Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 53034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
She sets the card down and gets up, her belly making her a little slower. Making her way through the tables filled with people, she reaches my father, who is standing up by then. Carter follows her.
When she hugs my dad, she’s clearly emotional, and Carter is, too. My heart swells. I would’ve missed things like this if I’d moved. Though I would’ve missed Lucien most of all, being part of my dad’s Crush family is very important to me now.
Here, I’m not the woman whose sister stole her fiancé. I’m not the depressed woman who could hardly get off her couch for months. I’m not the drunken girl from the viral video.
I’m a team trainer. Lucien’s girlfriend. Suki, Mara and Lainey’s friend. The head coach’s daughter. But none of the other things are because I’m his daughter. I have my own place here, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been.
Lucien returns to his seat, hands me my drink, and then leans over and whispers in my ear. I turn to whisper back.
“A week at an Italian villa with a yacht. But don’t repeat that. If they tell people, it’s fine, but we’re not going to.”
He nods, looking impressed, and mutters, “Damn, Coach.”
Angie got a lot of my dad’s money in the divorce, but he still has more than enough. He invested a lot when he was a player, and those investments have paid off many times over. He invited me and Lucien on a two-week summer trip to the South of France, and my younger siblings, Chance and Chloe, are also going.
I’ve been on those trips before, and they’re unforgettable. We’ll mostly be on a yacht, hosting parties and going to parties on other yachts. And we’ll also explore on land and do some shopping.
Audra and Kyle weren’t invited, even though I told my dad I didn’t mind if he invited them. He said being trapped on a boat with Kyle and Lucien at the same time isn’t really a vacation for him.
Which, fair. After all the wedding antics, I’m sure one or both of them would end up being thrown overboard at least once. Dad’s not a Kyle fan, for obvious reasons, but he likes Lucien. He just doesn’t want to be seen as giving him preferential treatment, so he treats him like all his other players.
Suki is back to opening gifts, and I turn to look at my dad again. The woman is sitting close to him again, laughing. Dad’s lips are quirking with a smile. I furrow my brow with disapproval.
She’s way too young for him. He’s still newly divorced—it hasn’t even been a year yet. But she’s gazing adoringly at him, like she wants him to put a baby in her immediately.
I lean closer to Lucien. “Look at the fetus flirting with my dad.”
“I saw.”
That makes me smile. He refuses to look again, because he doesn’t want me to think he’s gawking at another woman.
“How old do you think she is?”
He gives me a neutral look, keeping his voice soft. “I think we should talk about that later.”
Suki finishes opening all the gifts, and Harry’s servers start to bring out dessert plates. He made a delicious lunch of cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, smoked salmon sandwiches, and salad. He’s also serving individual lemon tarts, in keeping with the yellow color scheme, since Suki and Carter decided not to find out their baby’s gender until it’s born.
The tarts even have powdered sugar stars dusted on top. Lucien only has two bites of his before pushing the plate aside.
“It’s amazing,” he says, setting his fork down. “I wasn’t going to have any, but then I saw it and I had to.”
He’s on a no-sugar diet in the home stretch of the hockey season. The team is in a tight race for a playoff spot, so the players have all tightened up their diets and training routines.
I get to be on the team bench during games now, and it’s my favorite part of the job. Melina and I go out on the ice to assess injuries, and we bandage cuts and check injuries for players who are on the bench.
Even though I’m not a player, I feel like part of the game now. A Nashville player came tumbling over the wall onto our bench last week, and even though Silas blocked him from landing right on top of me, a bead of his sweat still splashed onto my arm.
I get to be front and center for the chirping between players now, and I see why Lucien’s teammates sometimes call him Loki. He’s an instigator, throwing opponents off their game as often as he can.
The shower is wrapping up, people starting to leave, when Lainey approaches me.
“Hey, are you free for some shopping sometime? I have to get a swimsuit for our trip and I’d rather do literally anything else. Maybe we could make it fun somehow. Like not shop for swimsuits and go out to eat instead.”