Page 57 of Hot for the Hockey Player (The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens #2)

Gabrielle

“Where’s Mav?” Raina asked me as she and Jagger entered the pub and met us at the tables the McEvoys had commandeered.

“He … he had something to do in his cabin,” I said, playing with the base of my wineglass and not meeting her eyes.

Jagger pulled out the seat for Raina, and she sat down, asking me, “Is he coming after?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Did you two have a fight or something?” She thanked Dom who handed her a glass of wine.

“I … I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this. He wants to go out in public and I …”

“You’re afraid you’ll turn into a pumpkin after midnight?

” Jagger asked, sitting down beside Raina, and only wincing a little as he tucked his knee under the table.

“Because you know that wasn’t Cinderella.

That was her stagecoach. Too many people mix up the metaphor when they’re trying to make a clever analogy.

But it was the stagecoach. More likely, you’d turn back into a mouse from being one of the horses. ”

Raina elbowed him and gave him a weird look. “I don’t think anybody asked for the in-depth Disney analysis, dude.”

He tipped his beer bottle to his lips and shrugged. “Nobody asked for it, but everyone’s glad they got it.”

My cousin smirked and rolled her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, bud.” Then she turned back to me. “Why don’t you want to be seen with him? Help me understand. He’s a great guy. Everyone on the island loves him.”

“Because if people see us together, they’ll know we’re together ,” I pointed out, like it was as plain as day.

“So?” they both asked at the same time.

“So. He’s twenty-six. I’m forty-one. He’s this hotshot hockey player, I’m this—”

“Successful, smart, sexy-ass bitch with a six-pack and peach of an ass,” Raina finished for me. “Shut your beautiful fucking face. You’re hot. He’s hot. Burn up the sheets together.”

I rolled my eyes and my face grew warm. “I don’t like people knowing my business,” I said in a low voice. “You know that.”

Being in love had certainly changed my cousin, because she didn’t seem to care who knew her dirty laundry now.

She waved her hand and sipped her wine. “We have nothing to be ashamed about. We got the fuck out of that hellhole. We should be proud. I’m tired of hiding.

I’m tired of acting like we did anything wrong.

Do I want people knowing what time I take a shit every morning? No. That’s business I keep to myself.”

“And me,” Jagger said proudly, kissing her on the cheek.

She shot him a dirty look, but he just grinned.

“But as far as who I’m dating, who makes me happy, who makes my kid happy, the whole damn world can know that business.”

The look of love in Jagger’s blue eyes as he grabbed Raina’s hand and kissed the back of it was enough to make even Cupid swoon.

“Does he make you happy, Gabs?” my cousin asked.

I didn’t say anything.

“Do you enjoy being with him?”

Again, I didn’t say anything.

“Is the sex good at least?” she asked with exasperation.

It was like the whole table went dead silent on purpose right at that moment, and everyone turned to listen in.

I tried to shoot laser beams out of my eyes at my cousin, but failed.

She smirked because I’m sure the answer was written clear across my face.

“Don’t run from what makes you happy, Gabs,” Raina said gently.

“We’ve been through too much to not let ourselves feel joy and happiness.

And I’m not just talking from our kids.” She gave me a small, encouraging, hopeful smile, as well as a gentle nudge of her foot beneath the table, before glancing up lovingly at Jagger. “This guy taught me that.”

I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and sipped my wine as Maverick’s words and Raina’s words mixed together in my mind.

“Stop being so afraid of what everyone else thinks of you.”

“We’ve been through too much to not let ourselves feel joy and happiness.”

“The biggest badass I’ve ever met. You ran barefoot, pregnant, with a baby on your hip, while grown men chased you, and you turned them into the police.

Then you raised your kids all on your own, got a degree, then a law degree, and chose to help women get out of similar situations that you used to be in.

If that is not the definition of a badass, then I don’t care to know what is. ”

“We have nothing to be ashamed about. We got the fuck out of that hellhole. We should be proud.”

“A person who accomplished all of that shouldn’t give two shits what anyone says about them.”

The conversation around us picked up again—thankfully—and the only two staring at me, apparently waiting for my epiphany, were Raina and Jagger.

“Does the lightbulb normally take this long to come on with her?” Jagger whispered out the side of his mouth to Raina before taking a pull from his beer.

