Page 2 of The Fake Husband Play (That Steamy Hockey Romance #1)

Chapter

One

ELOISE “ELLY” THIBODEAUX

Excerpt from the LOVE ON ICE PODCAST

- EPISODE 127 Red Flags and Power Plays,

Recorded in October.

(Theme music fades.)

Welcome back to the Love on Ice podcast, where we break down the latest NHL gossip on and off the rink. I’m your host, Luvvy Puck, coming to you from…my bathtub. (The acoustics are great in here, don’t judge.)

(Sound of shower curtain rustling, followed by a quiet laugh.)

Tonight, we have red flags, green flags, and what happens when a player you love goes viral for all the wrong reasons.

I’m looking at you, Trevor Morrison of the Seattle Storm, who apparently thought taking a woman to Boobie Bob’s Lobster Shack was appropriate first-date behavior.

Lovies, I’m no prude. I’m from New Orleans, for goodness’ sake—we have a proud tradition of flashing our tatas for Mardi Gras treats.

Still, I feel confident saying that most women don’t want boobies in their face on a first date. But Trevor’s fatal mistake came when he asked this poor girl to split the bill even though she’s in nursing school. On scholarship.

Which she shared during the date . But maybe he was too distracted by all the “lobster” to remember…

Either way, your fifty-fifty play took this from a red flag to a full-fledged dating penalty, Trevor. Do better.

[Womp womp, penalty sound effect.]

Moving on to green flags! And our favorite Engagin’ Cajun, star of the New Orleans’ Voodoo expansion team, Grammercy Graves…

[Dreamy sigh sound effect.]

Picture this: Our boy, a microphone, and a bilingual reading of The Day the Crayons Quit at the Children’s Literacy Fair.

The man was reading to the kids in English and French, my friends. And his accent? Was it good, you ask? Was it everything a girl with a love of hockey, sexy forearms, and bilingual men could hope for?

Well, let’s just say I may have watched the French part a dozen times with my eyes closed…

[Actual, real-life dreamy sigh.]

And when he was done, he signed jerseys for the kids and didn’t even get mad when two boys started playing rough with the stick he brought and broke it.

And yeah, a part of me feels obligated to make a joke about how much I’d like to play with his stick, but that moment was too sweet and generous to debase with my frisky commentary.

This man is truly wonderful in every way.

Grammercy Graves is a walking green flag; case closed.

But the real question is: Where can we find a guy like that to call our own? I wish I could say, Lovies. But the dating apps are cesspools, the singles’ events are mostly other women, and that “nice” boy from church is always a mouth breather with mommy issues.

Or a cheapskate who takes you to Boobie Bob’s and asks to split the bill.

[Heavy sigh.]

And that, my darlings, takes us full circle. Life may be sour, but may your dreams be full of hockey players as sweet as Louisiana pralines and five times as satisfying.

Until next time, this has been Love On Ice—he shoots, I moan. For girls still holding out hope for a hockey hottie of their very own.

[Theme music fades in as episode ends.]

Fifteen minutes later, I hit publish on my latest episode—the editing isn’t my best, but my listeners are cool about things like that—and climb out of the bathtub to investigate the thudding sound I heard.

At first, I thought it was noise pollution on the track, until I rewound and realized it was coming from outside my “recording studio.”

Which means it’s time to check on Mimi.

I slip quietly out of the bathroom, clutching my laptop and mic like precious cargo. If anything were to happen to them, there’s certainly no room in the current budget for new recording equipment.

The apartment feels smaller in the darkness, our secondhand furniture casting mismatched shadows, reminding me of all the other things I can’t afford to replace.

Down our short hallway, Mimi’s door is cracked—she likes a little light filtering in to “keep the bad dreams away.” Usually, a thud from her room is just my girl knocking a toy off the bed in her sleep, but I’m too much of a worrywart not to check .

If anything ever happened to her because I was busy with my hobby, I would never forgive myself.

I peek inside, and my heart squeezes tight.

God, she’s so stinking cute. My daughter is ridiculously precious when she’s asleep.

As usual, Mimi is sprawled across her twin mattress like a tiny Victorian woman who just had a fainting spell, surrounded by all the toys she insists on taking to bed, so none of them will “get their feelings hurted.” One arm is thrown up over her head, and her dark curls fan across her stuffed unicorn like a second mane.

Thankfully, her nebulizer sits silent on the nightstand tonight—no wheezing, no breathy cough that sometimes tags along when her immune system’s under siege.

But the sight of it reminds me of the three prescription bottles nearly empty on the kitchen counter.

Not the top-tier meds her rheumatologist wanted—those cost more than our monthly rent, even with insurance—but they’ve been helping keep the worst of it at bay.

But that’s help I can’t count on anymore…

How long until we’re forced back to the old steroid routine that the state will pay for? Is she really in partial remission, or will this mean a return to swollen joints and emergency room trips every few weeks when the pain spikes out of control?

Everything will be okay, it always is in the end, I assure myself, just like Mama Becky used to when times were tough.

