Pucking Wild: A Reverse Age Gap Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 2)
Pucking Wild: Chapter 40

Shelby’s birthday party is chaos. I feel like I’m back in college at a frat party. Music pumps through the house sound system, with people dancing and mingling in every room. There’s a ton of food, even more alcohol, and a present table stacked with gifts. My meager offering of chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies will go unnoticed next to this mountain.

Every Ray seems to be here, and most of them brought wives or dates. I’m casually keeping an eye out for Ryan, but it may be hard to track him down. If we’re both circling around, we could go from room to room missing each other. And, like an idiot, I left my phone in the car. There was nowhere to put it in this damn costume.

I’ve spent the last hour mixing and mingling with this eclectic group of NHL stars and the people who populate Shelby and Josh’s life. I’ve probably met at least thirty people who are church friends, neighbors, or parents from their kids’ schools.

It turns out Josh and Shelby are those people. The people-pleasing social butterflies. They give and give everything to everyone all the time, leaving nothing for themselves. It means that their home is a mess, and their life is chaotic, but they have a hundred people ready to drop everything and dress up to celebrate a birthday.

It’s kind of nice when I think about it. As a Gemini, I can socialize in my sleep. I’m the queen of hosting a great party. But I have an off switch. I need to retreat. I need the quiet. I’m actually deeply private, and I don’t make friends easily.

Troy carries some of the blame for that too. It’s a narcissist’s M.O. to separate and isolate their loved ones from other people who can be critical or voice a second opinion. It took me ten freaking years to realize how effectively he’d removed all my friends from my life.

It started with little things, like he thought my college friend Kelly had an annoying laugh. He worked slowly from there, sowing the seeds of criticism. Her laugh was annoying…then it was her jokes that were annoying…then she was annoying. Then the requests started that we not hang out with her anymore. After a while, I stopped taking her calls, never noticing that it wasn’t my idea.

Yeah, that was a whopper to unpack in therapy.

I resent myself so much that I fell for it. How could I not see what he was doing? How did I not see the way I was changing? But I guess, over time, it’s like all these little pieces of yourself get chipped away. Like a piece of glass, tumbling along the bottom of the sea floor, you change. You get harder, you close yourself off. What once shined with brilliance becomes dull.

And then it’s ten years later and you suddenly realize you don’t laugh anymore. You stopped telling jokes because he never liked that you were funnier than him. And you wanted him to feel good, feel like the man. Funniest one in the room. But the joke’s on you both, because he’s not funny, so neither of you laugh.

And god, but I really love to laugh.

There’s definitely nothing funny about the man you once loved harassing you and calling you a whore for daring to move on.

Tears sting my eyes, and I want to scream. Damn it, I am not going to cry over Troy while dressed as a sexy devil at Shelby’s birthday party. I step away from the circle of people I’m chatting with, making some muttered excuse. I replace my way outside, looking for a quiet place to collect my thoughts. Following along the back wall of the house, I keep walking until I see a door. Trying the handle, I pull it open to reveal a dark, three-car garage.

I hold back the sob that wants so desperately to break free, ducking inside. I shut the door, leaning against it. “Fuck,” I cry, pounding the door with my fist. A tear slips down my cheek just as the door to the house swings open. I gasp, wiping the tear away as the lights flick on.

Shelby comes walking in wearing her adorable Evy O’Connell costume from The Mummy, complete with little round librarian glasses. Somewhere Josh is running around dressed as her dashing Rick.

“Oh, Tess,” she cries, one hand fluttering to her heart. “You scared the bejesus out of me!”

“I’m sorry,” I reply, forcing a smile as I blink back my tears.

She shuts the door, immediately muffling the music coming from inside the house, and glances around the garage. “Are you out here all alone?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “I was just uhh…getting more ice.” I gesture to the fridge in the corner. “Are there any ice bags in there?”

“No,” she says slowly. “All the ice is already outside.”

