Page 16 of Pucking Curves

I was wasted.

But was he?

“Drunk enough,” he mutters. A muscle in his cheek ticks as his eyes slide from mine.

“You knew what we were doing, didn’t you?” The truth hits me like a freight train. I stare at him with my mouth hanging open and my mind reeling. Oh my gosh. He knew! I know he did. The truth is written all over his gorgeous, lying face.

Micah hits a particularly loud snore beside him, momentarily capturing his attention. He glances over at my brother and then mutters a curse before turning to face me again.

He leans in close, putting his lips right up against my ear. “Yeah, I fucking knew, little bird,” he rasps against my ear. “If that makes me an asshole in your eyes, I’ll accept it. But it doesn’t change the fact thatmy wifebelongs in my home and in my bed.”

The whole world tilts upside down. Or maybe my place in it does. I don’t know! All I know is that he’s not denying it. He knew what we were doing last night, and he did it anyway. He married me anyway.

“Why?” I ask, the word shaking on my lips.

“Same reason you’d been wanting to kiss me forever,” he mutters.

“I…” I stare at him, rendered speechless. There’s no way this man knows I’m in love with him. He can’t know…right? Hesitation slides through me, sending my heart racing. Sending me spiraling toward a full-on panic attack.

No. He doesn’t know. He can’t know, I tell myself.I’ve been careful. This is something else. He means something else.

Sex!

Yes. That’s it. He means he married me because he wants to fuck me. That’s all this is. He didn’t want to feel guilty about sleeping with his best friend’s sister, so he married me.

I hear the desperation in my own thoughts, but I cling to it like a lifeline. I delude myself because…because it’s the only option. Because the alternative is admitting the truth and watching all hell break loose. It means watching my world crumble.

And believe me, it will crumble. Micah will never forgive us. Their team will be torn down the middle. Archer will lose his best friend. And I’ll lose my brother.

Micah isn’t reasonable. Okay, he is reasonable. He’s sensible and logical and all of that crap too. Most of the time. But he won’t be about this. He never is about me.

I’ve spent most of my life telling him that I’d never date a hockey player. That I didn’t want the chaos that came with this kind of life after living it for so long growing up. And he was always so relieved to hear it because he thinks this sport nearly killed me once.

Maybe I should resent how much of my childhood we spent focused on his passion. From the time I was born, hockey was his whole life. It became mine out of necessity. I never minded, though.

I always loved watching him on the ice. I loved curling up in the stands with a blanket and my jersey and cheering him on. I even loved being cramped in the van with all his equipment while we drove all over the place for games. Some of my happiest memories are in our old van, with our mom singing along to the radio.

And then he drafted when I was ten. Everything changed. I rarely saw him anymore because he was so busy. Our parents were arguing. We never traveled for games anymore. My classmates hated me, and I had no friends. I decided I was going to learn to play. I thought if I got into hockey like he was, it’d make everything go back to normal. Micah would come home to teach me. Our parents would stop fighting. I’d become just as good as him and we’d go back to how things had always been. My life would be perfect again. Magical thinking makes sense when you’re a scared, lonely ten-year-old.

It didn’t work out like that, though. Instead, I fell through the ice. I was clinically dead for a few minutes. When I woke up in the hospital, Micah was there. Furious. Devastated. He blamed himself, made me swear not to make hockey my life. And I promised because I hated that look on his face. I hated the tears on his cheeks. I hated the guilt in his eyes.

It's never gone away entirely. He still feels guilty, like I wouldn’t have been out there that day if hockey weren’t his entire life.

Finding out that I married his captain last night will send him over the edge. Especially if he ever finds out that I was wasted, and Archer wasn’t. He’ll never forgive a betrayal like that.

“Micah is going to kill you,” I finally mutter weakly, sinking back against my seat. I don’t know what else to say when Archer’s looking at me like he doesn’t regret it at all and part of me loves that a little too much.

“What’d I tell you this morning, baby?” He arches a brow at me. “You let me worry about Micah.”

I snort, closing my eyes as if that’ll change reality. It doesn’t. Instead, I feel his hand on my thigh.

My eyes flutter open.

“What are you doing?”

“You look cold, little bird. You should cover up.”

“I’m not cold, Archer.”

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