Santa’s Pucking Hat Trick (The Forbidden Reverse Harem Collection)

2. Rachel

2

RACHEL

W hen Rhiannon and I reluctantly pulled up to the packed parking lot of Candy Cane Jane’s, a Mistletoe staple with a more tolerably cheesy take on the Christmas theme and some freaking killer french fries, I thought it was strange how busy the place was. I struggled to find a parking spot that was roomy enough for my car—no danger of any dickwads dinging her paint if they opened their own car doors a little too wide—because I struggled to find a vacant spot at all. Usually, Jane’s didn’t have such a lively crowd until hockey season was well underway, since it was the go-to place to watch televised away games in town. But when I trudged up to the front patio, scowling at the front porch’s iconic animatronic Santa who wore a goalie’s mask, I noticed the balloons. I could see through the fake snow-covered windows that the little diner was crammed full of people too.

Oh, good Christ. My mom had pulled the ultimate my-mom move and turned my casual welcome-back dinner into a full-on surprise party. I spotted more balloons in a variety of colors in between all of the neighbors and friends who had come to celebrate my homecoming, and I had a feeling there would be a cake somewhere in there too, which was reason enough to put on my big girl pants and go in. And okay, it was kind of cute. I couldn’t be totally cynical. Mistletonians weren’t born with cynical genes—I’d just grown into the habit in my years away at college.

Well, it was now or never. I stepped through the threshold and immediately was greeted with a cacophony of “Surprise!” and “Welcome home!”—and a couple of confused, already-drunk shouts of “Happy birthday!”

I’d never seen anything so endearing and so cringe-worthy at the same time. It was a quintessential Mistletoe moment.

“Oh my God,” I let out, trying my damndest to sound happy. I smiled with some effort, but it got easier as I took in the humor of the scene. “Wow, you guys. This—this is really, uh, great. You all really didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“Sure we did, silly,” Bria chimed in. “It’s not every day you come back home.”

Really, they didn’t have to do this. As I looked around at the huge crowd, I took notice of every face I knew—which was all of them. It seemed like the entire population of Mistletoe was crammed inside Candy Cane Jane’s, further scuffing up the heavily scuffed wood floor. There was our mailman, Rick, with his wife and three young sons; there was a girl I hadn’t seen since high school whose name I forgot though I did remember not being her biggest fan when we were classmates; the mayor of Mistletoe was even present, though I didn’t let that boost my sense of self-importance, since she was a known social butterfly and a member of my mom’s book club. Plus, of course, there were all of the hockey players. At least obnoxious Roman Jett seemed to have better things to do with his evening.

I was right about the cake. Michael laughed as he showed it to me, a heavily piped sheet cake with my high school senior picture airbrushed across its top. It was clearly my twin’s idea, and it did surprise me into a genuine laugh. There were drinks aplenty, and Jane herself, the sweet owner of this fine establishment, assured me I could have whatever I wanted, on the house. I was starving, so to me, that was the highlight of the whole ordeal.

As much as I appreciated my family, my town, and the kindness it took to pull this all off, I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place. This whole thing seemed more like a party to show off Mom’s hosting skills than a celebration of me, since she knew this wasn’t really my scene, but she meant well. Even though she also knew I hated surprises. And my car was still packed up with all of my stuff.

It was kind of nice to see Mom in her element, flitting about the party like a cheerful fairy whose main power was to make other people feel special and welcome. I grinned and tried to bear all of the attention, the tiring pleasantries, and the blinding light of my extroverted family’s sparkling personalities as I made my way through the throngs to find my seat. My stomach growled at the prospect of having Jane’s famous pancake breakfast (served all day, thank you very much) for the first time in way too long.

It should have been easier to watch the fun and repeat the same answers that college was great and yes, it was so lovely to be back home when I was finally chowing down on a huge plate of breakfast food, but I kept noticing the overwhelming presence of my brother’s hockey bros. No matter which way I turned my head, I spotted a Santas’ jersey in my peripheral vision. It almost spoiled the pancakes for me.

