Page 24 of Kitty Season (Green Line Ice #2)

A lmost every hair on my body, excluding my head and an appropriate bikini patch, has been waxed. My make up is done. My outfit is killer. I am ready.

Seems I’m the only one.

It’s eight p.m. and the mild unease I’ve been carrying for the past few hours is now a weighted blanket of panic that’s slowly crushing my lungs.

And it’s not only about the party, which will be humiliating enough in itself.

It’s the private after party of me, Troye and Brady.

The one I’ve told myself is just about sex when I damn well know it’s much, much more.

That rejection is beyond humiliating. Beyond devastating. Beyond heartbreaking.

Mom’s been doing her best to keep me busy, having me pose in various positions throughout the garden to ensure every spot is Instagram worthy. But I can’t shake that feeling that no one is coming.

It’s going to be just me, Mom, Dad, and the fucking flamingos—one of which, just shit in my shoe.

That’s right. Flamingos. As in plural.

Mom’s gone overboard with this whole tropical-Hawaiian theme.

The food delivery during lunch was just the beginning.

A florist arrived after that. Then a landscape gardener added more flora in the way of potted palms as tall as the house, and some tropical flowers I can’t pronounce the name of.

And yes, to top it off, flamingos. Four of them are roaming the yard.

Exactly where in Boston she located them remains a mystery, which is fitting since their link to Hawaii is the same.

Though I’m wallowing in self pity, I’m glad at least she is having fun.

Things have changed a lot for her since Dad retired.

Though she has her thriving career in law, and she’s relieved he spends more time at home, I think she misses the hockey family and hectic lifestyle the NHL brings with it.

Estranged from her own around the time she married, she rarely sees the other ex-WAGS now, and with me gone, too, I think she’s lonely.

Maybe I should ask? Since I’m just swinging in a hammock and trying not to cry, now is as good a time as any to focus on someone else’s problems.

“Mom, are you lonely?” Way to be delicate, Quinn.

“What? Why in heavens would you ask me that? What a ridiculous thing to say. Lonely. I’m not lonely. Why in heavens would you think I’m lonely.”

Good lord we are so alike.

“Just a hunch. But now that you answered by saying lonely twenty-seven times, I’m sure I’m onto something.

” I grip the cloth on either side of me, and pull myself into an upright position.

“It’s just that you have a lot more time on your hands now.

And as much as I appreciate it, you’ve really let loose with all …

this.” I wave my hands in a giant circle to demonstrate ‘all this.’

“Look, I’ll admit the flamingos were a stretch, but I never had a twenty-first birthday party. I already had you by that point, and I wanted to make yours a night you’d never forget.”

“And it will be Mom. If any one comes.” The latter is mumbled under my breath, but Mom and her super human hearing catches it.”

“Of course they’re coming. You know what they say, nine p.m. is the new six. Besides, the traffic is horrendous this time of night.”

“I know. And in my heart of hearts I want to believe that Lotte, at least, wouldn’t abandon me like this.

But when I think over the last few weeks I can pin point several moments in time where I could have been more supportive.

Or might have pissed her off. The cafe, for instance.

It’s a bit of a joke for me, but it’s her livelihood.

And while she’s adulting and planning a future with Noah, I’m running around creating drama amongst Dad’s players. ”

The rhododendron Mom’s repositioning slips from her fingers, and she scowls. “What drama?”

Shit.

“And if Noah and Lotte don’t come,” I continue, praying to God she’ll let that drop like she did the pot plant. “Brady won’t. The chosen few Dad permitted to come from the team were always a maybe at best, and the girls from my economics class are the same.”

And Troye?

Troye, I just don’t know.

I haven’t heard from him since breakfast. Messages sit on read. Calls remain unanswered.

I’m turning twenty-one. This is supposed to be fun.

A mishmash of Taylor Swift lyrics play in my mind, and in the pit of my gut, rejection blooms.

“Give them time, my darling.” Mom smiles. “You have to give him time.”

“I am, I promise, but?—”

In the distance I hear a car door slam. Then another. And another. And another. Noah was picking up Brady. Is Troye with them?

Mom flashes me her best I told you so smirk. “See. Never doubt your mother.”

In my blind rush to escape, I fall ass over tit out of the hammock, landing flat on my face at the feet of a rather perplexed pink bird.

We study each other briefly, but its eyes creep me the fuck out, so I bounce to my feet as quick as I can and haul ass inside, pulling my sequined short shorts out of my butt as I go.

Wearing a smile as big as her heart, Lotte’s is the face I see when I enter the house. Naturally Noah isn’t far behind, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers and what looks like a bottle of Macallan. Sucking up to Dad.

“Quinny!” Lotte runs towards me and throws her arms around my waist. “I’m so freaking sorry. We got stuck behind an accident and left my phone at home. Noah’s was flat and?—”

“It doesn’t matter, Lotte.” I plant a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re here now. That’s all that counts.

“Is Troye,” she whispers, conscious of my folks.

“Not yet.”

“He will be here, Quinny.” She pulls away, her big blue eyes even wider than usual, as though they’re transferring her certainty into mine. “We saw him when we picked up Brady, and he was all dressed up and ready to go. Apparently he had to wrap something before he left. Your present maybe? ”

“Uhh, sure. My present. Right.”

