Forever PUCKED (Pucked #4)

by Helena Hunting

  “What about compromising at three?”

  “Odd numbers don’t work for me. I don’t like them. If your team number was odd, I think I might not have found you all that attractive.”

  “My number is odd.”

  “Not when you add it together.”

  I’m being an asshole, but seriously. Alex is talking about what seems like a minimum of four kids. I’ll low-ball it to something more reasonable, like two, and if he gets more than that it’ll seem like a win for him.

  Honestly, though, I can’t imagine the damage three babies will do to my body. I like my boobs. Alex loves my boobs. Three babies will turn them into empty sacks, according to all the horrible conversations I’ve overheard from women I work with. And babies interfere with sex. I don’t want to deal with that yet either.

  “I don’t know why we’re talking babies when we don’t even have our wedding planned.”

  Alex’s jaw tightens, and he retracts his arm from around me. Oh, shit. I’ve hurt his feelings. He seems like he’s about to get up and possibly leave the room.

  “Which I think we should talk about,” I add.

  He’s halfway into a sitting position. He drops back down on the pillow and eyes me warily. He looks uncertain. Afraid, even.

  I sit up and face him, crossing my legs. “You’re going to have some time on your hands while you’re waiting for your shoulder to heal.”

  He still looks unhappy.

  “So I figure it’s probably a good idea to plan something for the summer, before you have to start hardcore pre-season training.”

  He stares blankly at me.

  “Unless you think you’re going to be too busy with physical therapy. I mean, then maybe we should just wait until the following off-season…” I poke at the hole in my sock until my middle toe peeks out.

  “You want to get married this summer?” Alex sounds like he’s having a hard time believing it could be possible.

  “You’ll have the time to help me plan it. I know I’m organized with numbers, but that’s really about the only thing. There won’t likely be another year where the timing will be on our side. We can make the best out of an unfortunate situation.” I peek up at him. He’s still frowning. “I thought you’d be excited about setting a date.”

  “I would be if it didn’t feel like you were only doing this to make me feel better about being out for the season.” He’s sulking. He’s so cute. And sensitive.

  “It has nothing to do with that!” I say. Then I consider my reasons and decide I should rephrase. “Okay, so it has everything to do with you being out for the season.”

  Alex pushes back up into a sitting position. I grab his good arm before he can try to run away from me. Not that he would be very fast, but I don’t want him to hurt himself. “You’re misunderstanding me. This accident opened my eyes to a lot of things, the most pivotal being how important you are to me.”

  That stops him. He shifts so he can look at me. He’s still stiff, but he’s sensitive, so I assume he’s trying to reconcile his fragile ego.

  “I know how hard this is on you. I know it’s killing you to see Randy doing so well. That’s not why I want to marry you this summer. This—” I gesture to his body, because there are a lot of parts that are still injured. “—made me very aware of how we only get one shot at life.”

  “I don’t want this decision to be fear-based,” Alex says.

  “It’s not.” I take his hand in mine and play with his fingers. His nails are longer than usual. Probably because he can’t cut them on his own. “Look, my mom’s wedding wasn’t fun for me. And you know how I am when I get into a group of people. I always make an ass out of myself. But I’m willing to deal with that kind of potential humiliation if it means I get to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  He regards me for a long moment. “You really want to get married this summer?”

  I nod.

  “And it’s not because you feel bad for me?”

  “I wouldn’t marry you just to make you feel better about yourself, Alex. Usually your ego is plenty big without my help, anyway.”

  He wears a small, cocky grin. “So you want to marry me to stake a claim on my dick?”

  “Super MC deserves a wedding all his own. We’ll have a private Super MC and beaver ceremony.” I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve even researched the costumes. Not that Alex needs to know this. A beaver only gets promised to her Super MC once in a lifetime.

  “That sounds like fun.” His grin widens.

  “It will be if my beaver has anything to do with planning it.”

