SWNOVELS Pucking Sweet: Chapter 64
Well, color me impressed. Maybe I should start taking PR lessons from my own players because, in under a week, Jake, Ilmari, and Caleb just flipped the script on bad press. I’m standing in one of our team’s boxes at the LA arena, looking out at a sea of “Price” jerseys. Fans are waving signs and cheering, going crazy for Rachel and her guys.
Again, it was all their idea. I hardly had to do a thing except approve some promo materials and order some travel packages for flights and hotels to the game. In a show of solidarity, Jake, Caleb, and Ilmari are all legally changing their last names to Price. It’s already been changed on their jerseys. Jake and Mars are down there now, playing a shutout game against the Kings. Nothing is getting past our goalie tonight. He’s made some truly spectacular saves.
I’m smiling from ear to ear as I feed off the joy and exuberance of the crowd. After a hellish week being torn apart by the media, this is what Rachel needed to see. She needed to see the joy again. She needed to know it could all be okay.
Heck, I needed to know it too.
I watch Lukas and Colton hop the boards, tagging out Jake and Jean-Luc. Lukas is playing with a full cage to protect the cut on his face. I begged him to wait another week to heal, but the man can’t be stopped. We’re deep into the third period now, and the Rays are up. My guys work as a team, moving the puck out of the defensive zone. They’re so beautiful together. So strong and good.
I have to tell them. I want them to know about the baby. I want them to know how much I love them both. I don’t want it to be a secret anymore. I want everyone to know.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and see it’s a text from Rachel. She’s sitting down right on the ice with the rest of her family. I tap the screen and read:
RACHEL: Just FYI, the boys and I made a bet. If this is a shutout game, we’re getting married tonight.
“What?” I shriek, gripping to the phone with both hands.
RACHEL: And no, this is not a joke. I’m marrying Ilmari, and Caleb is marrying Jake. Tonight.
I’m gonna have to ask Mark for another raise. We’ll call it the Price Family Bonus.
I look to the game clock. Less than three minutes left. That’s not enough time for the Kings to win this game. We’re up by too many points. But it’s enough time for them to score a point. Apparently, we’re holding out until the last second here because if Mars lets even one puck in that net, he’s not marrying Rachel tonight. With one look at our dialed-in goalie, I know that’s not happening. Nothing is going to stop this man from getting what he wants, and what he wants is Rachel Price.
We won. It was a shutout game.
And the Prices are now married.
It’s well after midnight, and all the guests are still celebrating. Needing a minute of peace and quiet, I escape outside into Hal Price’s sweeping back garden. Behind me, a path lit by a string of Edison bulb lights leads back up to the house. I hold Colton’s suit coat around my shoulders with one hand, warding off the mid-December chill as I take in the lights of Hollywood.
It was a beautiful wedding. Caleb and Jake got married first, declaring vows to each other that made me cry like a baby. Then it was Rachel and Ilmari’s turn. One look in his eyes as she came walking down the aisle was all it took to break me again.
He loves her. He says it out loud. He declares it in multiple languages. He takes her hand before god and man and vows to love her forever. Aina, he said. It means always. He will always love her.
Watching them marry each other did more than emotionally break me. It broke something in my brain too. It cracked a truth wide open. Oh god, why did I never think of this before now—
“Hey.”
I glance over my shoulder to see Colton coming down the lit path, holding two glasses of champagne. He hands me one, and I take it wordlessly. Tears fill my eyes as I look down at it. He doesn’t know. How could he when I haven’t told him?
He clinks his glass with mine and takes a sip. “Crazy night, huh?”
I make no move to drink my champagne. “Yeah…crazy.”
“What’s wrong?”
I smile up at him, knowing it doesn’t meet my eyes. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”
He tips his head to the side, letting his eyes savor the look of me in my glittery gold dress and his suit jacket. “Because I know you. I know you from your pretty blonde hair down to your polished pink toes.”
“My toes are purple right now.”
“I stand corrected. I’ll go walk into Hal Price’s pool now.” He moves as if to brush past me, and I reach out a hand.
“Don’t.”
He chuckles. “Come on, Poppy. Talk to me.” He brushes his fingertips over my cheek. “Is it just all the stress of this week? You haven’t been sleeping…I’ve hardly seen you. I mean, I know it’s been fucking awful, but it’s over now. They’re married. Hard to keep gossiping about how it’ll never last when they’ve all signed on the dotted line—”
I spin away, not wanting him to see the tears start to fall.
“Hey.” He takes me gently by the shoulder and turns me back around. “What is this? I thought you’d be happy for them. A win for them is a win for us too.”
“We are not the same,” I whisper. “Their story can’t be our story.”
He frowns. “Well, no. I mean, if anything, our story will be a bit easier to write. We have nothing like their fame, or their baggage.”
“Colton…”
“Babe, you can check any of my closets,” he goes on. “Give me a scrub-down, or whatever you call it in the biz. The most you’ll find is, like, three parking tickets and a handful of speeding tickets. Sure, Novy has a juvie record, but most of that gets expunged when you become an adult.”
Squaring my shoulders at him, I hold his gaze. “Colton, on the yacht you told me exactly what you wanted. You held up my hand, and stroked my ring finger, and said that’s where you wanted this to go. You want us to get married, right?”
