox snapped as he walked past them, throwing a bottle cap at his teammate. “When I said make yourself at home, I meant like in your mothers’ house. Where nobody puts their feet up.” Matt rolled his eyes, but did as he was told, and then looked expectantly at Dax.

“We’re just being polite,” he replied quietly, annoyed. Lucy wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss with his teammates.

“Yeah, like I said,” Matt affirmed, “strange.”

He was right. It was strange. As if the last few days hadn’t been stressful enough, now he also had to tiptoe around Lucy. After two more defeats—which had been only maybe 30 percent Dax’s fault!—the press had attacked him and Jack so brutally that he’d even reluctantly agreed to a damn photo session with Jack, Maybe it would halt the media circus, not to mention the hate mail from fans, all of which were damaging the team. It was all interfering with their game, their dynamic, their interactions with each other.

Dax felt like it was okay if he stood in the way of his own happiness, but not that of his teammates, regardless of whether Jack was part of it or not.

All the media hype was also the reason their captain, Austin Fox, had announced another evening ofteam-buildingactivities. Although no one was saying it outright, everyone knew that the purpose was to integrate Jack into the team. Over the last few days, he’d seemed as unfocused on the ice as Dax, and Fox believed it was because he didn’t feel comfortable with the team.

Dax knew better than to contradict the captain when it came to the spiritual well-being of his flock—um, teammates—so he had merely nodded. As a result, he was now sitting with Matt on Fox’s gigantic couch, drinking non-alcoholic beer while the rest of the team frolicked around the huge house playing billiards and taking advantage of the heated pool or whatever.

He didn’t care, as long as they left him and Matt alone, since Dax had a strange need to be open about his feelings, and he preferred that only Matt witness this rare moment.

“We had a little…argument,” he muttered.

Matt narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, little?”

“As little as your problem with doing laundry.”

“My hands always stink like urine afterward!” Matt complained. “And shit.”

“You’re not supposed to wash your shirts in the toilet; you know that, right?” Dax replied, snorting before adding, “And yes. It was probably more of a big argument. But it doesn’t matter. Since then, everything between us has been…”

“Strange?” Matt said, helping him out.

“Yep.”

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