Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Maeve’s hazel eyes sparkle. “And you’re going to smash it,” she says excitedly.
“We’re here for you,” Fable says, and I think that’s exactly what I needed to hear.
“Yes, we are,” Josie seconds.
“You’ve got this,” Maeve adds. “Because you two have that no-question-about-it love.”
I pause, tilting my head. “I didn’t use the L-word.”
Maeve smiles. “My sweet summer child, you didn’t have to.”
“Is it just that obvious?”
Josie snort-laughs. “Like an open book.”
But Maeve sighs contemplatively, her eyes a little dreamy. “With love, I don’t think you handle it. It handles you. It’s like a painting you’re working on, and you think you’re making the art but really the art’s making you.”
I let that soak in—the idea that there’s an inescapability to love. With Max, I feel like there’s a riot in my heart, and I can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Still, I want to be prepared. “So what happens next in this inescapable love story? When I go into the office and talk to my boss?”
Maeve reaches into her bag and takes out her tarot deck. “I could ask Tatiana?”
Fable stares at her, too amused. “You named your deck?”
“Of course I did,” she says, then shuffles and proceeds to draw—rather deliberately— the Three of Cups, an image of three maidens holding up three chalices. There are four of us here, but it feels like Tatiana knows something. “Tatiana says we’re here for you, babe,” Maeve says.
“We are,” Josie and Fable echo.
Maybe that’s some of the strength I needed too.
After I shower and get ready for a game night, I slide on the panties Max sent me, admiring the way I look in them. Claimed. Then I take a very sexy selfie.
Everly: Some pre-game inspo.
Max: I fucking love them. And I have never been more inspired in my life.
That evening I’m watching from the press box as Max maneuvers a puck around the trapezoid, flipping it to Miles, who tears off down the ice. For a few seconds, I think Max might get another assist, but New York blocks Miles’s shot and one of their forwards gets the rebound.
The New York forward flies down the ice, trying to score on a breakaway. But my sexy beast of a goalie drops to his knees, leg pads spreading out to the sides, saving the goal.
I gasp audibly. “Yes,” I say with a quiet fist pump.
Someone gently nudges me.
It’s Jenna.
Oh, shit. Maybe I wasn’t so quiet. I’m not supposed to show favoritism, even though of course I want us to win.
She smiles my way.
I whisper a quiet thank you.
I bite my tongue the rest of the game, but it’s getting harder to swallow this four-letter word.
After the shutout, I’m waiting by the tunnel when Max emerges, sweaty and victorious. “Want me to get you a yacht tonight to talk to the press?”
“Yes, sunshine, a four-hundred-footer,” he says.
I freeze. But then I remind myself he’s called me sunshine in front of people before. At least I think he has? I rack my brain. Yes, he has. I breathe again.
But working with him is starting to feel like watching my own back all the time and that’s a tall order. I ask, as professionally as I can, “Can you talk to the media? Shutout and all.”
“Yes.” His eyes sparkle when he says that one word, and I bet he’s thinking of our say yes mantra. But that’s a problem too. Everything between us means something else. Everything could trip us up.
When he finishes chatting with the press and strides back into the corridor with me, he nods toward a man with a similar jawline to his and a woman with cool blue eyes, who are waiting there along with Max’s cutie-pie nephew.
I home in on Kade. “Did you see your uncle save all those goals tonight?”
The kid beams. “I did and he blocked alllll of them.”
“He’s very good at that,” I say, then come face-to-face with the parents of the man I’ve fallen for. I stick out a hand to shake with his mother, then his father. “So great to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Everly,” his mom says, and her smile is knowing.
“Max raves about your work,” his dad says, his eyes twinkling with a secret.
My throat is tight with emotions from this simple fact—that his parents are playing along. But I wish none of us were. I wish this were real. I wish I were telling them how hard I’ve fallen for their son. What a good man they’ve raised. What a wonderful person this grumpy, broody, storm cloud of a goalie turned out to be.
But I can’t here so I smile and say, “I’m so glad. Max is great to work with.”
And I’ve never felt like more of a publicist, spinning a story, than right now.
“What’s wrong?” Max asks me later that night at his place.