Page 89 of Pucking Strong

“Mom, Teddy’s here!”

“Hey, Uncle Teddy!”

The youngest niblets rush to greet me first, but I have eyes only for my mom. After everything I’ve been going through with Karro, helping her grieve her mom, I feel the tears stinging hot and heavy. My sisters step back, making room for me.

“Mama, I’m sorry.” They’re the only words I get out before I’m hugging her, pressing my face to her shoulder. My senses fill with the familiar scent of her rosewater perfume. Awash with shame, I cling to her. “I’msosorry. I should have told you. I’ve been so messed up. I never meant to lie.”

Her arms go around me. Returning my hug, she pats my back. “It’s okay, Teddy baby. Mama’s here. You can tell me now.”

I hold tighter to her, not ready to let go.

“We deserve an explanation,” Shae says at my shoulder to mutters of agreement from my other sisters.

I finally pull away, sniffing back my tears.

My mom has worn the same style of bobbed wig for almost twenty years. The tight black curls frame her round face as she smiles up at me. “Boy, look at you. You’re a mess.” She pulls a tissue from her pocket and hands it to me.

I dab at my eyes and wipe my nose, trying to catch my breath.

“We need to know what’s going on,” says Jayla.

“It’s not like you committed a crime, right?” Nat says at the same time.

“Except the crime of fashion,” Jayla mutters. “Teddy, what is this jacket?” She plucks at it with a manicured hand.

I swat her hand away. “It’s a WAG jacket. And no, I haven’t committed any crimes.”

“Well, so … you’re married?” Shae crosses her arms, one brow raised, waiting for me to deny it. “That’s the big secret?”

Jay pushes in, arms crossed too. “Last thing we knew, you were in Sweden with that hunky hockey player.”

“Yeah, then you went radio silent,” Nat adds with a glare. “Darius had to take my passport away to stop me from flying to Sweden to come find you!”

“I told you I was back,” I mutter with a shrug.

“And youadoptedthat little girl?” Jayla says over me.

“What, you’re so famous now?” Shae adds. “You can’t talk to your own sisters? We need to go through a publicist to get to you?”

“What happened to you, Ted?”

“You better say something.”

“We deserve more—”

They all press in, talking over each other until I shout, “I’m sorry, okay? What else can I say?”

“Sorry means nothing right now,” says Shae. “We want answers.”

Nat steps in, still bouncing baby Gianna on her hip. “You gotta fill in the blanks. Who even is this guy?”

“Raf looked him up,” says Jay. “Beyond his hockey stats, there really wasn’t much to find.”

Reeling from all their questions, I glance over Jayla’s shoulder at my brother-in-law. Rafael and Jayla both work in banking IT, handling stuff like theft and fraud, so I’m not surprised their solution was to try to dig up dirt on my fake husband.

“’Sup, Ted,” he says. “You sure know how to make an entrance.”

“For the record, I like the jacket,” Shae’s husband, Marcus, teases.

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