Push (Colorado Storm Hockey #3)

Chapter 2

2

HUX

What the hell am I doing?

Even though this chick is a fantastic kisser, I should not be making out with some random woman at some random pub in Las Vegas.

We’re supposed to be celebrating our win against the Las Vegas Jacks. A 1-0 shutout victory, courtesy of Hawk’s stellar performance in goal. It’s rare for us to stay overnight in Vegas–usually, we’d be on a plane back to Colorado by now, but we’re flying to Miami tomorrow. Coach thought we deserved a night out, and lifted our curfew, especially with trade rumors swirling around Hawk. Some of the boys wanted to lift his spirits and get his mind off it, which is why we’re here now.

Little do they know, I’ve got my own demons to drown tonight, courtesy of my ex-wife.

This is Debbie’s fault.

It’s always Debbie’s fault.

And when it’s Debbie’s fault, it’s really my fault. I’m so fucking dumb. So fucking desperate.

Her texts really got into my head tonight. How could they not ?

Annulment.

Like it never even happened so she can marry her new man in the Catholic Church. Apparently, she’s converted to be with him. Whatever the hell his name is. Lewis? Larry?

Debbie wants to erase me. Erase whatever we had.

It’s a step too far. It hurts too much.

We may not be together anymore, finally putting a nail in that shoddily made coffin. But to do this. To erase it. To pretend the marriage didn’t happen. What the actual fuck?

But what can I do? Deny her that out of spite? As pissed as I am about her wanting to annul our marriage, it just reaffirms the absolute truth in my head.

Marriage is a farce. I have absolutely no respect for it at all.

Two people decide to tie the knot and for what? Benefits, okay. But really, for what? I could marry this woman I’m kissing right now and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference in reality. With the way she’s kissing me, she might even go for it.

Marrying this woman would be the perfect response to Debbie’s request. Here’s how much I think of marriage. Here’s how much I think of you. It means nothing. We meant nothing. You want to erase it with an annulment? Fine. I’ll just replace it, at the snap of a finger.

I can picture it now, attending Debbie’s wedding with my new wife on my arm. A woman whose name I don’t even know.

Wouldn’t that fucking destroy her? She’d be so caught up in the wedding ring on my finger that she would barely be able to say all those meaningless words we call vows.

The more I imagine it, the more I want to make it happen. I want to prove this point. I want to take it all one step further.

I pull back from the kiss and this woman’s eyes slowly open. Her rosy lips are swollen and wet, her gaze warm. She looks about as willing as they come. I wonder if she’d be willing to accept my ridiculous proposal .

“Hey, do you want to get married?” I say out loud what my demented brain is thinking.

“What?” she stammers.

“Do you want to get married? Just because.”

She turns back to look at the bride-to-be, having the time of her life, twirling her ring finger in the air like a damn fool.

She turns back to me and nods. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

I nod and take her by the hand. I look for my teammates, but they’re already gone. Who knows what adventure they went off on. They’re not stupid enough to interrupt me, especially if I’m making out with someone.

I lead this woman out of the pub and into the casino. The alcohol has definitely done its thing. My feet feel heavy and I’m sweating. All the casino lights and sounds blur together. I follow the signage that points to the chapel, but I get turned around more than once. I try to pull my shit together because I am so determined to do this and this lady seems on board.

Another wedding, a legitimate wedding, has just wrapped up. Well, what is legitimate? She’s wearing a white dress and he’s wearing a cheap black tux. At least they know one another’s names. At least they have family here. But three years from now, it could all be such a waste and one of them could want to erase the whole damn thing.

Which reminds me. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Ada. Adaline Khoury. What’s yours?”

“Nikolas Huxley.”

“Oh God, are we really doing this?” I think I hear some panic in her voice.

“Yes, we are. What’s your reason?” I ask.

“My family is driving me crazy. What’s yours?”

“Revenge. Is that okay with you?”

“That’s fine by me.” She clutches my hand between both of hers .

Her warm touch compels me to say the next part quietly. “Then let’s do it, Ava Khoury.”

“Ada,” she says, correcting me.

