Page 90 of In My Hockey Era
My lips part.
I frown, clicking the reply thread.
@PuckPrincess24:Old news, but yikes.Imagine dating a guy for months and he never tells you THIS.
There’s animage.
A screenshot of an article.
My stomach clenches before I even read it.
BENNETT WILDER’S SECRET PAST – NHL STAR’S MESSY DIVORCE REVEALED
A look back at Wilder’s short-lived marriage to ex-wife Holly Wells.
I freeze.
No.
No, that can’t be right.
I scan the words so fast my eyes blur, my pulse slamming against my ribs.
Married at twenty-three.Divorced at twenty-five.
There arepictures.
One of him in a black tux, standing beside a blonde woman in a wedding dress.A quote from some old interview, buried in the depths of the internet, where he briefly acknowledged things “didn’t work out.”
And suddenly, I can’t breathe.
My phone slips slightly in my grip.
Because he never told me.
Not in the weeks we’ve been seeing each other.Not in our late-night phone calls, or while we were tangled in his sheets, or when he was looking at me likeI was the only thing in the world he wanted.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart shattering in real time.
I thought he was all in.
I thought I was finally seeing the real him.
But how can I believe that, when there’s an entiremarriagehe conveniently left out?
Before I can talk myself out of it, I unlock my phone and type with shaking fingers.
Me:Tell me this isn’t true.
I send him the screenshot and watch my screen, my heart pounding, begging him to say it’s a lie.
Three dots pop up.
Then disappear.
Then come back again.
Then—
