Page 26

Stupid Girl

Mia

It was eerily calm when our plane touched down in Tampa in mid-October.

The way we came in, you never would have known there was a hurricane wreaking havoc in Cuba. Weather experts were anticipating that it would gain strength over the warm waters of the Gulf before swinging up toward Louisiana.

But in Tampa, it was sunny, just some fluffy white clouds coasting over the blue sky in a pattern that swirled if you watched it close enough. It was as if that storm was sucking up all the energy within its vicinity, leaving nothing but sunshine for the outskirts.

And everyone was business as usual.

Isabella swore to me there was nothing to worry about when we made the arrangements for me to come to Aleks’s game before heading up the coast to New York for my first set of shows. She used to live in Florida, and she assured me that everyone would stock up on water and some non-perishable food just in case but that the most that would happen would be a little wind and rain.

Nothing to worry about, nothing that could interfere with my flight out of here tomorrow.

I texted that pink-haired brat as I descended the stairs off the plane, letting her know I’d landed fine and that I’d call when I made it to the house. We’d been able to secure the same one on Davis Island for the past couple of months of this charade with Aleks, and it basically felt like a second home at this point.

I planned to stay tucked away within its walls until the game started, until I could sneak through the back and be escorted to my suite. I’d put on a bit of a show there, wear Aleks’s stupid fucking jersey, and then let the cameras catch us leaving together.

He’d drop me off at home, I’d get a good night’s sleep, and this time tomorrow, I’d be in New York City with the rest of my band, dancers, and crew.

It was where I should be right now . I wanted to be there with them. I wanted to be rehearsing, even though I knew we’d rehearsed so much I couldn’t miss a step of choreo even if there was someone throwing buckets of water at me or buttering the bottom of my high heels.

I’d buried myself in this album release, in this tour, more than ever over the last two months.

Anything to not think about Aleks.

The proposal had messed me up more than I wanted to admit to myself, let alone anyone else. I thought I’d be fine after I got away from him for a while, after I got home to California and dove into work.

But everything just got worse with that distance between us.

I was so confused, trying and failing to dig through my thoughts and feelings so I could pull them out, one by one, and face them. I thought if I could name them, I could put them behind me just the same.

Joke was on me.

Any time I did see Aleks for a planned publicity stunt, I felt that irrational anger inside me bubble up again. It was infuriating that I couldn’t dust off the whole ordeal. So what, he’d said some lovey-dovey stuff on a boat at sunset. So what, I had more feelings for him than I admitted to Isabella or anyone else.

It was a show, a game, a part of a bigger plan.

And I was a professional.

I needed to get my shit together and stop being such a little crybaby about it all.

The truth was that I wasn’t mad at Aleks. I was mad at myself. I knew what I was getting myself into, and yet I had the gall to be upset when my feelings got tangled up in all the pretending. It didn’t matter that he made it feel real sometimes… that was his role to play.

And how was he supposed to know that, deep down, I wanted to believe what he said.

It was me who had broken my own damn heart.

I tried to move on. I tried to shake it all off. But just when I’d think I was on the up and up, when I’d be focused on the album and the tour, Aleks would show up or I’d fly out to see him.

And I’d realize that no matter how I iced him out, he was always going to find his way inside my heart.

I repeated the steps of my plan the whole flight here, finding comfort in the fact that I was in control, that this was just one more thing to get through before I could kick off this tour that I’d thrown my all into. I couldn’t wait to see my fans, to dance and sing with them, to finally feel this album come to life.

I just had to survive the next twenty-four hours first.

“Surprise!”

I startled at the chorus of voices that shouted that word at me, nearly fumbling my phone as I hit the tarmac. When I realized who the voices belonged to, I blinked, unsure of how to react. Fortunately, I’d faked enough shit in my life up to this point that a smile slid into place easily, and I peeled off my sunglasses with a delight that almost felt real.

“What in the world are you gorgeous ladies doing here?”

Standing in front of a pearl white SUV with very tinted windows was Maven Tanev, Livia Young, Grace Tanev, and Chloe Knott.

AKA — the wives and girlfriends of Aleks’s friends.

Er, maybe friends was a strong word. Teammates was probably the more accurate one. And technically, Livia was their team dentist and no one’s girlfriend. In fact, I was pretty sure Isabella tried to make her her girlfriend a couple times, only to be broken hearted that Livia didn’t seriously date anyone .

But she was Maven’s best friend and they seemed attached at the hip. Also, I was pretty sure Carter Fabri had a massive crush on her — whether she saw it or not.

They looked like the final curtain call of a high-end fashion show, all of them dolled up in dresses or curve-hugging suits with heels strapped to their feet. While Maven and Livia sported theirs with confidence, Grace and Chloe looked a little more out of their element, like they’d been wrangled into dressing up by the other two. Still, they were all absolutely stunning.

