Page 2 of Don't Puck Up
Chris speared his fingers into his hair, tugging at the roots before rubbing his hands down his face.
“This exclusive footage obtained by TMZ last night is of the house of Chris Minns, starting defenseman for the San Diego Seals.”
Chris was on his feet, his entire body rigid as he primed for a fight. He looked like he wanted to put his fist through the television. “Those fuckers,” he growled through his clenched jaw.
“Watch. Just watch this,” another announcer said with a sick sense of glee.
I pressed my hand low on my belly trying to stop my empty stomach from revolting.
Our back door opened, light illuminating the yard for a moment before it closed quietly. Nothing could be seen over the eight-foot fence, but I knew what was coming.
Hands curled over the timber, and it shook as a shadowed figure in jeans, a hoodie, and a ball cap threw his leg over and eased himself down. I knew who it was without having to see his face. The way Hux moved was so familiar.
An inset appeared, the video showing headlights appearing from around the corner. They slowly eased into our driveway. It was me coming home. Chris hadn’t been kidding when he said I’d just missed Hux. I’d arrived less than a minute after he left.
“The footage has been synced so you can see exactly what’s happening from different angles. Right as that hooded figure leaves from the rear door, a Mercedes pulls into the front,” the speaker helpfully narrated.
The footage in the inset cut to another camera angle, and I watched as the garage door opened, I eased the car in, then it closed. Our windows were blacked out with the darkest tint on the market, so seeing inside the car was impossible.
“You can see exactly who was leaving the Minns’s house last night.”
I watched with an anvil sitting heavy in my belly, hoping against hope that the announcer was wrong.
My pleas were dashed.
Hux opened the driver’s side door, the interior lights illuminating his face from under the ball cap and his hoodie. He slid inside, and the lights on the screen of his EV lit up brightly for a split second before dimming to night mode. TMZ had captured the exact moment and zoomed in. There was no question about it being Hux. His face was clearly identifiable.
Even I could see it looked suspicious. Friends didn’t leave from the back door in the dark of night. If they did, they didn’t scale a fence when there was a perfectly good gate right next to where they parked. Hux never used the gate—he always left late and tried not to draw attention to himself—and the way it squealed every time it moved was a dead giveaway. So he jumped the fence.
Damn Chris for being so paranoid.
If Hux parked in the driveway like I’d suggested a million times over, this whole thing could be put down to him visiting. But this? This had PR disaster written all over it.
“It’s not a good look for Minns’s teammate, Alec Huxley, to be scaling a fence in the dead of night right when Minns is arriving home.”
“Coincidence? I think not,” the other announcer supplied.
“It’s obvious what’s happening here,” the original speaker asserted. “And we’re breaking news of their affair first.”
The second speaker had a gleam in his eye as he said smugly, “Scandal rocks the San Diego Seals, the NHL’s newest team, with an illicit affair between Alec Huxley and Kamirah Minns, wife of Huxley’s teammate Chris Minns.”
I choked out a sob. Of course they’d reach that conclusion. No one saw me getting out of the car. Everyone assumed hockey players were straight. The sport was hypermasculine and all about athletes who pushed their bodies to the next level—speed, big plays, and even bigger hits. Players who performed at that level couldn’t possibly be anything other than pussy-loving brutes.
Ones who apparently had no morals.
But then again, according to TMZ, neither did their wives.
The vibration on the mattress snapped me out of my horror, and I picked up Chris’s cell phone.
“Hon, it’s your agent.” I held it out to him with a shaking hand and wrapped my other arm around my naked waist, trying to shield myself from the footage. Chris muted the television, and I watched numbly as talking heads appeared, their expressions swapping back and forth between sympathetic—a sentiment as fake as their tans—and judgmental.
They were debating our life right there on television. They were picking apart the kind of person they thought I was, the public persona of a dedicated hockey wife and passionate supporter of animals and veterans versus the whore who slept with her husband’s teammate.
I wondered how long they thought it would be before one of us filed for divorce. The paps would be salivating, taking bets on whether it’d be immediate or a slower process if we tried to work through my so-called betrayal.
God, what a mess.
Chris was speaking, but I couldn’t hear past the buzzing in my ears. My vision swam as tears spilled over, running hot down my cheeks. Everything was numb. I was in a state of shock, but also hypersensitive.The replay of the footage over and over and the looks on the presenters’ faces were like ice picks to my heart.