“Oh. Well, then I’ll go out there,” I say lamely, reaching for the door handle.

“Or—maybe you could help me,” she calls as I turn away.

I glance back over my shoulder.

“I came out here to get more soda.” She points to a stack of boxes on the floor. “Want to help me get them out to the coolers?”

“Sure.” I cross the garage over to her. “I like your Evy costume by the way. I love The Mummy.”

She beams at me. “Thank you. What’s not to love, right?”

I flash her a weak smile.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” I reply, ducking down to grab a case of Coca-Cola.

“Do you need to talk about it?” she clarifies.

I go still, holding tight to the box. “Probably,” I admit. “At this point, I’ve kept my shrink gainfully employed for years talking about all my bullshit. Single mom who never loved me, flighty family, abandonment issues, toxic ex, blah, blah. It’s pretty boring stuff.”

“I don’t think it’s boring,” she replies. “And you don’t need to deflect all the time, you know. You can let people know what’s troubling you. It doesn’t make you weak to admit it. And it doesn’t open a door to them weaponizing that knowledge against you. Some people are good, Tess. Some people genuinely want to help. You don’t have to keep running.”

“Whoa,” I say with a huff. “What made you say all that?”

“Because I’m a shrink too. Well, I’m a child psychologist,” she clarifies. “I work mainly with kids in the foster system. A lot of those kids are runners too. I see the signs in you.”

“Well…great.” I hoist the case of soda under my arm. “Glad to know I’m so transparent. You know, the great cosmic joke is that I fucking hate running.”

She laughs, but then her smile falls. “We all do what we need to do to survive. Can I ask who you’re running from?”

“My ex,” I reply. “I’m finally pushing him for a divorce after three years of separation and he’s not too happy about it.”

“I can imagine. Is he threatening you?”

“With fire and brimstone.” I gesture to my devil costume in another lame attempt at humor.

She doesn’t laugh.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I add quickly.

“Are there kids involved?”

“No.”

“Property? Business assets?”

“Both,” I reply.

“What are they worth to you?”

I hold her gaze, feeling so completely seen. She may look like Candace, but the voice is so different, the mannerisms, the warmth of feeling in her expressions. I set all my hesitation aside and give her my truth. “Not more than my life.”

She nods. “Good. Let them go, Tess. Things are replaceable. Job skills are transferable. Your life and your well-being are the only things that matter. Let everything else go.”

I tip my head, surveying her. “You’re not just a shrink, are you? You lived through this too.”

Now it’s her turn to shrug. “Josh is my second husband. He came along shortly after Addie and I got out of our last situation. He’s our hero,” she says with tears in her eyes. “Our guardian angel. He’s the one I was meant to replace, you know? He’s the father my children were meant to have.”

“I’m happy for you,” I say. “And hey, about the other day when I was so rude—”

“Nope.” She raises a hand. “Don’t even go there. It’s forgotten.”

I sigh, leaning my hip against the chrome utility bench. “You know, you’re pretty cool.”

She smiles again. “I have a feeling so are you. Hey, do you like karaoke?”

“Am I singing or mocking those who sing?”

“Either,” she says with a laugh. “Both. We all go out to karaoke over at Rip’s on Thursday nights. You should come next week. I promise I won’t give you any more unsolicited life advice.”

I shift the soda box under my arm. “Sure. Maybe I’ll check it out.”

She grabs a box as well and gestures for me to lead the way out to the backyard.

As I get to the door, I feel her hand brush my shoulder. “Hey…can I ask you for a favor? Are we friends enough for me to do that?”

I raise a brow at her. “What’s the favor?”

Her gaze softens as she searches my face. “Be gentle with Langley,” she says at last. “He’s my not-so-secret favorite, and he’s crazy about you. He’s one of the good ones, Tess. Maybe even the best one. Just…don’t hurt him, okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, giving her a nod. “Okay.”

Langley is crazy about me? Well, that’s pretty convenient, because I think I’m crazy about him too.