“Ada,” I whisper to myself to make my drunken brain remember it.

Ada, the name of my soon-to-be wife.

Herbert, a very plain and serious man, is performing the ceremony. He is taking his job of wedding me and this woman way too seriously. What’s the fun of getting drunk married in Vegas for revenge purposes if you have a guy preaching on and on about the wonders of love? He’s harassing my buzz and I’m sobering up enough to question some of my decision making.

“Do you, Nikolas, take Adaline to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

I think of the last time I was asked this question. I think of Debbie. Our wedding was nothing like this. Not even in a chapel or a church. We married each other in the woods and it was enchanting. Her best friend performed the ceremony in front of a small group of our friends and her family members. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. I didn’t think there was any way we would ever part. It was going to be us together forever.

But forever is also a farce.

We did break apart, and that vow we made that day in the woods was absolutely meaningless.

I look down at Ada, a person I don’t know in the slightest. These words I say now don’t matter either, do they? “I do,” I answer, and I can hear the chill in my voice. The lie.

Herbert nods and looks at Ada. “Do you, Adaline, take Nikolas to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Ada looks up at me and there’s a sparkle in her eye, like a laugh, like something that I don’t fully grasp. It’s not love, by any means. It’s something else. Something more raw. I think she wants me and I wouldn’t mind it, not one bit. She’s a beautiful woman. Beautiful enough to make a man do something really, really stupid like what I’m doing right now.

Her hair’s a mess of dark curls, wild and untamed, falling around her face in a way that makes me want to run my fingers through it.

She’s got these eyes. Deep brown, like whiskey in firelight, with a spark of defiance that’s fucking intoxicating. Her skin’s got this warm, golden brown tone to it, and her lips... Christ, her lips are full and soft, and when she smiles, it lights up her whole damn face.

Ada has a curvy figure, in a way that makes a man’s hands itch to explore. She’s wearing this dress that is beautifully snug and makes it hard for me to think straight.

But this can’t be a real thing. This isn’t going to be a relationship and so I’m tempted to roll back those two meaningless—to me—words I said and get the hell out of here.

That idea goes out the window when she says, “I do.” She shakes her head in disbelief and laughs. It takes the edge off the situation.

What did she say before? She’s doing this because of her family? I wonder what they’ve done to her to make her willing to marry a stranger in Las Vegas.

“You bought our rings package, right?” Herbert asks.

“Yeah,” I say and fish them out of my pocket. I hand mine over to her.

Herbert turns to me. “Repeat after me, With this ring, I thee wed.”

“With this ring, I thee wed.” I slip her very basic 12 carat gold ring onto her finger. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t have diamonds.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to apologize about this, but I do. Maybe it’s because Debbie’s wedding band was encrusted with diamonds that beautifully complemented the diamond engagement ring I had custom made for her.

“No. This is good. I don’t like diamonds,” Ada says with a smile I can’t read.

Before I can process that, Herbert says, “Your turn,” to Ada.

She drops the ring to the carpet and we both bend down to pick it up, bumping our heads along the way. “Ouch!” She says and rubs her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

I shrug in response to another one of her apologies as I lift the ring I will wear only for tonight and hand it back to her.

“Okay, yeah. What am I supposed to say?” she asks me.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” I answer like the fucking pro that I am at getting married.

She giggles. “Right. Okay, here we go.” She takes hold of my hand and lifts it up, but she can’t quite meet my eyes, not that I can blame her for that. This is all so absurd. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

“Nikolas and Adaline, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” Herbert says and a recording of wedding bells streams over the speakers attached to the ceiling corners.

When we kissed at the pub, it was raw and passionate and felt fucking amazing. Now, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t kiss my wife.

She leans up and kisses me on the cheek, and I follow suit. It feels only right. Suddenly, this got so strangely serious and awkward.

Holy hell, what have I done?

“If you would please sign the wedding certificate.”

I blink a few times and then look down at the certificate paper on the table. The words are a little blurry on the page and I realize there’s still enough alcohol in my system to drive me forward .

“Will you take your husband’s name?” Herbert asks.

