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We met randomly. Talked. Thought she might be my soulmate. Then I realized she was my coach’s daughter. The quintessential Romeo and Juliet story. But with more hockey and hopefully with less death and mayhem.
“Catch up. We’ve moved on, and you’re burying the lede. The headline is Douchebag Groom Cheats Less Than an Hour before the Wedding with a Bridesmaid.” “Maid of honor,” the woman corrects, almost like a reflex. Immediately, she seems to realize what she’s said, or maybe what she’s done. Her eyes go wide, and then she bursts into tears.
Bitch
shrug, giving a little twist of my lips that hopefully hints I was somewhere more fun than marching Douche the Groom and the Maid of Dishonor down the hallway.
So, for months I tried to forget her. I tried dating her out of my system, but it’s like meeting Amelia altered my brain chemistry. I compared every woman to the one with the sweet smile who stole my fries and made me feel like I was the living embodiment of a Taylor Swift song. One of the happy ones, not the breakup ones.
The other bridesmaid looks like she has a small clump of bleached hair in her fist. Good for her!
No offense to Coach, but his brother seems about as smart as a bag of rocks. He and Drew are cut from the same cloth, purchased at the store that sells stupid by the yard.
“You take angry naps?” I ask. “Oh, yeah. I also post-game nap, sleepy nap, sad nap—you name it, I’ll nap it.”
plead the fifth.” “This car isn’t a courtroom.” “Then I plead temporary insanity.” “Makes more sense,” Van says.
“My dad is breaking stuff?” “Like a toddler hopped up on juice boxes being told it’s time to leave Chuck E. Cheese.” She pauses. “He threw a chair through a window.” “Of the church?”
She looks like a wounded marshmallow.
It’s an easy recipe: keep all talk to surface-level stuff, act like you don’t really care about anything, and flirt with any woman who breathes. Place in the oven at 350 for an hour, and you’ve baked yourself a bad boy.
Treat her like a Gremlin. Except it’s not feeding after midnight; it’s anything more than a few sips of alcohol.”
I didn’t go nuts. But I also paid the minimum most months, falling right into the credit card company's clutches until I was up to my eyeballs in stupid debt, growing steadily because of the thing I wish I’d listened to my dad about: interest.
Hate credit cards
“Sorry if I don’t go flashing my panties to every Tom, Dick, and Harry hanging out in Walmart.” “I’m sorry, did you say my name?” A man with bushy gray eyebrows and a circa-2000s soul patch steps into the aisle, holding a blender in one hand and a pair of work boots in the other. As one does in Walmart. “What?” I say. “I’m Harry,” he says, tapping his chest with the blender. “I thought I heard you say my name and something about … panties?”
I’d kind of like to see Coach beat Van with his skates.
Send proof of life.
Van: Long story Van: Several people hit me today Nathan: More than one? Alec: How about give us the short story??? Van: First I was struck by an angel Wyatt: Unlikely Van: Second hit was Coach Felix: Okay, I’m going to need the long story. Nathan: At least medium length.
Van: Did NOT have diarrhea. Eli: That’s good because a Walmart bathroom is not the place you want to have stomach trouble.
“I can’t believe I’m talking to you about all this. In a bathroom stall, no less.” “Overall, the ambience isn’t so bad.”
“I don’t come close to being good enough for Amelia. But if she were mine? I would never let her go. I would spend every waking day and every single breath just hoping I could show her the love she deserves.”
Swoon
yay-we-weren’t-eaten-by-gators celebratory ice cream.
Lex and Grey.”
Very Grey's anatomy of you author
“We have a point system,” I explain. “Paid in cheese,” Lex says. “Cheese?” Amelia repeats. “Cheese,” I confirm. “And right now, Robbie’s smoking us,” Grey says. Lex grumbles. “Because he always has the best secrets.” “So, you trade points for secrets?” Amelia asks. “What’s the currency for points? How do you keep track? Is there a spreadsheet?”
tremble. I’ve never been like this with anyone—embracing passion and playfulness like two sides of the same coin. It only works because the currency is trust.
“What’s boring to you is my Roman Empire.”
“Your Roman Empire is paperwork?”
But he’s a giant planet and I’m just some little bit of space dust.
