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“Clara,” Stephano said, nodding his head at me.
The whole team actually welcomed me, and it felt like an official ceremony of sorts. “Does this mean I’m allowed at your parties now?”
“Of course,” Stephano said. “Officially.”
“Can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” Sly said, looking happier and more relaxed than I thought I’d ever seen him.
“What’s with the tower of pucks?”
“It’s symbolic,” Tyler Cornwall explained.
“Because we’re wombats,” Chris Houstein went on.
I shook my head. They couldn’t mean...
“You’re a biologist, right?” Cade Simpson asked, his wide grin apparent, even beneath the enormous beard.
“I am,” I confirmed.
“Then you know how wombats communicate, and how they court a potential mate, right?” He nodded slowly.
“By...stacking their cube-shaped feces,” I replied, staring at the tower.
The team all cheered.
“The tower is supposed to be your poop?” Katie asked Sly.
I couldn’t suppress the laugh that escaped me at Sly’s indignant face. “No.” He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck, looking around. “I mean, kind of?”
I laughed harder.
“Guys,” he said, sounding a tiny bit angry now. “We might need to rethink this whole symbolic act thing...”
I pulled him close to me and kissed him again. “I love it,” I told him. “And I love you.”
“Can we go to the party now?” Katie asked.
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Sly. “I guess we’d better.”
“Thanks, guys,” Sly told his teammates.
“Any time,” Cade replied, reaching to shake Sly’s hand and then giving me a kiss on the cheek.
We said goodbye to the team, and then Katie and Sly and I headed for the reception, the three of us walking hand in hand as a towering table of puck-poop sat in the dying light near the lakeside.
CHAPTER27
SLY
WINNING IS EVERYTHING
My brother’s wedding was pretty fucking awesome. Probably because my brother was awesome, and he’d found a woman who perfectly complimented him. I was biased in many ways, of course, not the least of which was because Beck and Zara had been kind enough to allow me to momentarily hijack their wedding for my own selfish purposes.
“It wasn’t selfish,” Zara said later as we finally sat down to have some dinner at their reception. “You were a total beast while you and Clara were apart, and we wanted to have a fun wedding. We had no choice but to help.”
I dropped my jaw open and stared at her like this was shocking news, but I knew she was right. I’d been miserable.