Though other players had joined the party too, I kept noticing the ones Michael had introduced me to back at the ice center. Wes and Sawyer were constantly swarmed by adoring puck bunnies, but they mainly kept to their own squad, goofing off with Michael and making each other laugh. My brother was a Henning through and through, the bona fide life of the party, and though his friends seemed more on the introverted side like me, they were clearly popular and well-liked. I didn’t really get it. I’d never “gotten it”—the popularity of our dinky little minor-league hockey team—in all the years I’d lived in Mistletoe. I chewed my pancakes with more aggression than was necessary, mentally grumbling about how hockey had to crash my party.

My party that I…didn’t want in the first place.

“Grumpy, grumpy,” Bria’s voice broke me out of my (admittedly grumpy) inner monologue as she came to sit beside me. “I know you were never a big town event girl, but you look like someone pissed on your pancakes, hon. Is it so bad being back in town?”

I swallowed my bite, which tasted a bit like crow. “No, I guess not. I think I’m tired more than anything.”

“It was a long day,” Bria nodded understandingly. “When you’re less zonked out, I’m dying to hear all about how things have been going for you. Congrats again on your degree, by the way. I still feel awful that I couldn’t be at your graduation.”

“You were in Bora-Bora,” I pointed out, smiling. “I would have rather been there too. No biggie.”

I started to settle into the happy atmosphere as Bria and I chatted. She told me about her glamorous vacation—a perk of being what she called a “childless spinster,” but I thought of as being a bad bitch—and despite her insistence that I didn’t have to get into it yet, I regaled her with the details of my past few months. Finishing school and the summer internship I’d landed at a well-regarded PR firm in my college town, thinking through next steps as I looked for jobs in my preferred field, and finally accepting my fate to return back home for a while to save up for an eventual move to someplace with more job opportunities. It was the quintessential college grad story these days.

“I don’t really see myself finding any good marketing or PR jobs here,” I commented idly, and it was a huge mistake. Bria’s face lit up.

“Well, if you need help job hunting, I’ve got you covered! You know I have more connections in this town than a game of Connect Four . We’ll get you gainfully employed in no time, mark my words.”

It was true about her connections, and she also had an underlying need to be helpful all the time. That was exactly why I shouldn’t have said anything that might indicate I was a new project for her. I could see an idea hatch in Bria’s well-meaning, devious little brain—ways she could get me nice and settled in Mistletoe long term. Probably forever if I let her have her way.

That was decidedly not what I wanted.

But I couldn’t exactly tell my pseudo-aunt who I loved that my goal was to move someplace far away—a big city like Los Angeles would be perfect for my career goals, and I had no particular desire to stay in the New England area where I was raised, especially after I’d been in a warmer climate for college.

“Thanks, Bria,” I said, trying not to sound as miserable as I felt.

All evening, my parents, brother, and whole host of family friends all expressed excitement about me being back home “for good.” It only made me feel guilty and trapped. People didn’t really leave Mistletoe—especially people like the Hennings, who were so interconnected with the community that we practically founded the town. Our family was so close to one another too, that it was practically unheard of for one of us to move away. I had a couple of cousins who had left Mistletoe, but they were still well within driving distance, and they still came back to our holiday mecca every single Christmas.

I didn’t have the heart to tell any of my party guests about my ambitions. Instead, I steered conversations toward lighter fare.

After a couple of beers had gone right through me, I was finally able to duck away to the bathroom, relieved to find that there wasn’t a line even though the scene around the narrow hallway had looked chaotic from the outside. Inside, I shoved past a group of women around my age, noticing as I sat in the stall that one of the voices was familiar.

“Oh, no doubt he’s just as big everywhere else,” purred Halley Jacobsen, the infamous puck bunny who’d drooled over my brother for all of our years of going to school together. “No way he’s not packing downstairs. Look at the size of his shoulders.”

“And his feet,” another one of them joked.

“And the way he could throw you around,” someone sighed.

“Plus he’s a goalie, right? So I bet he never misses his shot, if you know what I mean.”

