Page 53 of Delayed Penalty

“Oh, yeah. We sort of… also got married last night.”

Cue the madness in 3… 2… 1…

“Married? Like husband and wife sort of married?” Gwen asks, her eyes bouncing between the ring and me.

“Is there another sort of married?” I say, earning a glare.

“Explain, Danielson,” Gwen says, and I want to laugh, but I can feel everyone's eyes on me.

So, I do. I tell them the whole story, Avery helps this time especially with the parts about Peter and the doctor’s office. We skate over the details about what happened with the team years ago when we first broke up, telling them just enough so they understand Peter thinks he has power. It helps that Cade remembers our old coach, I just connect the dots with him being Peter’s dad and a friend of our current coach.

“Okay, I get it. But I still want to smother you in your sleep for not inviting us,” Sawyer pouts. “But I’m not worried because if you haven’t told your mother yet, there’s still hope for a bigger party. She’s gonna bepiiiiiiiissssed.”

“Ugh,” I groan, looking down at Avery who just shrugs. “Yeah, we’re going to have that conversation next week. Theyactually just told me they’re coming into town next week; I guess there’s no better time than that to tell them.”

“Guess I should get ready to have that same conversation with my parents, not that they’ll even care. I mean, they will, but they won’t. I’ll call them next week.”

“I vote we just stop by, pay them a visit and tell them in person, really make sure they know the situation, since they obviously only listen to your ex.”

She looks up at me and smirks, her eyes full of mischief as she nods. “I like it.”

“Me too,” Kelly says. “Now, what do you all say about the non-pregnant people taking some shots? Lots of celebrations.”

“I’ll go grab some drinks.”

“Ride the flagpole.”

“Boink.”

“Funny business.”

“Beast with two backs.”

“Hide the sausage.”

“Smash.”

“Ride the bologna pony.”

“For fuck’s sake, what did I just walk into?” I ask as Rex and I return to the table with more drinks, Avery and the girls are all sitting around the table in a circle with Miles, Max, and Cade playing some sort of game.

“Cassie wanted to play this game like Scattergories, but you come up with a topic and then everyone has to have an answer. You go around until someone messes up then they have to take a shot,” Max says with a smirk.

“And this category was what?”

“Ways to say sex without saying sex.”

“Like horizontal tango? Or clapping cheeks?” Rex says as he passes Sawyer her margarita, giving his sister another one as she sits next to her boyfriend who’s been glued to his phone the entire night.

“Exactly,” Ellie says with a laugh. “I wanted to do pet names. Figured it might be fun to see how many different names we can come up with because everyone always calls each other something different.”

“That would have been fun,” Cassie says.

I grab a chair and squeeze in behind Avery, passing her another lemonade in the process.

“Yeah, but instead you ladies decided to think of every way to talk about fucking?” Miles asks incredulously.

“Yeah, we figured we’d make it easy on you since it seems to be your favorite pastime,” Stella quips, and I can’t help but laugh.

---