  Building him up is the best thing I can do for both of us. Also, it’s true. Alex is a lot of things—confident in the bedroom, amazing on the ice—but he also needs a lot of positive reinforcement. I used to think his asking if I was enjoying myself when we had sex was about courtesy.

  Partly it is. He likes to know he’s making me feel good. It’s also because he wants affirmation that he’s getting me off. He loves that I chant my love of his cock when I come. It’s the biggest ego stroke in the world for him. I’ve realized he’s like that with everything. The more praise he gets, the better he feels about himself.

  That’s not to say he’s egotistical. He thrives on reinforcement. And I’m not above giving it to him to make things easier for everyone. My man can be a delicate flower. It’s a sexy contradiction to the badass hockey player I get to watch on the ice.

  Except not for the rest of this season, hence the need to fill the void. And what better way to fill it than with a wedding?

  I have lots of thoughts on weddings. Mainly, I feel like they’re an archaic, patriarchal method of staking a claim on a beaver. Which might have been necessary in the dark ages, but isn’t so much now.

  Beyond that, I’m kind of excited to dress up like a princess for an afternoon, as long as I can wear flip flops under the dress, because heels suck.

  “So you’re sure about this summer?”

  “Positive.”

  “I can check out venues this week,” he offers.

  “That’d be awesome.” Score one for Violet. Just like I planned, I won’t have to do all the legwork, and Alex will have something to occupy his time while he’s recovering.

  However, I’m not a wedding savant. I have absolutely no idea how much time and effort goes into planning one, or how challenging it’s going to be to rein in Daisy and my mom once we tell them it’s happening.

  I also have no idea how gung ho Alex is going to be about the wedding. And I should. Because I know how he is about everything else in his life.

  He’s two-hundred percent about being the best hockey player.

  He’s two-thousand percent about being the best orgasm distributor.

  He’s two-million percent about being the best fiancé.

  So of course he’s going to up his game when planning a wedding. I should know this, but all I can think about is how I’m making my life easier while I stroke his ego.

  I really should know better by now.

  15

  Pussies Take the

  Easy Way Out

  VIOLET

  My phone buzzes for the eighty-millionth time. It’s a group message that includes my mom and Daisy. This whole feed started this morning. At six a.m. On a Saturday. It’s been endless since Daisy left three weeks ago, and it only seems to be picking up momentum.

  “You should turn that off,” Charlene says. “The whole point of this afternoon is to relax, and your phone buzzing constantly is the opposite of relaxing.”

  “I’m sure it’s just some pictures.” I shove a biscotti into my mouth so I’m unable to answer questions.

  I follow it up with a sip of my lactose-free latte. My dairy cravings have gone through the roof. It’s directly related to Daisy and my mom’s incessant texting.

  Daisy and Robbie are coming for a visit next weekend. I’m not sure why since I talk to her every single day.

  About the wedding.

&n
bsp; The motherpucking wedding.

  And of course Sunny’s pregnancy figures in heavily. Weddings and babies are Daisy Waters’ crack fix. And my mom’s. I had no idea she was such a baby freak until Sunny got herself impregnated with Buck’s yeti spawn.

  Despite the incessant texts and emails, I’m not having regrets about agreeing to the wedding this summer. Not real regrets. Not the kind where I’m all, shit, let’s hypothesize what it will be like if someone gets murdered before this is over and I have to have a prison relationship with Alex where they put me in a facility that doesn’t allow for conjugal visits. I’ll have to smuggle cucumbers in my vagina so I can get myself off.

  Nope. I’m not worried about murder.

  It’s not like that at all. Mostly. Sort of.

  Cucumbers must be in high demand in women’s prisons.

  I give in when my phone registers eleven new messages and check them.

  There are ten pictures, all potential locations for our wedding. Which Alex has been working on finding since I gave him the all clear to start planning.

  “I don’t get why Daisy can’t find a venue that houses less than two hundred people. Actually I don’t get why she’s finding venues at all. I need this thing to be small.”

