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“I told you I’m not interested in looking for a woman to marry. At least, not in a bar.”
“This is about your future. At least look alive, man. It’s like you body-swapped with Nathan.”
I wish. Then I wouldn’t behere.
But Alec is not wrong. I can feel the heaviness bearing down on me, a weighted blanket of discontent. I stare down at my shoes, a new pair of Vans. I have a thing for skater shoes. Maybe because growing up, we never could afford them. My kid self would lose it if he knew how many pairs I own now. A small consolation at the moment.
Being moody doesn’t suit me. It’s like wearing a jersey ten sizes too small. But I’m not able to shake the doom and gloom tonight. It’s even worse than before lasagna, which means ricotta therapy was a fail. Or maybe it was simply offset by this whole fiasco.
“I can’t be sunshine all the time,” I say, taking a sip of my beer, wondering if I should just head home.
Except … book club. We left Felix’s early since Gracie was coming over. It’s only eight o’clock, and Mom’s book ladies have been known to linger.
Van walks up with a woman on each arm and the kind of look I want to smack right off his face. Both blonds—one with straight hair, one curly. But their faces are indistinct to me, probably because I’m not interested. It’s not them. It’s me.
I shift in my chair, looking across the room longingly at Wyatt as he lines up a shot at the pool table, laughing at something Cam says. I suck at pool. But I’d much rather have a cue stick in my hand and be losing to the new guys than have an overeager Van thrusting two blonds my way.
As though invited—to be clear, they were not—the women drop onto my lap, one on each knee.
I glare at Van between their shoulders. Despite my sport of choice, I’ve never been in a fight. Not even on the ice. Van says this makes me a unicorn of hockey. I think it just means I’m measured and even-tempered, easy to forgive.
But now?
Now, I’d like to throw my first punch. At my teammate. In a bar. Where he’s trying to “help.”
“Our boy Eli seems to have lost his smile,” Van says to the women, who giggle as though he waved a magic giggle wand. “See what you can do about that, hmm?”
Both women nod enthusiastically. I’d put money on the fact that they would say yes to any guy who wears an Appies jersey. Oranykind of jersey. I start to get up, but Van comes around behind my chair, resting his hands a little too firmly on my shoulders as he leans close to my ear.
“Remember: you’re doing this for your country.Thiscountry, not Canada.” He hums the opening bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before slapping me on the back and loosening his grip.
The women settle in and lean in close, their arms snaking around my shoulders as the mix of their perfume makes me sneeze. I glare at Van, but he only grins and heads back out. Probably to find more potential victims.
I sigh, giving the women pressing in on either side a cursory glance. I want to be polite but don’t want to encourage conversation.
Or anything else.
“I’m Eli.” Nice and neutral. No hint of flirtation. Nothing to give off any hope. “And could you actually … use chairs?”
When they stare blankly, like my request for them to vacate my personal space is outlandish, I reach to the side, grabbing chairs. Then I gently but firmly urge the women off my lap.
“Hockey’s hard on the knees,” I say, which is actually true. Even if that’s not why I don’t want them sitting on mine.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop them from draping themselves over me. Fabulous.
“I’m Brenda,” purrs the one with the straight hair, dragging a fingertip up my forearm.
“Kellie,” the other woman says in the same kind of voice. They sound like throaty babies. Like two-year olds with head colds. “Kellie with an -ie not a -y. In case you want to put it in your phone.”
I definitely do not.
Alec grins as he taps on his, probably entering Kellie with an -ie into the spreadsheet I hope I never have to see.
“Brenda and Kellie,” Alec says. “Like the original90210.”
The women stare blankly, and I shake my head.
Alec sets his phone on the table for the first time since we got to Mulligans. “Beverly Hills, 90210? Am I the only one who streams nineties TV shows? Never mind. I’m getting a beer.”