“She’s a stubborn mule, this one. Smart as fuck, but socially, and emotionally dim sometimes. It’s aggravating,” Raina replied, not as quiet, but still out the side of her mouth.

“I can hear you both,” I said.

“Good,” they said at the same time.

Heaving a big sigh, I drained my wine—grateful for the liquid courage—and stood up.

“There we go,” Jagger said, lifting his beer bottle to me in a toast. “Go get your hockey player.”

I glared at him, but he just grinned beneath his scruffy beard. Normally, he kept his beard tidy and on the longer side, but the doctors had to shave him after Raina’s brother broke a bunch of bones in his face and he needed surgery.

“You have condoms?” Raina called after me as I headed to the door.

I simply lifted one hand and my middle finger, not bothering to look back. She and Jagger both burst out laughing just as the door banged shut behind me.

The raindrops were the size of golf balls as I ran down the grassy path toward Maverick’s cabin, the bottoms of my trousers getting soaked in the process. His truck was still parked out front. That meant, hopefully, he was home.

I ducked under the eaves and knocked on the door, not sure what I was going to say to him, but knowing I needed to apologize. I was being wishy-washy, and I hated wishy-washy people.

A moment later, the door opened, and he appeared, surprise—and wariness—in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “You’re right.

I shouldn’t care what people think. I hate that I do.

But I shouldn’t care. I will go with you to the cheese making thing tomorrow, and …

will you join me at the pub now? And come for dinner tonight, and …

” I swallowed. “Spend the night?” Blinking through the drops falling from my hair and lashes, I bunched my fists together at my sides as my chest heaved.

I hadn’t run or anything, but saying all of this, laying out my feelings and bearing my heart—to anyone—had me close to fainting.

He stood there for a moment, absorbing what I had said before finally reaching for my hand, hauling me inside and shutting the door.

I thought for sure he was going to push me up against the closed door and have his way with me, but he didn’t. He released my hand, and a small, faint smile graced his mouth for just a flash. Then it was gone. “Say it,” he whispered.

I narrowed my brows in confusion.

“Say, ‘I’m a badass and I don’t give a shit what people say or think about me.’ Say it, and I’ll come to the pub with you, and for dinner, and stay the night. Say it, and I want to see that you actually believe it.”

Sucking in a deep breath through my mouth, my lungs rattled. I released the air slowly and swallowed, then squared my shoulders.

All he did was lift his brows, waiting.

“I …” I started. “I am a badass and I don’t give a shit,” I swallowed again. “I don’t give a shit what people say or think about me.” My molars ground together.

“Again,” he said softly. I must have given him a pleading look, because he tilted his head and lifted his brows again. “Until you believe it.”

Exhaling in frustration and digging my nails into the heels of my palms, I nodded. “I am a badass and I don’t give a shit what people say or think about me.” Okay, it was easier that time.

“Again.”

I growled. “I am a badass and I don’t give a shit what people say or think about me.” Lightness filled my chest, and I actually smiled a little this time. He didn’t even have to order me to do it again, and I repeated it—twice more.

The smile and twinkle in his eyes had my heart all a flutter.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Now, I believe you. And I can see that you’re starting to as well.

” He reached for his jacket from the coat hook and shrugged into it.

“Let’s go get a beer.” Then he took my hand and together we ran, laughing, through the rain to the pub, and I’d honestly never felt lighter or more like an actual badass in all my life.

It wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be, having Maverick sleep over.

The kids didn’t find it weird. In fact, they seemed happy about it.

He and Damon stayed up until nearly midnight playing video games.

Then he crawled into my bed, woke me up, and kept me up in all kinds of dirty, wonderful ways until at least two o’clock—maybe later.

One of the perks to dating a younger man was: even after a marathon session of Fortnite with Damon, Maverick still had stamina for a marathon session in bed with me.

I stretched like a satisfied cat in a ray of sun as the smell of sizzling bacon and pancakes wafted under the bedroom door. The clock on my phone said it was almost nine. I needed to start the day. We had cheese to make, after all.

Not only was it not that weird having Maverick sleep over, but it wasn’t weird at all sitting next to him and hanging out with my cousins and the McEvoys at the pub.

Yes, I could feel the eyes of some locals on us, particularly when Maverick casually draped his arm over the back of my seat, but I refused to let those gazes bother me.

I was a badass, after all. Or at least, I was trying to believe that I was.