Page 82 of The Prince and the Puck
"Am I? What is that? Is that a thing?" Joey looked ready to be offended.
"You do have a pet wombat," Clara pointed out.
"Wilma is not a pet," Joey said. "He is a member of the team who happens to live with us and occasionally disassembles our couch or poops in the laundry room." She tried to deliver this with a straight face but couldn’t.
"What do you mean disassembles your couch?" I asked.
"He roots around in the cushions until they all fall off all over the floor, and then he burrows through them." Joey shook her head, smiling.
"I don’t know how you can live with that thing," Drea said, rolling her eyes.
"You live with Rock Stevens," Clara pointed out.
"Point made," Drea laughed.
We talked for more than an hour, making plans to meet again soon for lunch and discussing Rock and Drea’s upcoming wedding, which would take place at the end of the season.
"You’re coming to the game tomorrow, right?" Joey asked me as we headed outside.
"Of course," I told her.
Declan had been so excited to get back to playing, he had been able to talk about nothing else for at least a week, and returned from practice each day acting like he’d been on a play date with friends.
"I’ll pick you up on my way," Joey told me, her eyes glowing.
We hugged goodbye, and I drove home, back to my husband, still processing all the ways my life had changed for the better. And to think, it had all begun with a murder plot against the man I loved.
The world was weird.
The next night, Joey picked me up to head to the arena.
I was nervous, but I wasn’t sure why.
"I know why," she said when I mentioned it, giving me a knowing smile from the driver’s seat.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because this is your first game as Mrs. Declan MacArthur," she laughed. "And your first as a princess! The media’s going to be all over you."
The news of our wedding—and of Declan’s true identity—had been fairly widespread, with a few gossip magazines calling for exclusives, though neither Declan nor I thought that would be a good idea. Even without our participation, there’d been plenty of articles about the Wombat’s royal winger, and one had even deemed him the most fascinating man in hockey.
I was just glad the man I loved was no longer the target of anti-monarchist rebels.
There had been a lot of debate about whether Declan’s name on the team (and on his jersey) should remain Gillespie, since that was how the public knew him. In the end, it was my position that led him to demand they change it.
He didn’t want me wearing "some other guy’s jersey," he said, and no amount of rationalizing would make him see that ifI wore a jersey with his number that said Gillespie, it would still be his.
"You’ll wear your proper name," he had insisted when he presented me with my jersey.
The game was a hotly contested match with the Quill Boars, whom Declan informed me the Wombats hated more than any other team. "What even is a quill boar?" I’d asked Joey, but she wasn’t sure.
"It’s not a wombat, I can tell you that," she’d said.
We arrived at the arena, but instead of heading straight for the doors, Joey moved around to the back of her SUV. I paused, and when she pulled open the back door, I understood.
"Come on, Wilma," she called, picking up a small carrier. "You’re on tonight." A snuffling sound came from within, and I saw the fuzzy brown body of the wombat inside.
"Oh my gosh," I breathed, bending down to peek inside. "Hi, Wilma!" Wilma’s little nose pressed against the mesh carrier, investigating me properly before he snuffled again.
