Page 30 of Moms of Mayhem (Mayhem Hockey Club #1)
“Shit.” I practically dove down out of sight, even though it was too late.
“Uh.” Stevie looked between the window and me. “Everything okay?”
I peeked around the bench, but Beckett was already gone.
“Yep. Totally fine. Everything is great,” I said, voice about two octaves too high. I stood and brushed imaginary lint off my leggings like that would somehow restore my dignity.
Stevie arched a brow, then followed me behind the partition and to the closest reformer. “You just hit the floor like they were passing out a PTA signup sheet. Who are we avoiding?”
“Beckett Conway,” Shannon said from the back where she and Harper were stacking blocks into a makeshift castle.
I glared at her, but Stevie slapped my arm, getting my attention. “Why do I know that name?”
“Because there’s a statue of him outside the rink?” Shannon said, putting her hands around Harper’s ears. “You should hear the noises coming out of the back room when he’s here every morning, Stevie. Like amateur porn.”
Unfortunately, Stevie was mid-sip of her water when Shannon decided to add that tidbit of information. Water sprayed out of Stevie’s mouth and down her shirt, her eyes wide.
“It’s not like that.” I handed Stevie a towel, helping her clean up while I glared at Shannon. “He’s on long-term injured reserve for the Denver Yetis and is in town only as long as it takes to get him back on the ice. I’m overseeing his physical therapy.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Shannon said.
Stevie sat down on the reformer, and the shuttle slid away from the springs. She reached out to grab the foot bar, then turned to look at Shannon. “How old are you? Surely, we’re older than you.”
“Oh, you are.” Shannon added another block to the top of Harper’s tower. “Please get her to talk more about this though, Stevie. Drama feeds me. ”
I sighed and rubbed the heel of my palm over my forehead. “I mean, it’s nothing. Beckett’s is Ty’s best friend. He’s also Jace’s hockey coach. And he’s not even staying in town.”
Stevie blinked. “Okay, so naturally you’re flirting with him.”
“I’m not—” I groaned. “Okay. Maybe. But I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened .”
I recapped Sunday’s piriformis massage, and they both cackled in delight until all three of us were crying over how easy it was to make sexual innuendos out of everything he and I were doing.
“So let me get this straight.” Stevie wiped the corners of her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie.
“He’s hot. Helpful. Bonding with your teenage son.
Taking care of his mom. You know he’s a good guy, and you get to put your hands all over a professional athlete’s body in the name of science? And you’re mad about it?”
“I’m not mad .” I sat down on the mat next to her reformer. “I’m terrified.”
Harper squealed with joy at whatever tower she and Shannon had just built and then immediately knocked it over like Godzilla. Shannon clapped. “Good job, Harper! Can we do it again?”
Stevie leaned down until she was right in front of me.
“Emmy. We don’t know each other very well yet, but I think you’re allowed to be into someone, even if it’s a little messy.
Especially if you make each other feel good, and I don’t just mean in the ‘rolls two balls over your piriformis’ kind of way. ”
“Don’t say balls in front of Harper,” I whispered. “She’ll repeat it and make it sound dirty.”
“Girl, you have a son. No way is my daughter coming out unscathed with two older brothers talking about poop or balls at every possible turn. She’s fine. You, on the other hand…”
I pointed at my chest, not sure what I believed anymore, so I stuck with the facts.
“I’m a divorced single mom, and I can’t afford a temporary distraction.
Beckett is so much more than a hot body and a pretty face.
He’s kind. And good with Jace. And loves his mom.
And he listens to me. And that’s exactly the problem. ”
Shannon’s head popped up over the tower, apparently still listening. “Wow, you’re down bad. That’s not even crush talk. That’s commitment talk.”
“Stop helping,” I said.
“I’m just saying,” she muttered, “the last guy you went on a date with wore toe shoes unironically.”
“Toe shoes?” Stevie said, her face rightfully twisted in disgust at the mention of my one and only attempt at online dating since coming back to town.
“We were never going to talk about that again, Shannon,” I deadpanned my not-friend.
“ You weren’t,” Shannon said as the tower tumbled again to the sound of Harper’s little “ Yay!” “I’m for sure going to talk about it again.”
“But Beckett?” Stevie poked me in the leg, and I looked up at her. “He sounds like he might actually be worth the mess.”
I groaned and flopped onto the mat, staring up at the ceiling fan like it might know the solution to my problems. “I don’t want to drag Jace into something that isn’t real. I can’t let him get attached to someone who’s only temporary and will forget about him the moment he leaves.”
“But what if it is real?” Stevie slid to the floor next to me until our shoulders touched. “He stayed when he didn’t have to, stepped up to help your kid, showed up even on days you’re not scheduled to see him… That doesn’t seem temporary to me.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again, because hope was something I didn’t have room for. That thought cracked something open in my chest that I wasn’t ready to face.
“I’m not putting my life on hold for a man again,” I said, thinking back to the years I’d spent on the sidelines of my marriage to Ryan. “I can’t do that to Jace or myself.”
Steve turned her face toward me. “Has he asked you to?”
“You know”—I squinted at her through slitted eyes and a reluctant smile—“I was so excited to be the friend you needed. When did you decide to be the friend I needed?”
Stevie shrugged, then grinned back. “When you apologized for honking at me in the parking lot days after it happened, like it had been haunting you. I recognize a girl’s girl when I see one.”
I looped my arm through hers, once again doing anything but Pilates in our hour together. “I think I like this Moms of Mayhem thing.”
“Me too.” Stevie leaned her head on mine, and we laid there for a moment, listening to the soft piano music filtering through the overhead speakers. I hadn’t listened to it until now, but once I was paying attention, a chuckle left me.
“Is this a piano rendition of Pony?”
The sound that came out of Stevie was more wheeze than laugh, and we both laid there shaking with laughter realizing every single song Shannon had on her playlist was some PG version of horny as hell songs.
Pony gave way to Hands to Myself , then Sex on Fire , then Hips Don’t Lie.
With each new song we laughed harder, turning this into one heck of an ab workout after all.
When the hour was up, Shannon strolled over, staring down at us while holding Harper on her hip. Her grey eyes twinkled with mirth, even though the rest of her expression looked bored as always.
“Diabolical.” Stevie pointed at Shannon, then stood up to take her daughter back. “That was good.”
Shannon smoothed Harper’s hair down but looked at me. “If you don’t go to The Lantern on New Year’s and wear something slutty to tease the Hockey God, I’m quitting.”
Stevie laughed again, holding a stitch in her side, then nodded in agreement.
“So, what? You’ll go back to taking orders at Slice and Spice?” I got up to stand next to them. “I thought they were dead to you after they tried to coin the term Zaco—pizza and tacos.”
She breathed a long, exasperated sigh through her nose, lightly shaking her head. “Don’t even get me started on how stupid that is. But that tells you how serious I am.”
“I don’t know, it’s kinda catchy,” Stevie said, and Shannon shot her a flat look that sent me into a fit of giggles. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight. But I agree with Shannon. Be open to something good happening, even if it’s just for a little while.”
Harper leaned over from Stevie’s arms and patted my cheek, then said, “Balls!”
Everyone froze.
Stevie shriek-laughed, pinning Harper to her chest.
Shannon pressed her hands into her eyes, but her chest shook with laughter.
I covered my face with both hands. “I’m never going to survive New Year’s.”