Page 81 of Puck Love

“It’s a fucking terrible idea. Are you kidding?” Eli says. “Your ideas always suck, but we’re here. And if I’m going to have my ass chewed out by Coach, we’re at least gonna see yourgirl.”

“Come on, Van,” Liis says. “She’s going to be so excited to see you. It’s superromantic.”

“Yeah, come on,” the bored brunette, Camille, says. I wasn’t even sure she was aware of her surrounds because she hasn’t looked up from her phoneonce.

“Oh, my god, if a hockey player showed up at my house in the middle of the night after crossing a million state lines in another country, I’d know it was true love,” Caitlyncrows.

“You guys, I don’t think I want to get married to George anymore,” Staceywarns.

“Oh honey, of course you do,” Camille says. “Have you seen the size of his investmentportfolio?”

She sighs. “That’s true, but he wouldn’t travel to another country just to seeme.”

And that’s my cue to leave, because if I stay any longer I’ll lose my nerve. I jump out of the Jeep and give Eli a long look. He raises his brows and sets his hands on the bride’s shoulders. “Well, I’ve never been one to break up relationships, but if you suddenly find yourself single, give me acall.”

Their chatter fades as I approach her gate with my heart thundering in my ears. There are hedges either side, but seeing as I don’t know what they’re hiding, I decide to do the only thing a man can do when he shows up to woman’s house uninvited: break andenter.

My shoulder twinges in protest as I climb over the gate and land like a cat on my feet—a very large and powerfully masculine cat, of course. A few minutes later I reach the front door, but before I can lift my hand to knock, an alarm goes off and the whole courtyard is lit up as if it’s broad daylight. Three things happen as I lift my hand to knock. One, Stella shouts from the other side of the door that she has the Nashville police department on the phone. Two, the sound of screeching tires echo through the quiet street toward us, and three, the Jeep takes off in a puff of smoke, roaring up the road as Eli jumps over the gate and lands far more gracefully than Idid.

“Stella, it’s me,” I shout, but my voice is drowned out by a small security car shrieking to a stop. Eli melts into the tree line like a fucking ninja and I can only stand there and bang on Stella’s front door, praying that the security guard running towards me through the now open gate isn’t armed with a taser. “Stella, baby, open thedoor.”

The next thing I know I’m being crash tackled from behind by a linebacker, and I am not a small dude, so it takes some feat to get me down on theground.

“Ma’am, stay inside,” a voice says by my ear, and I whip my head up to see the door open and light spilling out from inside framing an angel clad in sweats and a tank top, her hair is up and kind ofmessy.

“Van, what are you doinghere?”

“Ma’am, stay back.” The linebacker shoves his knee farther into my spine, and my shoulder screams in protest. “He could have aweapon.”

“No. It’s okay. I know thisman.”

“You do?” the guard says, and Eli chooses that moment to casually sidle on up to us as if he was out for a damn nightlystroll.

“Both of them,” she says, glancing between the two of us. It’s then that I notice a fifth and sixth party have joined us from inside the house. One is the angry redhead from Stella’s interview, and the other is a man in his early forties, I’d guess, who’s shoving a fucking camera in myface.

“Hey, tubby. You wanna get the fuck off me?” I say to thelinebacker.

Stella nods. “You can let himup.”

I shove off the ground and glare at the security guard whose mouth hangs open once he sees my face. “You’re,you’re—”

“Yeah, jackass, and you’re lucky you’re protecting a woman I care about, or I’d knock you out here on her frontdoorstep.”

He grimaces and dares another look at Stella. “Ma’am, are you sure you’reokay?”

“Yes, thank you. We’reokay.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. Not that I really thought she’d have me carted away, but then I suppose it would only be fair. I did throw her out of my house and force her to leave with a jackass who beat her up. The man with the camera swivels it back and forth between me, Stella, and the securityguard

“What the fuck is this? Turn the goddamn camera off before I beat your face in.” I get up in his grill so he has no choice but to lower the device or lose it to myfist.

The cameraman puts his hands up in a placating gesture. “Lana, you said there’d be no more interruptions tofilming.”

“Well, I hadn’t counted on a professional athlete showing up, now, had I?” Lana lifts the wine glass in her hand and drains the rest of the contents. “So, unless Mr. Ross here agrees to sign a waiver, I suppose you have tostop.”

“The studio is not going to be happy with this,” hesays.

“Well, neither is the doctor who will have to reconstruct your nose, so you choose who’s the bigger bad guy here,” I say. He doesn’t move, though; he just stands there. “You can gonow.”

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