I had no idea why the hell they were here.

I’d first met them at my album release party. Since then, we’d hung out only a couple times — once at the fake engagement party that Aleks and I had thrown, and once during a planned photo opportunity with the team before preseason kicked off.

These girls were impossible not to like, from Maven and Livia’s quick wit and sass to Grace’s free spirit and Chloe’s genuine sweetness.

But I still didn’t know why they were greeting me on this tarmac when I had planned to spend the day very much alone.

I squeezed my phone in my hand, suspecting Isabella had a hand in it.

She hated how much I’d been in my head lately. I would not have put it past her to set something like this up.

“Okay, hopefully you won’t be mad, and hopefully you didn’t have any big plans,” Grace started, being the first to make her way to where I was frozen at the bottom of the stairs. She grasped my hand in hers and squeezed, bouncing a little like an excited child would. “But… well, we just really wanted to get to know you better.”

“And we asked Aleks to help us surprise you,” Chloe chimed in from behind. “Aleks and Isabella,” she added, confirming my suspicions.

Aleks wanted to surprise me.

Something about that made my stomach flip, that he thought to do something nice for me when I’d been so chilly toward him for months.

“We thought it would be super fun to do a girls’ brunch before the game later. We booked a private place, no paparazzi — we were assured. And the best cocktails,” Grace promised.

“We can also completely fuck off,” Livia said, subtly squeezing Grace’s shoulders and backing her out of my space a bit. “Because this was obviously not what you expected, and we don’t want to intrude.”

“But,” Maven said, offering me a genuine smile. “We really do want to hang. If you do. And I promise — with this crew, there will be no shortage of entertainment.”

They all fell silent then, their hopeful eyes on me, and though everything inside me was screaming to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. And, truth be told, I needed a girls’ day. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one of those.

So, I smiled, tucking my phone inside my purse. “Brunch and cocktails? How could I say no when you’re speaking my love language?”

Grace squealed and bounced up and down while Chloe clapped excitedly. Livia and Maven shared a smirk with me before Maven jutted her chin toward the SUV. “Let’s roll, trolls.”

It was said with love and met with a chorus of laughter.

Then, after a quick conversation with my assistant and security team about the slight change in plans, we were off.

· · ·

“I really appreciate you not judging me for fangirling the first few times we hung out,” Chloe said, sucking down the last of her mimosa before Maven was instantly refilling it. The adorable redhead was a giggling mess as she leaned closer to me. “You have to understand, I teach kindergarten. You’re kind of like the queen of everything to them.”

I chuckled, sipping from my own drink as I grabbed my hair in a handful and pulled it off to one shoulder. I never quite knew how to react to statements like that. It was amazing to be loved by children, to see them dancing and singing my songs.

But it was also a big part of why my career hadn’t been taken seriously for so long. It was Garrett Orange’s favorite punchline. It was every powerful man and snide woman’s first hit when it came to trying to knock me down or add a but to any accomplishment I had.

“I can’t even imagine that job,” I said, dragging the attention back to her. “Do you ever just want to… I don’t know, pull your hair out?”

Grace laughed. “I know I would, but Chloe here is a little angel on Earth,” she said, squeezing Chloe in a hug around the shoulders. “Patience of a saint and kindness of a woodland fairy.”

“With the fire of a witch,” Maven added. “Because she’s the only woman in the world who could tame Daddy P.”

Livia lifted her glass in a silent cheers to that before slinging back the last of her champagne and refilling. “Alright, I’m tired of dancing around the question we all want to ask.” She leaned her elbow on the table then, narrowing her dark cat eyes at me with a delicate arch of her brow. “How the hell did you end up engaged to Aleks fucking Suter?”

“Liv,” Maven hissed.

“Don’t act like you don’t want to know.” Livia waved her off, her eyes never leaving me.

I smiled, fingering the stem of my champagne glass. “He asked, I said yes. What more do you need to know?”

“I need to know if that man has you dickmatized, because as much as I appreciate the brute and what he does for our team — I don’t exactly see him as your type.”

“ Liv ,” Maven chastised again.

But I loved that Livia was unapologetic in her questioning — even if the sentiment in her tone stung a bit.

Was she saying that it was weird that I was with NHL’s bad boy, or that I didn’t seem like the type he usually went for?

It was phrased like the first, but felt like the latter the longer she stared at me. It wasn’t necessarily that she was sizing me up, but rather like she was a detective looking for cracks in my story.

And there were many, many cracks — so I knew I needed to tread carefully.

Swallowing down the fact that I was well aware I wasn’t Aleks’s type — no matter how well he pretended otherwise — I forced what I hoped was a dopey, lovesick smile, my eyes falling to my champagne.