You can’t make the coach’s daughter cry. Then he’ll make us cry.
Maybe it also means we should have shut up and tried to TALK to him instead of giving him a hard time.
Yeah you fuckers! Hes obviously going through something and instead of being good team mates your shitting on him!
We’re in his office, though I’d rather be anywhere else. Like … a doctor’s office waiting room filled with flu-ridden children dripping with snot. Swimming through a crocodile-infested river in Australia. Standing naked on a stage and being told I must deliver a speech I didn’t prepare for in front of every person I’ve ever known. It’s entirely possible I’m being a little dramatic.
“We’ll be nice,” Lex says sweetly. Too sweetly. “We’re the nicest.” Callie’s tone suggests otherwise. She sounds like the Big Bad Wolf telling Red that his big eyes are better to see you with, my dear. I snort. “You know this is not making me feel any better about coming in there.” The deadbolt pulls back. I take another step away from the door, the instinct to run strong.
Movement catches my eye, and Greyson belly crawls out from the bushes between my house and the next door neighbor’s wearing a camo suit. Her face is covered in greasepaint, really almost invisible except for the white of her smile. She’s even got on some kind of fancy goggles covering her eyes. This is why Grey is the one people should be the most afraid of.
WHAT IN THE GI JANE?!
“Someone found the army supply store,” I say, looking her up and down. “And my paintball gun.” “I actually brought the suit with me. You never know when you might need it.” Greyson lifts the goggles, perching them on top of her head as she hops up the steps and gives me a side hug.
“Do you promise to be nice? No more paintballs?” “No promises,” Callie says as she and Lex step back, making space for us to enter the house. “But we promise we’ll still be family in the end.”
I love his sisters
“It would make a good movie. All the drama. The romance.”
Or Sport romance book…
I’m not sure if they group themselves by age on purpose, or if they naturally just happen to end up oldest to youngest most of the time. It’s also in order of darkest to lightest hair. A running joke is that Mom and Dad’s genes ran out of pigment by the fourth kid.
Turns out, fish aren’t great company, but he is a good listener. We’ve had some long, one-way conversations lately. The best thing about him? No judgment. Although, I deeply suspect he doesn’t care what I tell him so long as I keep the fish food coming.
“I don’t mean just the wedding happened fast. I mean that with Mills—Amelia—I felt everything fast. I … fell fast.” “You fell,” Lex says, sniffling again. “Like, in love?” “No, dummy. Into a pit of snakes. Yes, in love.”
I could present a list of ideas. Some suggestions. Perhaps a syllabus.
“Most people don’t deal with conflict head on. Not well, anyway,” Van says. “Then there are the people who dive straight into it head first when they should have worn a helmet.”
“I don’t want an annulment or a dissolution or a divorce,” he says, and I have to crane my neck to stare into his inky dark eyes. “I want more than the one night I had with you. I want all your days too. I want to come home knowing you’ll be here. I want to look up from the ice and see you there, wearing my jersey, shouting my name.”
“I want to watch you find out what a life without following the rules looks like. Or, maybe—to find out which rules are worth following and which ones are worth breaking. On your terms. I want to be the one cheering for you and your dreams, wearing your jersey. Figuratively speaking.”
“Why are you whispering?” Parker whispers into the phone too, like the need to speak quietly is a virus I’ve passed on.
But I think it’s time I learn how to love my dad without doing everything according to what he thinks is right for me. Without living for his approval or at the very least, trying to keep the peace.
Same girl :-(
Van’s sisters are scary.
As they should be
“That’s more like it.” Alec nods and shows off what we all call his Disney prince smile. Blinding. White. Perfect. I’m pretty sure they’re veneers. Anyway.
“If you’re going to try to convince me you’re worthy of my daughter—” Van barks out a laugh. “I would never try to convince you of that. I’m absolutely not worthy of her. I’ll never be.”
Coach is frowning at me. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?” I shake my head. “I only just now realized that I don’t know the last time my dad told me that.” Now, he’s the one looking upset. Or like he might puke. But what Coach does is pull me into a hug. Not for too long. Because he may like me better than he did, and he may love me, but I still bug him more than anyone else.
😭
“As much as I like the sound of an outfit and especially and stuff, you’ll have to save it for the honeymoon.”
