Page 81 of Puck, Marry, Kill

And finally, it’s time to kick some Hawk ass. I’ve been waiting for this.

Chapter 29

Briar

“To the best team in the league!” Sabine shouts, holding up a beer.

The guys around him lift their drinks in response. “Blizzard!”

This postgame outing is a celebration. Not of a win against the Hawks—the final score was a 4–3 loss—but rather, of the building of a team.

O’Neal’s is awash in a sea of blue, but that’s just the fans. The players are mostly wearing the athletic gear they planned to wear home after the game. No one expected this party. No one expected anything that happened tonight.

Least of all, Dominic. Which is one more reason why I’ve fallen so completely for him. He moves through his days, creating community by showing how much he cares for people. He thinks I add sunshine here, there, and everywhere, but he opens his heart and changes lives. He’s certainly changed mine.

I take a sip of my piña colada, smiling around the straw as I look across the bar. I wish Penny were here to see how this all played out, but she decided it was in her best interest to skip the third period and head back to the hotel before security found her. We stayed in touch via texts, though, so she knows exactly how hard the Blizzard played for those last twenty minutes to make some headway againstthe Hawks’ lead from the first two periods. Her last text came with a picture showing that she’s safely at the hotel, tucked into a fluffy nest of pillows and blankets, in her pj’s.

“Is this seat taken?”

“Oh, uh ... no?” I tell Vanessa. “Please, sit down.”

She sits beside me, adjusting her short dress and hooking her stilettos on the barstool’s lower rung. One lift of her hand has the bartender rushing over, and with a smile, she orders a white wine. Less than fifteen seconds later, he’s setting the glass in front of her with a wink.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he murmurs, looking directly at her cleavage.

“Will do,” she purrs. When the bartender disappears, she rolls her eyes and sighs. “God, is a wine without the visual assault too much to ask?”

“What?” I ask, thinking I must’ve misheard her. She wasn’t flirting—that’d be the bartender doing that—but she’s not exactly demure with her curled hair, smoky eyes and glossy lips, and pushed-up décolletage.

She takes a sip of her wine and laughs. “I’m a married woman, remember?” she teases. “And even if I wasn’t, bartenders who graduated high school in the last decade are not exactly my type.” She tilts her head, leaning toward me as she raises her hand. “Daddy issues, party of one.” She arches a brow. “Or maybe two.”

“Ah, I guess you heard what happened?”

“Want to talk about it?”

With her? My dad’s wife? Absolutely not. She’s going to be on his side, no matter what. I’m sure whatever version Dad told her was filled with inaccuracies that make him out to be a misunderstood hero, not the villain in my origin story.

“No thanks,” I say, stirring my piña colada instead.

“Can we pretend that we’re friends for a minute then?” Vanessa counters, undeterred. “I want to tell you a story about my husband, and maybe you can forget that he’s your dad while I do?”

I’m intrigued. And maybe I want to hear Dad’s version, just to see how different it is from mine. “I can’t make any promises, but ...” I hold up a finger, take a long swallow of my drink, and finish, “I’ll try.”

She smiles, and for the first time, I think I see behind her facade to the real Vanessa. Or maybe the piña colada has a bit too much rum?

“When I met Robbie, I was in a bad place mentally. I was taking care of my sister, working three jobs, and trying to make ends meet. It was hard, and then I met this nice guy. He came into the café where I waitressed for coffee every morning and we’d talk.” She shrugs like it was nothing, but it must’ve been something because this story ends with a giant rock of a diamond on her left hand. “He didn’t treat me like I was beneath him, even though he had his life together and I was barely beginning to figure mine out. He even helped me. My sister got into a rehab because Robbie pulled some strings. She’s doing great now, been clean for three years,” she says proudly. “And I took a few online classes to learn how to day trade. Robbie spotted me the funds at first, giving me one hundred dollars to play the stock market and later, one thousand dollars to manage. Now, I make more before ten a.m. most days than I made in a month back then.”

I stare at her, gobsmacked. I had no idea. Of course, I also never asked. I thought she was Dad’s arm candy, nothing more, and there was no reason to delve any deeper because I figured she’d be gone soon enough anyway. That’s Dad’s MO.

Seeing my shock, she winks with a bright grin. “I’m more than just a pretty face.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—” I say, but she waves a hand dismissively.

“Not the point of the story,” she tells me. “Point is, Robbie was kind to me ...iskind to me. Because he loves me, and I love him, which means I know that under his tough guy exterior, his heart has been broken for a long time. Broken because of the daughter he left behind.” She looks at me pointedly.

It’s not that I don’t believe her, but ... I don’t believe her. “He could’ve called me, could’ve said something, could’ve done a hundred things to repair our relationship.”

“You’re right,” she agrees with a nod. “But for all his good traits, he’s also a stupid old man, who’s ashamed of the ways he messed up and didn’t know how to fix things without making them worse.” She rolls her eyes. “Believe me, we talked about it at least a million times, but he thought trying to be a part of your life now would inevitably come with some painful trips down memory lane, and the one thing he didn’t want to do was further hurt you to ease his own guilt.”