His eyes widen a little, looking for the trap. “Of course I want to marry you. Poppy, I’ve been clear on that from the beginning—”
“But I can’t marry you.”
He goes still, glaring down at me. “Why not?”
Oh god, this is coming out all wrong. “Colton—”
Before I can respond, Lukas comes waltzing down the path, holding a glass of champagne and a bottle of beer. “There you two are. I was looking everywhere. Hey, who wants to bet me a thousand bucks that Langers marries that redhead he’s dancing with?”
He comes to stand next to Colton, the golden lights of the patio casting shadows on the swollen, raised cut on his cheek. He looks down at the untouched glass of champagne I’m holding. “When you’re done with that one, I’m ready with number two.” He holds up the glass in his hand, taking a swig from his beer bottle. Sensing the mood, he glances between us. “What happened? What did I miss?”
“Poppy just said she won’t marry me,” Colton replies.
My heart squeezes tight. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”
Lukas steps in, glaring at Colton. “Wait, you just proposed? A heads up would’ve been fucking nice. Where the hell’s the ring, asshole?”
“I didn’t propose,” Colton replies. “She didn’t give me a chance. She’s already said no.”
“I have to say no,” I reply, voice breaking. “Not because I don’t love you. Because I do, Colton. You know I do. I love you so much, honey. But seeing them all get married tonight just made me realize I can never have that,” I say with a shrug. “We can never have that. The three of us.”
“Why can’t we have that?” says Colton.
“Honey, because it’s illegal. Look at what the Prices just had to do. His and Hers marriages? I can’t imagine marrying one of you and not the other.”
“So, then we just don’t get married,” he says with a shrug.
“But you want to get married,” I cry. “You want the wedding and the house and the babies. And you want to call me your wife. You want all of those traditions. I know you, Colton. And you deserve all those things. Maybe once, I could’ve been the woman to give them to you, but I’m not that woman anymore.”
“And I’m not that guy anymore,” he replies, his tone heating. “You changed me. This changed me.” He points between the three of us. “Poppy, this is what I want now. This right here is all I will ever need. I love you, and I love him, and I want the three of us to be together. I mean, we’re happy, right? Aren’t you happy?”
“I was so happy,” I whisper, blinking back more tears.
“Was,” he echoes, his expression closing off. “Meaning you’re not now. Can I ask what the fuck happened?”
“Everything happened,” I cry. “This awful week happened. Watching people around the world tear a woman apart for loving more than one man happened. I have spent the last seven days buried up to my neck in some of the worst vitriol I’ve ever experienced in my life. And I’m a PR manager. I manage the crises; I don’t take center stage in them!”
“Good to know you see loving us as a fucking crisis,” he snaps.
“You have no idea what it’s been like,” I go on. “Even now, I have a team of people actively blocking comments and requesting media takedowns of the most cruel and insensitive content. All because a woman is daring to do the same thing I’m doing and love more than one man. What happens when there are children involved? How will we protect them from the hate of this world?”
“Babe, there are no fucking kids,” Colton shouts. “We’re just three adults living a life.”
“But there will be kids. It’s what you want, right? It’s what I want too. Are you really ready to bring them into this kind of chaos? Are you ready for them to face censure and cruelty for being part of a polyamorous union?”
“Can I interject here?” Lukas’s gaze is steely as he glances between us. “Love how you’re both making declarations and planning out my whole goddamn future without me right now, but I never agreed to kids. I don’t want kids. So, if that’s happening…” He shrugs, making a show of taking a large step back.
The pieces of tape holding me together all start to break.
“Why don’t you want kids?” Colton asks for me, glaring at Lukas.
Lukas glances between us with an incredulous look on his face. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve met me, right? You know me, you know my life story. And you’re still asking me that?”
“Lukas you are not your life story,” I say as gently as I can.
“No, but my life story still plays a pretty big motivating factor in why I will never have a fucking kid,” he shouts. “You think I’m gonna risk messing up a kid as badly as I was messed up? You think I can be someone’s daddy? I’ve never had one, so what the fuck do I know about it? I just had a sad drunk of a grandpa who beat me with a belt for eating too many soda crackers when I was fucking hungry. No, I can be the fun uncle at best. I can teach them how to pull pranks, and shoot pucks, and put on a condom. Otherwise, I have no interest in being a goddamn parent.”
A long moment of silence stretches between us. The only sounds are the jazzy notes coming from the band inside.
“I have to go,” I whisper. Turning away, I take three steps before Colton is calling out.
“Poppy…stop.”
I stop.
“Turn around.”
Slowly, I turn.
Colton’s eyes are obsidian in this darkness, his jaw clenched tight. He points to the glass still clutched in my hand. “Drink that champagne.”
Heart in my throat, I pinch the slender stem with two fingers, making no move to bring the glass to my lips. Instead, I defiantly hold his gaze.
More unbearable silence.
“Poppy, drink the goddamn champagne.”
Next to him, Lukas finally catches on. His expression falls. That look of horror on his face is all I need to see. “Oh…fuck.”
“Poppy!” Colton shouts, taking a step forward.
Flinching, I step back and raise the glass a little. Then, holding it out to the side, I tip it over, pouring the bubbly drink onto the patio tiles. My glass empty, I turn and walk away.
They don’t follow me.