  “That’s because my mom thinks two hundred people is small,” Sunny says. She turns the nail polish over and reads the fine print on the back. “Should I be worried about the chemicals in this? Are the oils they use here natural?” She pats her tummy—her still mostly flat tummy. She’s not really showing yet. She looks mostly like she ate a large meal and hasn’t quite digested it.

  “I researched everything before we scheduled the appointments,” Lily reassures her. She gives her best friend’s mini-bump a rub. “Everything is baby-safe.”

  The four of us have been spending a lot of time together. While Alex is busy planning our wedding—with the unneeded interference of our mothers (I don’t know why they don’t just text him)—I’m helping Lily plan a baby shower for Sunny. Baby stuff is way more fun than I expected; it’s all cute and tiny.

  “Yeah, well, my idea of small is more around the forty-people mark. We could have it in the backyard and be done with it.”

  “You had two hundred people at the engagement party in the backyard,” Lily points out.

  “I’m surprised you remember that since you spent half the night locked in a spare bedroom getting boned by Horny Nut Sac.”

  “You sound jealous, Vi.” Lily has adopted Randy’s snarky tone and his smirky smirk. It’s almost as cute as it is annoying.

  Normally I wouldn’t be jealous, but Alex’s physical state has continued to put a damper on the beaver lovin’. He’s much better than he was when he first came home from the hospital, and the Super MC hugs are increasing in frequency, but he’s not at his pre-accident level of stamina. It’s driving him insane. My legs look great, though, so that’s a plus.

  Still, Lily’s sex life is something to be envious of. If anyone should be pregnant in this room, it’s her. I think she gets more dick than any of us. Possibly combined. Those two are fuck-crazy.

  Instead of owning my jealousy, I return the snark. “Jealous of your sex life? Hardly. My sex life makes your sex life look like a cheap prostitute.”

  “A cheap prostitute?” Lily scoffs. “If anything, my sex life is the most well-paid prostitute out there.”

  The lady working on my toenails coughs.

  Charlene gives Lily a high five and laughs. “Uh, from all the bitching you’ve been doing lately, I’m gonna call beaver bullshit on you.”

  “I’m getting monster cock injections,” I snap.

  “Not enough, based on how cranky you are and how many times you’ve watched the final scene of Magic Mike XXL.”

  I shoot Charlene a glare. “He’s a great dancer.”

  “Right. And that’s why you’re watching that scene all the time and then disappearing to the bathroom.”

  “That’s a total lie! I only did that once.” I’m much too loud.

  Thankfully, it’s only the four of us and the ladies who work in the spa, plus some ancient, overly plastic-surgeoned lady getting a pedicure on her terrifying feet. But I assume she’s too old to eavesdrop, or understand the content of our conversation.

  “I know of at least three occasions when you’ve referenced that movie and marble rolling,” Charlene counters.

  Damn it and damn her for throwing me under the bus.

  “I don’t think about anyone but Miller when we’re having sex,” Sunny says.

  “Randy makes it impossible to focus on anything but him. That man’s tongue. God.” Lily sort of sigh-moans.

  “I’m fully engaged in boning with Alex, but there’s less of it lately than I’m used to, and unlike Lily White Balls over here, Alex and I don’t send each other masturbation videos every five minutes.”

  Lily gasps, and she pokes Sunny in the arm. “That’s supposed to be a secret!”

  I come to Sunny’s immediate defense. She isn’t the reason I know about the amateur porn. “She didn’t tell me. Miller let it slip. Apparently Randy inadvertently sent him one of the videos he meant to send to you.”

  Lily grabs her phone, but I snatch it from her before she can do something stupid, like call Randy and get pissed.

  “It was a video of his frank and beans.” I cringe, because my wiener reference could be mistaken for insensitivity. “Sorry, I don’t mean that the way it sounds.”

  Lily waves me off, apparently relieved that Buck didn’t get a shot of her beaver. Her titanium, magic beaver.

  “I’m sure Miller has seen Randy’s junk plenty of times. As long as it’s not my parts he got to see, I think we’re good,” she says.

