“They’re beautiful,” I say.
“Thanks. I bring them here with me sometimes, but it’s nice to have a sitter and just focus on the game some nights.”
“Is Anton a hands-on dad?”
“Oh yeah. He loves those little girls. They climb all over him the second he walks in the door.”
I smile, wishing I could’ve had a family like that. “That sounds really nice.”
“It is.” She grins. “Sometimes our house sounds like a zoo, but it’s nice.”
Jonah is the first player out of the locker room, and my happy expression when I see him in a dark suit with a pale blue dress shirt, hair still damp from the shower, isn’t the least bit fake.
“Hey,” he says, smiling as he gives me a kiss.
“Hi. Great game.”
“Thanks.” He runs a hand through his hair to get it away from his eyes. “I’m glad you came.”
“I’m glad you wanted me to.”
He puts a hand on the side of my waist. “Hey, some of the guys want us to go out with them, do you feel like it?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
I can feel Jonah’s teammates sizing me up as we walk together, his hand wrapped around mine. The guilt hits me again. Even though Jonah and I are in this undercover relationship together, they think he’s found happiness with me. They want to welcome me into their circle. It’s all just a big lie, though.
I took an Uber to the Carson Center so I could ride with Jonah after the game.
“What’d you think?” Jonah asks as we leave the arena parking lot.
“It was fun. Way more fast-paced and exciting than I expected.”
“Want to come to the next one?”
“Sure, I’d love to.”
He glances over at me. “Hey, we don’t have to stay out late or anything, the guys just want to meet you.”
“It’ll be fun,” I assure him. “As long as you’re okay with it.”
“Of course.”
We meet up at a bar called Lucky’s, where several tables have been pushed together to accommodate our group. Jonah introduces me to teammates, wives and girlfriends one by one, and everyone greets me warmly.
“Jonah’s pretty much the sphincter muscle of our team,” a blond guy named Victor explains to me.
I give him a puzzled look. “You mean like…he does the dirty work?”
“Ignore him,” a dark-haired giant of a man named Knox says.
“No, hear me out,” Victor says. “Jonah takes care of the shit for the rest of us, so we just get to have fun. He keeps the other team from scoring—shit. We score and beat ass—fun.”
“You’re such a dumbass,” Knox says. “And when’s the last time you beat anyone’s ass? I do all the ass beating.”
“Most of it,” Victor concedes.
“Hey babe,” Jonah says, putting his arm around me. “This is Anton.”
A chiseled man with dark blond hair reaches out to hug me. “Renee, welcome to our crazy family. I promise we don’t usually talk about sphincter muscles.”
He glares at Victor and I immediately get why he’s the captain, and why he and Mia get along so well. They’re both down to earth and easy to be around.
Jonah and I spend the next couple hours laughing, eating and drinking with his friends. After he’s had a couple beers, he pulls me into his lap, which I don’t mind a bit. He’s impossible not to like, and the more I get to know him, the more attractive he becomes to me. These kisses and cuddles may not be real, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy them.
“Renee, I hope you’ll convince Jonah to come to the charity auction we bought a table for in a couple weeks. It’s always fun to get dressed up and go out for the evening, and it’s for a good cause.”
I look at Jonah and he shrugs. “We can go if you want to.”
One of the guys imitates the sound of a whip from the other side of our table, and Jonah tosses a cardboard drink coaster his way, hitting him in the face without even looking.
“I’d love to go,” I say.
“I guess we’re in, then,” Jonah says to Mia. “And on that note, I think we’re gonna head out.”
“Your place or mine?” I ask.
“Mine.”
His eyes are warm as he kisses me, cupping my cheek in his hand. I feel the same stir I did at the end of our date the other day—for more. I suddenly wish we really were a couple who decided whether to stay at his place or mine.
He pulls away and we say goodbye to everyone. Once we get back to his car, I hold my hand out to him.
“What?” he asks.
“Keys.”
“I only had…three beers.”
“You had four and I’m driving.”
He passes me the keys. We both get into the car and he says, “I really do want you to stay at my place.”
“You do?” Hope blooms like a tropical flower inside my chest.
“Yeah. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He waves a hand. “I fall asleep there half the time, anyway. I want you to take my bed.”
“Okay, thanks.”
The freshly formed flower wilts, shrivels and dies. Jonah is only playing a part. I couldn’t be more different than the woman he loved. I have to accept that and stay focused on my assignment.
Chapter Twelve
Jonah
I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jacket to warm them as I walk near Lake Michigan. I take them back out immediately, though. The cold breeze on my skin seems fitting. If only the wind could reach my heart and send it back into hibernation.
Since Lily died, I’ve only felt a few things. Angry, sad and lonely. Sometimes those emotions hit me one at a time. Sometimes I feel them all at once, but usually it comes in a cycle.
The anger either slowly creeps up or it hits like a freight train in a fog—utterly invisible until all of a sudden it’s there, bearing down on me with a fury. My beautiful, vibrant wife was alive when I left her that morning with a quick kiss. And then she just collapsed that day in her parents’ home, the victim of an undiagnosed heart condition.
Fate ripped her away from me. Ripped them away from me—her and our unborn child, still growing inside her. We’d been trying for so long and faced several losses and disappointments, and then it finally happened, and I’d never seen her happier. The unfairness of it all feeds the anger, though it’s not nearly as strong as it was three years ago.
The first year was the worst. Not only was I grieving, I was doing so in the public eye. Fucking sports analysts on TV would chat about how my wife’s death was affecting my game. Photos would show up online with articles and headlines that were all total bullshit.
One day, I was out walking while reading an article on my phone about a guy on another hockey team getting suspended. I looked up to make sure I was still going the right way and a photographer caught my look of disgust, from reading the article, and captioned it “West still forlorn over wife’s death.”
Fuck that guy. Only my teammates truly saw what I went through then. In the weeks after burying Lily, I’d be sitting in the locker room with my elbows on my knees, silently crying, and I’d feel a hand on my back, followed by another on my shoulder.