Page 108 of Just One Season
I shrug. “Ava loves MBM. And yeah, she loves Lucy. That’s all this is.” I toss the cut cucumber into a bowl.
But my heart thumps in my chest as I know I’m full of shit. I know that’s not all this is. And Bri does too.
Bri rolls her eyes and stirs the crock pot with a big spoon.
I grab a green pepper and chop.
“And remember, I also invited Atticus, Lachlan, and Harley.”
I don’t like how Bri can read the situation so perfectly.
Bri opens her mouth, but before she can say something back, Ava saves me by bursting into the kitchen with a trail of five- and six-year-old girls and boys behind her. They’re making a conga line, one of them carrying an iPad with Taylor Swift blasting out of its tiny speakers. Lucy is right in the middle of it all.
Bri and I cheer as they march by, and Lucy throws the biggest grin at me, her cheeks flushed, her hair wild.
When they’ve descended the basement stairs, Bri spins my way.
“I’m not sure if you’re in denial or you’re lying to me. But… maybe figure your shit out.” Then she stomps after the kids.
It’s been a little over two weeks since Thanksgiving, but it feels like Lucy and I have lived an entire life together.
And my hockey game has definitely not suffered.
The Blizzard is on a winning streak, and during the last home game, I was on absolute fire. Not quite the hat trick from the first game Lucy went to, but knowing she was watching from the stands was everything. It allowed me to focus. To score. To assist Harley’s goal. I easily ignored the other team’s trash talk. I saved Lachlan from a fight. We won 4-0. Should’ve been an even higher scoring game, but I’ll take it.
Lucy and I need to fit it all in because there’s a timer on thisrelationship.
The KFDPC group chat had been blessedly quiet, up until yesterday when the conversation about our fake breakup kicked up.
Tomorrow. My insides twist thinking about it.
The main floor of Bri’s house is much quieter with all the kids downstairs. Only the hockey boys’ voices in the family room mix with the moms who stuck around for the party.
Lucy comes up from the basement without a trail of kids behind her. She moves next to me, looking around before ducking under my arm and wedging herself between me and the countertop.
“They’re all downstairs,” I say into mounds of curly red hair, breathing her in. She presses her cheek to mine.
Without thinking, I take her face in my hands and press my lips to hers.
Fuck, those lips.
I pull back and slide a finger under her chin, memorizing the scattering of freckles over her nose and cheekbones.
I thought we could get this out of our systems by hooking up all the time. That we’d get sick of each other.
But we haven’t.
I want more.
The team has been traveling a lot over the past two weeks, but while home, I spent every moment I could with Lucy.
It even ate into my Ava time, which makes me uncomfortable.
But I cannot resist this woman.
I grab Lucy’s hand and pull her around the corner into the mudroom area, strewn with shoes and jackets, but quiet and absent of children and interested adults. Lucy slides her hands up my chest, and I press into her, kissing her deeply, wishing we were truly alone.
The room falls away and there are only her lips, her curls tickling my neck, her waist under my hands, her warm breath in mymouth. We kiss as the world lazily spins, until a scream of delight from the basement startles us apart.