Titters of scandalized laughter followed the joke. Clearly Sawyer Finnegan was their topic of conversation, and they were all lusting after him. I could understand it on a basic attractiveness level, but to be so shameless when he was just a room away? I almost had to admire the audacity.

“A friend of mine hooked up with him once, a year or so ago. Says he rocked her world.” The gossip was met with appropriate oohs and ahs.

“I don’t know how all of them get away with being so hot,” a different voice piped in. “Like, Roman is gorgeous and knows it, obviously. But even Wes Robbins has such humble big dick energy, and he might be the prettiest one.”

Their target quickly shifted as I tried my best not to listen to their insipid chatter, hoping to get out of this restroom as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I’d come in here in part for a moment of quiet and I couldn’t even have that.

“No way,” one of them scoffed. I didn’t hear the first part of her protest as I flushed, but when the sound died down and I came out of the stall, she was finishing up with a “I want to grab that hair and hang on for dear life,” so she was back on Finnegan, apparently. I refused to voice an opinion in either way.

It was hard not to roll my eyes as I mumbled a polite “excuse me” and passed one of the women on my way to the sink. The group of them kept up their catalog of hot hockey bros. I washed my hands and shook them dry to avoid asking one of them for a paper towel.

“Well, other than Roman, who I can confirm is just as bad in bed as he is on the ice”—a pretty blonde said in an almost orgasmic tone that told me “bad” meant “good,” and God, I wanted to gag—“I’m hoping to try out the other players sooner rather than later.”

“Amen,” Halley proclaimed, twirling her hair on a manicured finger in true nyny fashion. “That’s my Christmas wish.”

I couldn’t resist letting out a quiet snort, which should have alerted the group of four to the fact that I wasn’t one of them, but Halley was the only one who seemed to notice I even existed. Her eyes scanned over me, seemingly not even registering the fact that this was my party and she knew me from high school way back when. There was no recognition in her gaze. She may have crashed this shindig, or more likely, my mom had just put up flyers in the town square. The party really wasn’t about me if Paula was letting in any old riffraff off the street.

It was a shitty timing thing, but despite my need to escape this nonsense as soon as possible, I ended up following the group of them out of the restroom like just another fish in their school. They snickered and whispered all the way into the hallway that was newly crowded, and the annoying sound surrounded me on all sides, blocking me in as surely as the bodies of all of my party guests.

They were still giggling when we approached the corner, rounding it into a wider space where I could finally breathe. But that was when I found none other than Sawyer Finnegan, leaning against the wall, his heavy brow set in a dark, disapproving line. The bathroom bimbos eyed him with obvious interest as we passed, apparently oblivious to his open disdain. I was at the back of the crowd and heard his half-growled “fucking puck bunnies,” internally agreeing with the sentiment until I saw that he was glaring at me.

“What?” I intoned dumbly. “Not me.”

“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck,” he shot back, and Jesus, what was his deal? Did he have no respect for the fact that I was his best buddy’s twin sister? If Michael was letting the guys think I was a hopeless hockey groupie like most other twenty-something women in this town, I’d kill him.

“Oh, please,” I fired back at him, startling him enough that he raised one of those thick brows. “What does it say about your profession that those are the type of people you attract?”

I only stayed to watch his expression shift—he looked shocked, as if I’d slapped him. Then, anger and exhaustion propelling my feet, I stormed off.

I didn’t stop until I was outside in the chilly evening air, letting the bite of it cool my fiery rage. It felt like I could breathe now that I was out of that stuffy party, far from all of those stupid hockey players killing the vibe. Deep breaths, Rachel. Who cares what some Skatin’ Santas’ douchebag thinks of you?

“You know I can’t. I have practice,” a man’s voice broke through my quiet moment. It was familiar, but it took me another few seconds of accidental eavesdropping on his apparent phone call for me to place it, and then I was able to look around and confirm with my eyes that it was, in fact, Wes.

Fuck. There was no escaping them. Every time I left one hockey dude, another popped up in his place. Like that monster from Greek myths with the ever-multiplying regenerating heads.

