“Thank you,” I said, and slowly backed out of the room in case he had any last minute pearls of wisdom to throw my way. The first thing I did was find an empty office and shut the door, scrambling to yank out my cell phone and dialing the only person I wanted to talk to right now.
Jacob didn’t answer, but I knew he was in meetings. “Jacob, you’re my best friend, and I love you. That’s all I wanted to say. I love you, Jacob, and I can’t wait to marry you.” Next, I hurried down to the locker room and found Alex, grabbed his arm and ushered him into the weight room. Vlad was in there doing reps, but with one curious glance at me he disappeared.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, and I winced when I got a good look at his closed expression.
“How is the bruised rib?”
Alex touched over his heart. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Sorry, dude,” I offered, and tucked an errant curl behind my ear. “For letting the line down, for messing with the game, for that…” I gestured at his chest, and he shook his head and chuckled.
“You’re an idiot.” We fist-bumped, then bro-hugged, and after much backslapping I went off to find Tate. He was pacing the video room, never touching the walls or chairs and all the while staring at the screen replaying a shift early on in the Boston game.
“Hey, Tate, whatcha looking for?”
Tate stopped dead and stared at the screen, gesturing me over. “See, look at that line. See how the C is shadowing that move I made? That’s insane, but I’ve been thinking and I know we can get over that in the next game.”
“Should have won the last one,” I muttered. “Sorry.”
Tate didn’t appear fazed. “Whatever, we win, we lose, we do all that and we can still lift the cup because we have the rest of the year.” Tate glanced at me. “You okay?”
I could have told him a lot of things, how I was feeling, what was in my head, how I’d built everything in my life up until it was a huge ball of pressure burning in my chest. How jealous I was of him and his talent, and how I wanted to be a combination of him and Ten when I grew up. I didn’t say any of that.
“Saw Charlie, I’m good.”
We fist-bumped, and without any awkwardness we began dissecting the Boston defense, and for the first time in a few weeks my head felt clearer. I didn’t know what I was worried about. I was getting married, I could fix my game, and Jacob’s boss was nothing more than that. Just his boss. I had no reason to be jealous, or think I was less attractive to Jacob because Adam was so… Adam.
Jacob loved me. I had demands on my time from my crazy career and I had to calm the hell down and appreciate what he was feeling as well, and I couldn’t wait to tell him this newest epiphany in my up-and-down life. After the road trip that was, because right now I needed to put hockey first on the east coast. He was heading to New Mexico with work and we wouldn’t be in the same place for two weeks.
Everything would be fine.
Everything was not fine.
It was day three of the road trip, and even with a win over Brooklyn I was missing Jacob like a limb. Thank god for Apollo who kept sending little updates on the cabin in the desert, and the caterers, and wasn’t pushing the boat out into wild waters. His messages gave me an excuse to call Jacob at whatever time of the day I wanted to, and yesterday’s late night conversation had led to hot and heavy phone sex, plus I’d even gotten Jacob to step outside of meetings when I was killing time.
I didn’t have to like the way my husband appeared in some of Adam’s social media posts, like that morning’s Insta-post full of techno-speak and a particularly gorgeous photo of Jacob holding a clipboard. I didn’t like that one little bit, but that was work. Right? I was all over the freaking media, so who was I to judge?
Yes, Jacob mentioned his work in our calls, and yes, I talked about what some of the guys were up to, but we stayed away from the A-word. In fact, whenever he mentioned this or that project, he never used the words “Adam asked me” or “Adam said” together, not once. I was so freaking stupid, and because he was accepting how stupid I was, it made me love him even harder.
I called him immediately with the current epiphany circulating in my hard head, and he answered on the first ring.
“Hey, babe,” he said, in that distracted I’m-working kind of way.
“Love you,” I blurted.
He chuckled. “I love you too. Did you call just to tell me that?”
“That and you work too hard.” And there it was, the Adam thing rearing its ugly head. “That company works you too hard, asks too much of you.”
I heard the sigh, because we’d had this conversation before.
“You mean Adam does? Look, Ry, he’s a brilliant man, driven, and he expects his team to be just as driven.”
Now that Adam had been brought into the conversation I felt as though I could mention the one thing that I’d never said before.
“I saw your photo on his ’gram,” I was cautious in the way I approached this, but what I really wanted to know was if Jacob was okay with what was happening. There was something in the way Adam looked at Jacob, even when I was in the room, that gave me a bad feeling, which in turn fed into my stupid jealousy.
“The one with the clipboard? Yeah, I saw that, don’t like it, but social media is part of the job.”
“You on his social media? Looking all hot and sexy, like he got you to pose for him.”
Another sigh. “Jeez, Ry, I promise you have nothing to worry about. It’s all legit, and I love my work. He’s never once acted inappropriately, and he respects me. Anyway, I’m with you, and I love you, and hey, we’re getting married soon. So, how did Apollo get on with the ten thousand fairy lights?”
Just like that we were back on our wedding, and Jacob sounded so relaxed and happy that I forgot about Adam and his posting of the sexy photo. It was probably just me who found the photo sexy—because I found everything about Jacob sexy.
Everything was back on an even keel with Jacob, and hockey was good. We beat Boston and, even though it was a hard-fought game, the JAR line worked in perfect sync. We took that same energy to Philly and got our third win in a row, and with those under our belt we were safely in the middle of the table. The only elephant in the room was the honeymoon, and the timing of everything. We were getting married on Valentine’s Day, which was also the first day of bye week, straight after the All-star game. Tate was a shoo-in for repping our team, and I was relieved it wouldn’t be me and I could concentrate on the wedding. Every team had a week off at some point in February, and we’d planned it perfectly so we’d get at least a few nights on our own in the cabin.
We hadn’t organized a honeymoon, given we were getting married on Valentine’s Day and I was back to work a few days after, but in the summer we were going to make up for lost time. I’d take him somewhere like France, with a farm, and a jacuzzi, and we’d make love every day and reaffirm how much we meant to each other.
“Earth to Ryker?” Alex snapped his fingers in front of my face and I reeled back, almost falling into the groin of Coach Carmichael who was standing directly behind me. Had the television time-out ended without me realizing? Nope, we were still waiting, but it seemed Alex wanted to talk. “You thinking about the wedding again?”