“It doesn’t make sense, that I will admit,” I said wistfully. “But… I don’t know. It just sort of happened. We were best friends when he lived with my family in high school. He opened up to me about things he didn’t tell anyone else, and I guess that made me feel safe to do the same.”

My throat tightened with the truth of that statement, with how much I cared for that stupid boy.

The words he’d said in that fake proposal echoed in my ears.

“I could never stop loving you — no matter how hard I tried over the years.”

How many nights had those words kept me awake over these last two months? How many days did I spend plucking through every fiber of them in search of something I knew didn’t exist?

I wanted that statement to be real. I wanted all of it to be real.

What a stupid girl I was.

“We kept in touch over the years, but there was always someone or something between us. I dated other people, he had his career to focus on, we lived in different states.” It was insane how easily I could tell this lie now, how effortlessly I played into the exact scenario that was killing me from the inside. “But after we reconnected earlier this year, we just… decided we didn’t want to play the excuses game anymore. We wanted to try. We wanted to make it work.”

My heart twisted violently, stomach roiling.

How desperately I wanted that to be true.

“And now, here we are,” I said, smiling at the girls as I lifted my glass to take a sip. I didn’t realize I had tears in my eyes until one sneaky bastard leaked and ran down my left cheek. I batted it away, and then laughed a little when I realized I’d made Chloe cry a bit, too.

“That’s so romantic, I want to die a little,” she said, sniffing.

Livia tapped her nails on the table before pointing at me. “Well, all I have to say is that I think you’re a good look for him. I think you bring out the better in him.”

“I co-sign that,” Maven added immediately. “And I am also in the camp that it’s less about him having you dickmatized — although, I think we all had fun when those beach pics of him streaking came out — and more about the fact that he is as soft as a baby kitten when it comes to you.”

“The things he said in that proposal?” Grace squeaked.

“The way he nearly ended a man’s life when he was playing the role of hot security guard after you recorded at the Daisy Kent show?” Chloe chimed in.

They fanned themselves and talked over one another about which was hotter, all while my knee bounced under the table. I needed a change of subject before I crawled out of my fucking skin.

Because everything in me wanted to tell them it was all a sham.

And for reasons I couldn’t quite speak out loud, I wanted to tell them how I really felt. I wanted to tell them how my heart was breaking every second of this charade. I wanted to tell them how I’d gotten myself into this mess, and now I couldn’t wait to get out of it.

I wanted to ask them how the fuck I was supposed to pick up all the pieces when this was all said and done, when we faked the break up and I was expected to just go on like nothing had happened — our deal done, the piper paid.

How could I ever forget the way it felt for him to press his hand against the small of my back when we walked in and out of restaurants?

How was I supposed to erase the memory of his mouth on mine, of his hands in my hair, claiming me and driving me mad?

How would I ever fall in love with anyone else when I knew my heart would always belong to him?

“Oh, shit,” Maven said, interrupting the fit of laughter the girls were currently entangled in as she frowned at her phone.

“What? Vince forget to water your Monstera again?” Livia teased.

But Maven didn’t so much as crack a smile. “Um, apparently we have missed quite a big development in the span of our four-hour brunch.” She was already typing away to whoever it was who had texted her. “The hurricane swung.”

“Swung?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

But suddenly, the girls were silent.

They all pulled out their phones.

“Will has called like eight times,” Chloe murmured. “Oh, he’s probably so worried.” She was already scooting off her chair and rushing to the hallway where the bathrooms were, the phone to her ear.

“Jax, too,” Grace chimed in. “Holy shit. He said the game was canceled.” She looked at me and Livia with wide eyes before hopping up from the table and finding her own corner to call in.

“Okay, can someone fill me in on what is happening?” I asked, heart starting to race. “What does this mean? What’s going on?”

Livia cursed at her phone before setting it on the table and sliding it toward me, screen lit up with a bright red weather alert.

“It’s not heading for Louisiana anymore,” she said. “It’s coming straight for Tampa.”

I blinked at the screen, my ears ringing, brain trying to grasp what that meant as I scrambled for my own phone. There were a dozen missed calls from my parents, along with Rina, Glo, Marci, and Isabella. My pink-haired friend had also sent me a text in all caps that said DO NOT STRESS, I WILL HANDLE THIS. I blinked again when I saw the texts from James, whom I’d made promise me he would stay outside and let me have a peaceful brunch unless there was a dire emergency. His texts simply informed me of the situation, and then each one urged that he felt we should get somewhere safe sooner rather than later.

Bless that man for listening to my wishes, but curse him for being so literal about what defines a dire emergency.

Text after text, call after call, but all of it faded to the background when I saw the two missed texts from Aleks.

Tell me where you are, I’m coming to get you.

And don’t worry, Strings. I’ll keep you safe.