A bowling ball sized something drops in my stomach. Debra Huxley. She took my name and what good did it do? I was so happy in that moment. She really felt like mine. Ada taking my name seems so very fucking wrong. Relief floods through me when she answers, “No.” She looks at me apologetically. “I always planned to keep my name.”

I nod in response, all my words now escaping me.

I sign, she signs, and we walk out married, but not holding hands like we did walking in.

When we get back out to the casino, we look at one another. I have no idea what to say to this woman or what to do next. I could really use another drink before my world crashes around me. The reality of what I’ve just done is sinking in. I’m not married to Debbie anymore. Well, I haven’t been for a while, but in my heart Debbie was still my wife. Now it’s someone else. Now it’s someone I don’t even know and I definitely do not love.

What even is love? Another farce?

“Hey,” Ada says, snapping me out of my spell. “Do you want to get something to eat? I’m starving and I’ve been trapped with a bunch of bitches who are desperately trying to lose weight to fit in their dresses for my cousin’s wedding.”

That makes me chuckle ever so slightly. I’ve got to hand it to Ada. She has a way of breaking through some of my negative thoughts. “Yeah, sure. How does a slice of pizza sound?”

“Perfect,” she says and leads the way. We pick our slices—Ada cheese, me supreme—at the New York style pizza joint. They put it in the oven and I order two beers. Lord knows I need them. She just sticks with a bottle of water and I admire her desire for sobriety.

I pull out my wallet and she stops me. “I’ve got this. First the drinks and then the…wedding. It’s my turn.”

I shake my head. This is a little surreal. “If you insist. ”

Debbie had our wedding reception planned at a nearby farm, in a barn that had been converted into an event space. I can’t remember the food, but I do remember the cake. Chocolate mocha frosting. It was fucking delicious. Debbie was delicious that night.

We take our slices and sit down at a wobbly aluminum table in streets of the hotel’s fake New York City theme.

“Are you staying in this hotel?” I ask. My god, there is so much I don’t know about this woman.

She blows on her pizza. “Yeah, what about you?”

“Yeah, they put us up here for the night. We rarely stay when we play in Vegas. We usually just fly back to Colorado, but we’re headed to Miami tomorrow.”

She’s about to take a bite, but stops. “Wait, you live in Colorado?”

“Yeah, we play for the Colorado Storm.”

“Shit,” she mumbles. “I live in Denver.”

“Oh.” I try to process what that means and, more importantly, what her reaction means.

She sets her pizza back down. “What did we just do, Nik?”

No one ever calls me Nik. Not even my mother called me that. It’s Nikolas or it’s Hux. That’s it. No in-between. Debbie didn’t even call me that. But Ada wouldn’t know that, would she? She knows nothing about me and she’s my fucking wife.

I can tell that she’s starting to spiral a little and for the first time, I pick up on the fact that she’s sending a phone call away. Has she been doing that a lot since we left the pub? I think she may have.

It sets me on edge and I’m not sure why. I clear my throat. “Do you need to answer that?”

“No, I texted my cousin and told her I’m fine. They’re just being nosy.”

I drain one beer and try to collect my thoughts. “Listen, Ava?— ”

“Ada! Adaline. With a D.” Tears spring to her eyes.

Fuck . I know this. I know it’s Ada. What the hell is wrong with me? “Ada.”

“Ada,” she says again.

“Yes, Ada. Listen, I think we both can agree that this was a foolish thing to do.” My stomach seizes when I glance down at the wedding band I’m now wearing on my finger.

A look of shock flashes across her face, but then passes just as quickly. She bites her lower lip and looks away.

“Speaking for myself, I think I’ve made a big mistake, and I’m sorry,” I confess. “I mean, what the hell were we thinking? I don’t know about you, but I was really angry. Angry at my ex, angry at my life. And I had too many drinks.”

Ada looks down at her half-eaten pizza slice. “I was angry, too. And sad. My family… They’re a lot and they’re always pushing me to do things their way.”

It seems like she’s been waiting for me to say something along these lines, because she opens up even more. “My cousin was going off on me about how I’ve got to get married, and that’s what my family says all the time. Their pressure is too much sometimes. So…I did it in a way to spite them. Like I still have control.”

