Page 1 of The Fake Husband Play
Prologue
WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW…
What’sit like to have your entire world turned upside down with a single glance?
Let me tell you.
It’s a hot night in October, magic-hour light drenching Magazine Street like it wants to lick every inch of New Orleans until it’s stickier than it is already. I’m stopped at a red light when I see her—dark hair, red dress, cardboard box in her arms. She’s coming out of an office building, looking tired in that bone-deep way that makes you want to ask a person who hurt them.
Then punch whoever it was in the face…
I would punch people for this woman, I realize. That’s instantly a given, though I’m known in the league for being a lover, not a fighter.
But for her?
Fuck, she’s so beautiful.
So sad.
So…mine?
It’s a crazy thought. Absolutely out of bounds.
But I swear, something happens to me in thatmoment. It’s not love. I’m notthatoff my rocker, there are no stalker-flavored Netflix shows in my future, thank you very much. But…it’s something intense. Real. A bone-deep recognition.
Like every cell in my body suddenly wakes up and shouts, “It’s you. Finally.”
Then, cars honk behind me.
The light’s turned green.
I pull away, but inside, I’m already making plans. I drive through this neighborhood every day. I know that building. I can find her again.
Ihaveto find her again.
For the next few days, I’m a man possessed. I drive by that office complex every day. Sometimes twice a day. I tell myself I’m just taking different routes to practice, but I’m full of shit.
At night, I dream about her. Brown eyes full of secrets. The elegant curve of her neck. The way she looked carrying that box like it held the weight of the world. I wake up with my heart beating fast, wondering if I’ll ever see her again.
Surely, I wouldn’t be so stuck on this woman if there weren’t a reason for it. Even before that night at the party, something in me is already insisting that Fate has something to do with all this.
Then, in the middle of schmoozing sponsors at the first big event of the NHL season, I hear crying from a supply closet.
And when I open the door…there she is.
Magazine Street Girl, with mascara running down her cheeks.
“It’s you,” she whispers, the same words that ran through my head the first time I saw her, and that doessomething to me that I can’t fully explain.
I thought I had life all figured out. I had the world on a string—Stanley Cup ring in my first pro season, top-tier player in a brand-new team, back in my hometown, ready to build a legacy. Then Elly smiled just for me, and suddenly it was her. Just her and the baby girl she’d die for.
Just this family I knew—knew—was supposed to be mine.
You think I’m crazy? You think love only happens the way you expect it to happen? You want magic, but not too much magic, not the kind that forces you to rethink everything you thought you knew to be true?
You think a man can’t see forever in a stranger’s tired eyes?
That’s okay. I wasn’t a believer, either.
