We settled into our seats as the game started. Blaise never told me what position he played, and it confused me when Dinah explained that he protected the blue line. Whatever that meant. I also gave her a strange look when she explained Blaise didn’t put up a lot of numbers, but he was a good stay-at-home defenseman. I swear, I needed a dictionary to figure out what she was talking about.
“Oh my God, you really know nothing about this game?” Dinah asked with a laugh.
I shook my head, my black and red curls bouncing around my face.
I watched the players on the ice and saw one of the Bulldogs get possession of the puck. But I focused on what number 44 was doing. Blaise was such a big man, but there were a lot of big burly men on skates, hitting each other into the boards and speeding across the ice. Truth was, of all the sports, I liked hockey the most, but I never bothered to learn the rules.
Dinah groaned when the goalie made the save, and then I got distracted by a petite blonde woman coming over to us and taking a seat next to me.
“Hi, sorry,” she said in a rush to Dinah.
“Hey, Max,” Dinah greeted.
The newcomer pushed her hair behind her ear. “Still scoreless?” she asked, to which we nodded. Then she turned to me and put out her hand. “Hi, I’m Max, TJ’s girlfriend. You’re Blaise’s girl, right?”
I shook her hand. “Right, Veronica.”
“Okay, good. He asked me to get you a ticket last minute, so I’m glad it worked out,” she said.
I eyed her carefully.
“She works for the team,” Dinah interjected.
“Oh, cool.”
“He’s a good guy,” Max said. “Even though he cheated off my math homework in high school.”
“Oh, you went to high school together?”
She nodded and smiled. “I swear this team’s all interconnected. It’s not even funny.”
I laughed and thumbed over at Dinah. “Yeah, you know our brothers are married?”
Max shook her head. “Nope! But I know you’re Rox’s tattoo artist.”
Speaking of which, I spied Rox’s man on the ice, taking the face-off. He was a big dude like Blaise, but I think he might have been slightly bigger. Man, where did they breed these mountain men at?
“Did Rox have a game?” Dinah asked Max.
Max nodded, but she wasn’t paying attention to the question. Her hand was on her bottom lip, and she stared intently at the game in front of us. Man, was this the hockey WAG life? It seemed stressful. I was thankful I had an expiration date for this shit.
“What the hell was that?” Maxine suddenly yelled.
I searched the ice for what she was looking at, and one of the Bulldogs was getting pushed on the ice by one of the opposing players. It looked heated. I spied the name on the back of the jersey, Desjardins. That must have been Rox’s twin brother TJ.
Dinah laughed at Max’s outburst, and the other woman’s cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment. “It’s so cute when she swears,” Dinah teased.
“Shut it, D!” Max teased back.
I watched the game with the girls, and they helped me when I didn’t understand a penalty. Like offsides. Like how do you have an offside if it’s on ice? They gave me an education on that one. There was apparently a lot of pressure on the team this year. They hadn’t won the cup since the eighties, and the heat was on for them to succeed.
After two periods of play, the game was still scoreless. Which might explain why Dinah turned to me before the last period to grill me.
She raised an eyebrow. “So how long have you and Blaise been a thing?”
Max gave me a small smile in sympathy. I shouldn’t have expected this to be easy. Especially with Dinah. Her family was nosy as fuck, so if it wasn’t her being hounded, she was dishing it out.
“Not long. We were keeping it casual,” I lied.
Dinah narrowed her emerald eyes at me. “You don’t do relationships. You specifically told me if you ever got into a relationship again to slap you.”
How did she remember that shit? Note to self: never tell a writer anything.
I shrugged. “He’s bomb at eating pussy.”
They laughed at that, and I hoped that would get me off the hook, but apparently not.
“But how did you meet?” Dinah asked.
“His dad.”
“His dad? Hal?” Max asked.
“I’m a regular at Eileen’s. Last summer, Hal insisted Blaise drive me home.”
“But you live all the way out in the suburbs,” Dinah protested.
I gave her a look. And then I paused. Why did Hal insist Blaise take me home that night? It was a far drive for Blaise. I knew Hal saw me as a surrogate daughter, and he was protective, but it was odd.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Max laughed to herself.
“What?” I asked.
“He was setting you up,” she explained.
I furrowed my brow. “I don’t think so. He told Ayden I was off-limits.”
“That’s because Ayden goes through women like I go through tissues,” Max explained.
I laughed because that was true. But people could also say the same about me. Why would Hal care about that?
“He didn’t seem happy to see me this morning,” I blurted.
Dinah poked me. “Explain.”
I cringed. “I stayed at Blaise’s last night.”
“Okay…” Dinah said slowly, not piecing it together.
“He lives at home.”
“Oh!” Maxine exclaimed. “Oh, that makes sense.”
Dinah swiveled her head at Max and looked to me for an explanation.
Max sighed. “Blaise’s mom died when he was a kid, and their dad kind of…lost himself. Pretty sure his brothers Eli and Brendan raised the twins more than their dad did.”
“How do you know all of this?” I asked, which I probably shouldn’t have.
Those names sounded familiar, but I felt like I needed a family tree to remember all of Blaise’s siblings. If I was supposed to be Blaise’s girl, I should have known this stuff about his family. I needed him to write this down for me. I needed a cheat sheet of all the Holmstrom siblings so it looked like I actually was his girlfriend.
Max shrugged. “We were friends in high school. Sometimes he’d talk about not feeling like he would ever live up to his dad’s expectations.”
“It’s hard to stand out in a big family,” Dinah said. Dinah was one of four, so she was uniquely qualified to understand.
“Why did you think his dad was mad?” Max asked curiously.
“Uh…that’s a story for another time.”
Dinah’s eyes got wide, which meant now she was interested. “Okay, explain!”
“Um…his dad didn’t know we were there last night.”
“Okay…” Dinah conceded.
I cringed. “I wasn’t exactly quiet.”
Max’s eyes widened and her cheeks went pink, but Dinah laughed her head off.
I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to look Hal in the eyes again. It was a good guess he knew what Blaise and I had been doing upstairs. Especially after that comment about how he thought he heard me.
“Then what happened?” Max asked.