I fight the smile the image of Troye wrapping his junk brings, but lose all sense and reason when I spot Brady, looking so hot my ovaries damn near burst. I don’t mean to push Lotte away like she’s yesterday’s new, but I do. “HOLY SHIT!”

Only the back of him is visible as he talks to Dad, but as far as backs go, fuck me.

Those pants. That ass. The way that white shirt stretches across his back.

My mojo is back big time, and it takes every ounce of strength in my body not to drool.

Digging deep, I peel my eyes from the bubble butt, and scan the room for Troye.

I see Cory, Troye’s linesman hovering by the fireplace. Oh. He must have been the fourth door.

I hide my disappointment behind a plastered-on smile as Brady steps away from Dad and turns to face me. Just like I did with the flamingo, we consider each other for a moment, and it’s Brady that speaks first.

“Quinny, wow, you look—” Hungry eyes again roam my body, lingering over my cleavage the world’s prettiest and best push-up bra has endowed me with, then my exposed belly button and finally, the tiny, glittery blue shorts that sit below it.

“Cold,” Dad finishes. “She should put on a jacket, don’t you think, Basse?”

Brady shakes his head, but also says, “Yeah, it’s pretty nipply, I mean nippy out, cold, nippy.” My friends snicker. Dad looks like he may implode, and Mom? Mom saves the day.

“Flamingos!” she yells at the top of her voice. “Let’s all go see the flamingos. They’re pink, you know?”

Though I’ve never confirmed Dad’s suspicions that his new center and I are … doing whatever it is we are doing, he does know Troye was supposed to be here. Hence the several dozen, I told you so, glares he’s shot between me and his Rolex as we pass ten p.m.

With no updates from Troye himself, my plan is to have as much fun as I can with one eye on the door, and if he fails to show, cry my ass off, and get absolutely wasted in the hope I’ll forget this night, and Troye Becker, ever happened.

For now, since a sprinkle of hope remains, and sobriety is a must for whatever, and whomever, may go down later, I’m sticking to the non-alcoholic punch. Brady, who’s never strayed far from me, seems to be of the same thought. He’s been nursing the beer I handed him when he arrived.

The same couldn’t be said for the hockey crew, or Grace, Alex and Maddy, the girls from class.

They arrived a few minutes after Lotte and the others did, and neither group has moved far from the other.

From the view my hammock affords me, I’m watching the boys trying and failing to impress the girls.

It’s highly entertaining, though less so now that my hammock mate, Lotte, has been carried into the pool house over the shoulder of her fiancé.

My solitude is short lived, seconds later Brady’s wandering my way somehow looking hotter than he did only minutes ago.

“Are you having fun?” he asks, leaning down so I can hear him above the dulcet tones of Pitbull—not my choice.

On brand, Mom hired a DJ for a party with twelve attendees. So far, the playlist has consisted entirely of the Despicable Me movie soundtracks.

“I am.” With those six pitiful words, our conversation tally for the evening just doubled. “Not as much as them, though.” I nod towards his teammates, the idiots that just dove fully clothed into the pool.

“They’re not used to having to work for attention. Those … hockey girls always fall at their feet.”

“Girls like me, you mean?”

Even through the hideous flashing lights mom’s strung everywhere she could, I see Brady’s fierce blush. “No, not like you. Not like you at all. You’re not like them. You’re not a?—”

“Bunny? It’s okay to say it. I am, Brady, and I own it.” Sitting up, I wriggle closer till I’m snuggled as close to his warmth as I can without dragging him in here with me. “There’s something about hockey boys I can’t resist. Why do you think I’m so twisted over two of them?”

For a devastatingly long time, Brady remains still and silent, meaning I’m forced to listen to the sounds of others’ fun while feeling so wholly miserable.

“Quinn, you shouldn’t?—”

“Why shouldn’t I? Look at me, Brades. I’m pining my birthday away over one who can’t be bothered to turn up, while sitting next to the other, who I know would do anything for me even though I pushed him away.”

“I would do anything for you, Quinny. You’re?—”

“Quinn!” Dad’s tensest, most Coach-like voice cuts through the night. “You have a guest.”

Pure impulse and anticipation sees me leap from the hammock, I take three steps then pause and look over my shoulder. Brady looks so defeated, so sad even though he’s smiling. “You’re with him, Quinn. Not me. Go.”

“But.”

“It’s okay. I promise.”

Heart in mouth, and without looking back, I reach out my hand and take hold of Brady’s. “Come with me. Please?”

Because Brady is who he is, he nods, and falls into step beside me, not an easy task for someone who holds such a height, and come to think of it, heart advantage.

Weaving through the modest crowd, we pass the pool, the beer pong table and cross the threshold hand in hand. Exactly what I’m going to say to Troye remains a mystery. Yes he’s decided to do the decent thing and make an appearance, but only after hours of stressing me out.

Should I go with relief? Vitriol? Violence?

Then again, what if he was in the accident that held everyone else up and has only just been released from hospital. Maybe some other poetic tragedy delayed him. He could have been trapped in an elevator. Locked in the showers after practice. Accosted by a pack of wild dogs.

A myriad of hypothetical crises cross my mind, but none prove half as distressing as reality.