Page 20 of Sexting the Coach (Pucking Daddies #6)

Elsie

The squeals coming from Hattie and Mabel through the phone are loud enough to break glass. Luckily, the mirror in the fancy hotel bathroom stays intact, because I can’t deal with that kind of bad luck tonight. Especially not with how weird things have been between Weston and me.

“You look hot!” Hattie says, getting close enough that I can see straight up her nostril. “I knew that red was a good look on you!”

“It doesn’t wash me out?”

“You know it doesn’t,” Mabel teases, grabbing Hattie and pulling her back so I can see both of them again. “You called for compliments, let us give them to you.”

I laugh, then glance at myself in the mirror—she’s right. It took me two hours to get ready, but my hair is perfectly curled, this red dress hugs me like a dream, and I’m wearing the fancy perfume my mom got me as a graduation gift.

After weeks of wearing nothing but scrubs and polos, I feel like a person again.

I end the call with my roommates and walk out of the bathroom, watching as Weston pushes up off the wall, his eyes landing on me, traveling up and down my body once, twice.

It’s been two nights since I came around his fingers in his bedroom, and things have continued to be weird.

Other than our training session—and that weirdly intimate hug after the game last night—we haven’t really seen each other.

He gave me a little key ring to his place—with a scanner fob and a real key—alone with the code to get in, so I could come and go as I pleased.

And at night, though I fantasize about him coming to my room, he hasn’t.

“Everything okay?” Weston asks when I arrive at his side. I nod and tuck my hand into his, almost wishing we weren’t keeping up this fake dating ruse.

Because it means I’m going to have to walk around with him all night, smelling his cologne and seeing how handsome he is in his suit, and I’m not going to get to do anything about it tonight.

The moment we walk back into the ballroom, we’re intercepted by a regal looking woman with a long neck and perfectly straight black hair.

“Weston,” she says, holding a champagne glass loosely in her hand. “Thank you for coming—I’m assuming we’re still on for the auction?”

“Sure thing,” he says, then glances at me, “Gigi, this is my girlfriend, Elsie.”

“Pleasure,” she says, reaching out her hand to me, and I’m not quite sure what to do, so I wrap my fingers around hers and shake her hand. If Mabel was here, she’d laugh at me.

“You, too,” I say, because what do you say to pleasure? I’m thankful when she walks away, because I don’t know how to talk old Hollywood, and Weston starts laughing the moment we’re out of earshot. “Oh, ha-ha,” I mutter, pushing against his arm.

“It’s not you,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Gigi is just…”

“Extra?” I supply, raising an eyebrow, which makes him laugh again. I ignore his chuckling and ask, “What are you buying at the auction?”

He sobers slightly, grinning at me, “Guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”

“That’s not a very nice way to treat your girlfriend.”

“Oh, trust me,” he says, lowering his voice and dipping his chin closer to mine, his eyes flicking back and forth over my face, “I am known to treat my girlfriends very nice.”

A shiver runs the length of my body, and it’s quickly followed by embarrassment. It’s true—I’m not even his girlfriend, and he did treat me very nice. Only for me to pass out immediately after.

For the next ten minutes, the two of us drift through the ballroom, mostly saying hello to people he knows. Each time, he introduces me to them as his girlfriend, and each time I have to wrestle with the mountain of wanting in my chest at the sound of that.

To my surprise, most of them don’t bat an eye at the age difference. The women chat with me amicably and the men are impressed by my knowledge of hockey.

Then, just after Weston replenishes the champagne in my hand, we turn the corner and run into two people I was not expecting to see here tonight.

“Elsie?” my mom says, blinking and glancing between me and Weston, her hand slipping off my father’s arm in surprise. They look like they always do—my mom perfectly polished, my dad like he was stuffed into the suit last minute and forced to come along.

How did I not know they were going to be here tonight.

“So, it’s true, then,” Dad says, his eyes darting over to Weston. “You’re dating my daughter.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Montgomery,” Weston says, sticking out his hand. “Big fan.”

I bite my tongue, heart thudding as my dad stares at his hand for a moment, before reaching out and shaking it.

“Alright,” Dad says, and I relax, catching my mom’s eye. We share a look—my father is known for being a hot head. Great for on the ice. Not so much when you’re trying to introduce boyfriends. “I actually can’t believe we haven’t crossed paths before.”

As Dad and Weston talk, Mom sidles up to me, giving me one of her sly smiles, “He’s cute.”

I roll my eyes, heat flaming over my face. My mom was obsessed with Jonathan—constantly asking when we were going to get married. I’d thought she’d be disappointed about Weston, given the difference in age.

“Yeah,” I agree, because although this thing might be fake, I don’t have to lie about that. “He is.”