I look at her, really look at her. Her hair is slightly messy from our drunken escapade. Her eyes are full of regret, but also relief.

I take a deep breath and let it out. “We don’t even know each other,” I say and shake my head. “Obviously, we can’t be married. I’ll pay for an annulment or a divorce or whatever we need to do when we get back to Colorado.”

Ada looks back at me, a sad smile on her face. “That sounds fair, Nik. But promise me one thing.”

Relief washes over me. “Sure, anything.”

Two lines form between her eyebrows. “Just make it quick. We should try to put this behind us as fast as possible. ”

I nod. “Absolutely. We should probably exchange numbers. You know…for logistics.”

“Right, sure,” she says, and there’s something in her tone that I can’t quite read. Sadness? Hesitation? Disappointment?

It’s not disappointment, you fool.

She’s probably relieved.

She blurts out her phone number in a rush while I’m still trying to open my phone. Glad to know I haven’t sobered completely, but I’ll have to get a couple of more drinks to make this night a little more forgettable.

“Give me that again, A.”

“Did you forget my name again?” she asks, and that’s clearly disappointment.

“No, Adaline Khoury. I remember,” I tell her. I don’t think I’ll ever forget again.

Her lips edge up in the corners and she gives me the numbers again, this time much slower. I rattle off mine.

“I’m not the best at returning calls,” I admit. “So just be patient if you haven’t heard from me.”

“That’s not a very good trait for a husband,” she jokes.

I laugh a little and sigh. “Good thing I won’t be your husband for much longer.”

“Good thing,” she replies. “Plus, I’d be an awful wife. I keep odd hours, I work all the time, and I’m a terrible cook.”

“It’s okay, I’m good at it. I’d do all the cooking,” I find myself saying, and my words make her smile. Normally, I don’t give a fuck about what people think, but her smile is powerful and I let it go to my head a bit. There’s no harm in that.

“Too bad I didn’t get to try it,” she says and then looks down at her half-eaten slice. “This will probably be my only wedding night in my life. Pizza isn’t a bad way to go. What’s that expression? Even bad pizza is good pizza.”

“I think that expression is for sex.” Her eyes flare open a little and I like how she reacts to me. “Why do you think this is it? You’re a beautiful woman. You don’t want to get married?”

She gazes up to me and her face is so lovely to look upon, but her rich brown eyes and her naturally long dark eyelashes make me feel like I’m pinned in place. “I just don’t think I’m made for marriage. Honestly, I’m not sure how to share my life at this point. I think I’m meant to be alone.”

I know how she feels, but I don’t want to tell her that. I don’t want her to get too close to me.

We finish our slices in silence, lost in our own thoughts. As we get up to leave, Ada pauses and turns to me.

“Hey, Nik… Despite everything, thank you for tonight. It was actually kind of fun.”

“Yeah, Ada. Despite everything…” I extend my hand and she takes it. We shake hands, and with that, our quickie marriage is over. At least in spirit. We go our separate ways and I don’t look back.

As I close the door of my hotel room behind me, I recognize I am alone again, just me and my thoughts. I look down at the ring on my finger and sigh. It’s a shame I had to meet Ada under such absurd circumstances. If I was ever going to try again with a woman, she’d be a good one. She seems practical, funny, and the attraction is undeniable.

“Goodnight, Ada Khoury,” I whisper into the emptiness of my room, “my soon to be ex-wife.”

I slip off the ring and toss it into my travel bag. As ridiculous as my behavior was tonight, it feels surprisingly good that I’m one step further away from Debbie. Like she doesn’t fully own me anymore. Legally, at this exact moment in time, I belong to someone else.

I just wish I’d done better for Ada. That look in her eyes, when we realized what we’d done, that may stick with me for a long time .

As I fall asleep, I make a vow to myself—no more rash decisions, no more letting my anger and hurt guide my choices. I need to be better, to do better.

And the first step is to erase tonight’s mistake. It’s the least I can do for Ada, and for myself.