He was holding his phone to his ear like it might bite him. His shoulders hunched, his jaw tense—all of it painted a picture that whoever he was talking to, he wished he wasn’t. Curiosity seemed to fall into my brain like the first droplets of a freak rainstorm. I kind of wanted to know what about this conversation was making him upset. A distraction from my own stupid dramas, maybe.

“I know, Shar. Listen, we can talk—” the person on the other end of the phone interrupted his sentence, and a frustrated breath hissed out of his nose as he listened to her. “I can’t do this right now,” he finally cut it off, his tone sharp. “I’m getting off the phone. Goodbye , Sharon.”

If we still lived in the era of flip phones, he would have slammed his shut. He seemed to feel me looking at him, even though I was a couple of yards away, because he rounded on me in an instant when the call was done.

“Sorry,” I said automatically, “I—I was just getting some air.”

“Whatever,” he scoffed, dismissing my apology with a tone that said yeah, right .

“Really, I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I doubled down, and he actually rolled his eyes at me. Striking blue and gorgeous as those eyes were, I instantly wanted to stab them out of his stupid handsome face.

“Christ, this hockey star shit really got to you,” I let out in a huff. Apparently, I spoke without thinking when I was angry and tired and begrudgingly back in my hometown. I tried my best not to wince.

He furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”

“This arrogant bullshit. You’re not a big shot because you play on some dinky little minor-league team,” I asserted.

He’d been such a sweet kid. But this guy, well-dressed and tall and handsome though he was, seemed to be missing all of the lovely human kindness that, as far as I could tell, was much more valuable than a successful career as a hockey stud. I knew Michael had sort of introduced the two of us, the adults we were now, after the game—or at least he’d referenced that we knew each other years ago—but did Wes really remember me? Would he be so rude if he did?

One thing was for sure. I remembered him, and staring at his stone-cold face right now, I couldn’t stop comparing the Wes of back then to the one in front of me now.

“No one asked you,” he gritted out. It was true, but again, his tone added an extra layer of cruelty. An implied, Why should I care about your opinion?

Maybe it was just the shocking contrast between this Wes and the one way back when, but I suddenly remembered how he followed me around like a hopeless puppy when we were younger. His crush on me was apparent even as he tried to keep it on the down low, tried to deny the jokes Michael and nearly everyone else in our lives made about it. I’d ignored the jokes with as much grace as I could manage; I’d never been interested in him that way. Now, I was extra glad I’d never reciprocated his attention. He may have gotten hot, but he also got rude with age.

“Get off your high horse,” I spit at him again. “Or is it a reindeer?”

With that last shot, it was back to the party I went, annoyance scratching at the inside of my brain hard enough to break its way through my skull.

Today was decidedly not my day, and a party seemed even less appealing after all of this hockey hoopla, but what other choice did I have but to go back inside? It was tempting to hop back in my car and drive until Mistletoe was far behind me, but I couldn’t do that to my family.

If that cocky son of a bitch Roman Jett showed up, though, all bets were off.

My twin found me the second I was back in the rumbling noise inside of the restaurant. I was barely past the door when he appeared at my side, relief coloring his features—always a bit softer than my own sharp ones, which I used to think was unfair. “Rach! There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. Where’d you disappear to?”

I never wanted to be truly mean to my brother. He was the closest thing to a golden retriever guy I’d ever met in real life, and other than occasionally pestering me in true sibling fashion, he’d never done anything to hurt me. But right now, he was just another reminder of the fucking Skatin’ Santas.

I’d feel bad about it later. But for now, I let rage propel me as I gritted out, “Oh, nowhere, really. Just getting jerked around by your asshole teammates. Great taste in friends, bro.”

It wasn’t fair to take this out on him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the stupid sport I’d always tried to avoid was the source of my troubles right now, and Michael was unfortunately in the thick of it. It’d be a real struggle to stay in Mistletoe when I wanted to throttle all of its hockey stars—and that was like a quarter of the population of the town. I swallowed down the desire to scream, half hoping it’d choke me to death and put this night to some kind of end. It only got worse when I saw how Michael’s face sank and the guilt sunk in too.

“I … I’m sorry, Rach.”

Christ, now so was I. Some fucking welcome home party.