“I never told you,” my mom whispers, going for another drink, then realizing her glass is empty. “But I dated an older guy in college—” she drops her voice to a whisper, “—a professor, actually. So, I get it. Little boost to move on from Johnny.”

I pull back to frown at her, but she’s clearly had more than her fair share of champagne tonight and doesn’t even register that I’m upset. I shouldn’t be upset—so what if my mom is acting like a relationship with Weston would just be a phase? It’s not real, anyway.

Maybe it’s the glass of champagne I’ve already finished, or maybe it’s what Weston said to me the other night, about talking to my brother, but I feel my mouth opening and words coming out before I can stop them.

“Have you heard from Drew lately?”

Mom blinks, a brief moment of sobriety before she turns to me, baffled. “What do you mean? Like today?”

I think about that nice, creamy envelope sitting atop the microwave at home. The several other pieces of mail from my brother all sitting in that graveyard.

The way that I’ve been avoiding seeing my brother when he goes home. Either missing family holidays or coming a day too late, just missing him on his way out again. Thanksgiving with just Mom, Dad, and me, because Drew couldn’t make it.

“No, never mind,” I say, watching as my mother settles down again, glancing at my father before quickly changing the subject.

It’s a good thing he’s still in conversation with Weston, because he might have used this as yet another opportunity to make it perfectly clear that he blames me for what happened.

For ruining Drew’s life.

“Alright,” Mom says, taking Dad’s arm and giving him a purposeful look.

Maybe she can tell there’s something different about me, that there’s something itching inside me to drag out all our ugly mess and sort through it once and for all, because she tugs on him.

“I think we have some other people to speak to before the auction. It was nice to meet you, Weston.”

“You, too, Sandra.”

With that, Weston and I are left alone, and my body feels strange, buzzing slightly. Like I rode the roller coaster to the top of the track and never got the satisfaction of plummeting back down.

“You okay?” Weston asks, his eyes on me as I take his arm again and we circle back over by the refreshments. “You want another drink?”

I glance at the empty glass in my hand, think about my mother—drinking wine on school nights, and drinking more after the incident. When we pass a bussing table, I deposit my glass on it and shake my head, not wanting Weston to see too much into the action.

“No, thanks,” I say, desperately trying to close myself back up, to make things as neat and tidy as they were before Weston came into the picture. “Let’s just try and get through the rest of the night.”

“Do I have ten? Ten for a date with Mr. Wolfe here?”

I have another glass in my hand—this one with water—and I hold it tight enough that I’m afraid I might crack the crystal.

Weston is up on the stage, wearing a backwards hat with his suit and somehow managing not to look like a jackass.

Beside him is one of his old jerseys in a glass frame, and Gigi stands in front of the microphone, smiling out at the crowd.

“Twelve!” an elderly woman in the front of the room shouts, lifting her hand, and I grit my teeth, sucking in a quick breath that does nothing to calm my nerves.

For the hundredth time tonight, I have to remind myself that Weston isn’t my real boyfriend.

That I should have no problem watching him go on a date with someone else.

Especially because the money for this—the twelve thousand dollars currently offered for a date with him—goes to charity. I glance at the banner and curse under my breath. A charity for kids with cancer. I’d be a massive bitch to be mad about him participating in this.

And, yet.

Another older woman on the other side of the room raises her hand, and for a second, the two grandmas trade back and forth, going up increments.

I’ve almost managed to calm myself down about it when a different hand goes up in the front of the crowd—one free of wrinkles and smooth, with a delicate silver chain around the wrist.

“Twenty,” she says, simply, and when I glance over in her direction, the breath nearly leaves my lungs. Long, straight brown hair. Beautiful blue eyes. A blue dress that hugs her ample chest and legs crossed daintily at the ankle.

“We have twenty!” Gigi calls, a grin stretching over her perfect red lips. Then, she meets my eyes in the audience, seeming to raise her eyebrows at me. “Do we have twenty-one?”

I look from Gigi, then to Weston, who is staring at the old woman on the far side of the room, like he’s waiting for her to bid again.

“Twenty-one?” Gigi calls again, and I shift side to side in my chair, glancing at the gorgeous brunette in the second row. I can see the whole thing—the two of them going on a date, staring into each other’s eyes over the table. He might explain to her that he and I aren’t actually that serious.

And—oh God, isn’t Leda Temple a brunette? Is that his type?

“Going once—”

“Fifty!”

A hush goes through the room, and I don’t know who’s called it out until I look down and realize I’m standing, my hand in the air. The brunette turns and looks at me, and several photographers snap photographs.

Weston is looking at me, but I can’t make out his expression from this far.

“Fifty!” Gigi calls, beaming at me and not giving anyone else time to match that bid. “To the beautiful girl in the back of the room!” Then, quieter, but not so quiet the microphone doesn’t pick up on it, she looks at Weston and says, “Looks like you’re one lucky guy, Wolfe.”