Page 90 of Puck Me Twice

“Tell us about yourself,” Ceci cuts in. She leans forward, her dark eyes bright.

“Well, I play hockey.”

Madison raises an eyebrow. “A sports romance?”

“Workplace and forced proximity,” Sadie adds. “What else?”

“Um…” I bite my lip.

“Second chance,” Bex chimes in.

Ceci grins at me. “Second chance isn’t so bad after all, is it?”

I have to shake my head. “Okay, fine. It’s not the worst trope in the world.”

Robby turns to look at me. “You know, I don’t think I ever did hear the story of how you two got together.”

My face goes red. “That’s because… well…”

“We met nine years ago,” Sven says. “I didn’t see her again until four years ago, and as soon as we met, I knew.”

“You’ve been together for four years?” Robby looks between us. “That’s a long time to keep things from the team.”

“No, uh…” I swallow. Why am I so nervous? It’s not like I have any reason to be embarrassed here. “We’ve been dating since your first day.”

He frowns. “Huh?”

“We were pretend dating. Fake dating,” I elaborate awkwardly.

“It wasn’t fake for me,” Sven says quietly, and I squeeze his hand.

“Right. I refused to date any hockey players, especially the ones on my team. But then… well, you were there, and I didn’t know what to do, so…” I take a breath. “I asked Sven to be my fake boyfriend because I didn’t want you to think… I don’t know. It was ridiculous.”

Robby looks between us. “So, let me get this straight: you decided that seeing me again was so awful, the easiest thing was to pretend to date someone else?”

I pause. “Yes.”

He howls with laughter, slapping his knee. “Oh, Nessie, I love you.” He squeezes my shoulder. “I’m totally going to take credit for the two of you getting together now, I hope you know that.”

My boyfriend wraps his arm around my shoulders, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I’m okay with that,” he says. “It means we get to be together.”

Twisting in his embrace, I meet him halfway for a kiss and echo his words from the other day. “We’ll start our own family.”

Sven grins at me. “I can’t wait.”

epilogue

. . .

Sven

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Vanessa looks up at me, her eyes focused on mine. “We don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

She studies me for a moment before she nods. “Okay. I’ll support you.”

I’ve written a letter. It was a long, rambling letter: eight pages long, full of heartache and long-repressed emotion. I wrote it by hand, alternating between English and Swedish as I felt the need, pouring out my heart.