  “Before I moved to Chicago, Miller and I used to have Skype sex. And we still do when he’s at away games, obviously,” Sunny says and sighs. “I’m not sure I’ll feel like doing that when I’m busting out a baby belly, though.”

  “You never know. Maybe he’ll be one of those guys who’s all about pregnancy porn. I can definitely see Buck getting into that.” I’m trying to be supportive, not sound like a creep, but based on the looks from the women who work at the spa, I’m unsuccessful.

  “I just mean he’s down with you being pregnant,” I add to clarify.

  “He’s actually really excited. And now that I’m only a few weeks from graduation, I am, too.” Sunny gives her non-existent belly an affectionate pat.

  “You’re going to be the most amazing mom, Sunny.” Lily’s smile is one-hundred-percent genuine.

  “You really are,” I agree. I’ve seen her with her dogs. It has to translate. This might’ve been a surprise, but she’s rolling with it. I have to say, I’m kind of envious of how easily she manages life-altering changes.

  Not to mention, Buck seems to have embraced impending daddyhood now that the shock has worn off. I think he was mostly apprehensive about the family reaction.

  Skye can’t wait to be a grammy, and Sidney, well, I think he’s relieved Buck’s in an actual committed relationship.

  Robbie didn’t threaten to murder Buck for knocking Sunny up—that’s Alex’s role apparently. And even that didn’t last long. Daisy’s been hinting that maybe Alex and I want to jump on the baby bandwagon so Sunny and I can deal with the little barnacles of bliss together.

  Alex, who has already expressed his desire to produce a hockey team’s worth of offspring, doesn’t seem to have any problem putting a bun in my oven now that he’s past the whole anger and rage phase—which was a lot shorter than I expected it to be, with a twenty-four-hour residual irritation hangover.

  While I’m excited for Sunny and Buck, I’m not on the same page as Alex when it comes to creating spawn. I’m not even reading a book in the same damn series.

  No babies. Yet. First we get married and have lots of married sex.

  I scratch my arm and immediately check for stress hives, which usually only appear during wedding-related discussions. They start in the same pl
ace every time: about two inches below a small mole on my right wrist. If I catch it fast enough, I can stop them from spreading up my arm and covering my chest. If I don’t, I’ll be covered head to toe within an hour or so. Thankfully they’ve been infrequent these last few weeks. I’m attributing it to the amount of yoga I’ve been doing to get all Zen.

  I root around in my purse for my antihistamines, to ward off a potential problem. The hives upset Alex because he thinks they mean I have reservations about the wedding, which I don’t. It’s the mom interference that’s my issue. I pop one, washing it down with my sparkling lemon water.

  I honestly don’t give a flying fuck where we get married. It could be in our damn bathroom.

  Okay. Not true. Our bathroom is kind of gross most of the time, even though someone comes to clean it regularly.

  But beyond that, the location is simply a means to an end. All I want is to be Violet Waters and look pretty for a day. Then I want to dress up Alex’s dick in a tiny tux, or maybe a superhero cape, and make him marry my beaver.

  “Vi?”

  I look up from my phone. “Yeah?”

  “Did you hear anything I said?” Charlene asks.

  “Oh yeah, of course.” I nod in affirmation.

  She regards me dubiously. “Really? So you think it’s a great idea for me to blow Darren during your wedding ceremony?”

  “Uh, I think we’ve already established that you blowing Darren in a public place is not appropriate. However, if I say or do something dumb during the ceremony and you decide you want to pull that stunt to save me from personal humiliation, by all means, go right ahead.”

  “You gave Darren public fellatio?” Sunny looks more intrigued than disturbed.

  Lily’s biting her nails with this little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

  Charlene scoffs. “It’s called road head, girls.”

  Lily’s grin gets bigger.

  “You’ve totally given Horny Nut Sac road head!” I point an accusing finger at her.

  “Of course! It’s the best way to make sure he’s going to last the first time we have sex after away games,” she says.