My foster mom was the kindest, steadiest woman I’ve ever known.

She never gave in to despair, not even when Papa Jim died, and we struggled to cover the mortgage for a year until his life insurance finally kicked in.

If she was scared, she never let it show, and she never even considered putting me back into the system.

If she were here, she would tell me not to lose faith, to trust that I’m strong and resourceful enough to provide for myself and my daughter.

But the stack of bills on the kitchen counter tells another story.

Setting my equipment down on the hall table, I tiptoe to Mimi’s bed, brushing a curl from her forehead to lay gentle fingers on her skin. She’s warm but not feverish, and her breath comes steady and deep. The good days have started to outnumber the bad ones in the past six months, but now…

What will happen now that my insurance from the station is gone?

My stomach clenches at the memory of my walk of shame out of the newsroom this afternoon. My boss swore it was purely a budget issue, nothing to do with the quality of my work, but I’d never been fired before.

The entire process was humiliating and stressful.

Speaking of stress, I should probably stop hiding from my problems in hockey podcast land and deal with the HR email I’ve been avoiding. My fifteen hundred podcast subscribers bring me so much joy, but Love on Ice isn’t going to be paying the bills anytime soon.

But at least it keeps me sane.

When life as Eloise Thibodeaux, struggling single mom to a chronically ill little girl, feels too heavy, I retreat to the bathroom and become Luvvy Puck, dating coach and hockey fangirl.

Luvvy, who has a “roommate,” plenty of time to scroll through dating apps, and zero worries about how she’s going to take care of her child’s medical needs if this whole “CObrA plan” thing doesn’t work out.

With a soft sigh, I ease out of Mimi’s room, collect my laptop, and head for our ancient couch.

I joke that it’s my office.

It’s also my bedroom.

I couldn’t find a two-bedroom apartment in a reasonably safe neighborhood in my budget, and I wanted Mimi to have her own space. I want her to have all the “normal kid” things I can give her.

She deserves that after everything she’s been through.

She also deserves good, dependable healthcare, but that’s not the world we live in right now.

Sinking onto the corn chip scented cushions, I scan the termination email again, clicking on the link to learn more about CObrA coverage, extending benefits, and what forms I need to fill out.

An intimidatingly dense page of text pops up, written in even more intimidating legal-ese, sending a wave of anxiety prickling across my skin.

I’m not stupid—I was making straight A’s in high school before I dropped out to have Mimi and get my GED—but navigating bureaucracy isn’t my strong suit. Not even close. And, as usual, I’m exhausted.

Still, no matter how tired I am, I should start reading, figure out our options, and make a plan that doesn’t involve hiding in the bathroom, gushing about hockey players I’ll never meet.

Instead, I click over to my podcast webpage, grinning as I see the string of comments already waiting for me .

I might not have a ton of subscribers, but the ones I do have are rabid, and as prone to insomnia as I am.

LuvvyPuckLovie23: OMG THANK YOU! Just found the clip of Grammercy and the French does NOT disappoint. My panties might never be the same…

PuckYeah91: Okay, but seriously, imagine being the woman who gets to wake up next to the Engagin’ Cajun every morning . How is he so hot when he’s barely 5’8’’?

PuckBunny666: Are you high? He’s six feet tall! It says so right in his stats.

GravesIsMyBae: I was just going to post that.

He’s six feet tall, at LEAST. I ran into him at the grocery store in Portland before he left for New Orleans, and he made me feel tiny.

TINY, I tell you. (And horny. God, that man.

I need him to get traded back to Portland.

My Badgers are NOT the same without him.)

HockeyMomNJ: Trevor is an asshole. Grammercy is husband material.

If I weren’t already married, you better believe I’d be moving to New Orleans to stalk that man full time.

Luvvy, you have to live the dream for all of us!

Track that man down and make him take you out on the town.

You’re the kind of sexy, smart, take-no-bullshit kind of woman a man like that needs. You’d be perfect together!

I click out of the comments, heat flooding my cheeks .

If only they knew their sassy, straight-shooting host is a broke single mom who’s barely dated at all since her daughter was born. A homebody who spends her Friday nights researching hockey stats and watching games she was too busy to catch live instead of putting her dating advice to the test.

But maybe that’s okay.

Maybe we’re all dreamers on the internet.

Maybe it’s okay to fantasize about men like Grammercy Graves from the safety of my bathtub studio. Maybe it’s enough to imagine what it would feel like to have a good man talking French to me in the dark.

Someday, I’ll have enough time and money to catch my breath and start looking for something real.

But until then…

Closing my laptop—tomorrow, scary CObrA paperwork—I tiptoe back to check on Mimi one more time.

She’s up at the top of her bed now, practically upside down, with her unicorn under her bottom. Fighting a laugh, I gently guide my wild-sleeping girl into a more comfortable position. Love for her is my North Star, the way it has been since the day the nurse laid her in my arms.

Everything will be all right, baby, I think as I kiss her forehead—a lie I pray won’t stay a lie for long.