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

6. Wes

6

WES

I was supposed to be focusing on the new play we were running in practice. The game I loved, the sound of my skate blades slicing through the ice, the feeling of working out my body. But instead, I was obsessing over ex-girlfriend drama. All because of a text from my mom, of all things.

Well, a series of texts, to be fair. One thing about Phoebe Robbins; she wasn’t afraid of a double-, triple-, or quadruple-text if a situation called for it. And they’d all come in during a lull in practice, a perfect moment for me to check my phone and ruin my own day.

Ma: Hi honey! Hope practice is going well! Score some goals for me!

There was a kissy face emoji. An endearing Ma-ism. I’d started to type a response, but she came back with her second text, then a chain of them, and it punched me in the gut.

Ma: Guess who I ran into at the store this AM?

Ma: I’ll tell you

Ma: Sharon! She looks fine, but not as happy without you around, of course

Ma: Have you heard from her lately?

Ma: I think she’d be happy to see you

Ma: Okay, enough meddling, love you! Xoxo

The damage had been done, though. I heaved a heavy sigh as I tucked my phone back in my pocket.

Though I’d broken up with Sharon over a month ago, my mom still asked about her near daily, refusing to accept that we were done for real. On some level, I got it—we’d dated long enough that Ma thought we’d get married, and since all of our extended family had adored Sharon too, Ma wasn’t the only one of my relatives gunning for us to reconcile.

They wanted me to be happy. But the Sharon they knew, always charming and offering to help with family dinners and so pretty with her wide smile and green eyes and expensive haircut, was nothing like the one I had in private. I had no idea how unhappy I’d been with Sharon for a while before I finally bit the bullet and ended it. Well, at least I’d tried.

Sharon always had a way of getting what she wanted. And though I hadn’t felt like she liked me very much when we were dating, she wanted to keep her claws in me. To keep the status symbol of dating me, and maybe to even keep me around as a plaything.

When we were dating, she’d started out affectionate and sweet, giving me all the attention I’d never had back when I was a nerdy kid. I was still pretty nerdy looking when we met, honestly, besides the height I’d gained since my teen years and the muscle I’d worked so hard to build. Sharon had shown me that I could be the kind of attractive she valued, with nicer clothes and contacts instead of the glasses that she told me just hid my “pretty eyes” from the world. And the more she guided me, the more I knew she never would have liked the version of me I’d been before.

There was a shallowness to Sharon that I only saw in flashes, after I’d already fallen head over heels for her—or at least the attention she gave me. I was blinded by the alluring concept of dating the pretty girl who would have been a high school cheerleader, the ultimate nerd’s fantasy. How she cared more about how she looked in photos than the memories we were trying to capture. How she made comments about other peoples’ clothes when we were out in public and scoffed at comments I made that doing that wasn’t cool.

It took a lot of little cracks in the facade, along with me noticing the mean streak she’d even turn against me toward the end, before I realized we just…weren’t suited to one another. No matter how many times we’d been told by my mom and hers that we were “such a beautiful couple.” That we’d have cute kids someday.

When Sharon kept talking to me, checking in after the night I told her it was over, I thought at first that she was just trying to be mature. Courteous, even. Asking how I was doing, making sure I knew she still cared for me even if she wasn’t my girlfriend. Then I wondered if I hadn’t been clear enough in our last conversation, even though I’d flat out said, “I don’t think I can be with you anymore.”

But the longer it went on, the more I’d come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t ignorant. She was just…ignoring what I’d asked for, disregarding the boundary I’d tried to set. Sure, she framed it like she was “fighting” for me, for the love she thought we still shared, and that even made me feel a little bad. All textbook manipulation. And now she was talking to my mom? That was low.

Kind of an evil genius move, though. My mother was a saint, had raised me on her own after her husband (and my sperm donor) left when she was still pregnant, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit I was a bit of a mama’s boy. It wasn’t hard to be a mama’s boy when Phoebe Robbins was your mom, though. She’d always supported my nerdy interests in things like trading cards and model planes when I was a kid, and maybe it was the closeness I’d shared with her that had kept me from branching out of the perfect son uniform for so long. The only thing I gave Sharon any credit for was her help with my fashion sense—it was a confidence boost to not be in Mom’s polos and khakis anymore.

Still, dumping Sharon had come easier than I thought it would, since she was the first real relationship I’d ever had, because I knew I wanted someone who would have loved me regardless of the dorky clothes and dorkier interests. Someone who could see past the hockey star veneer. Someone who’d like just Wes.

Maybe it was something about growing up scrawny with glasses, an easy target for bullying, but it was still hard to believe I could find that. I knew what I wanted, unlike someone like Sawyer or Roman—I just wasn’t always sure there would be anyone out there for me besides Sharon. Anyone who would want to fight for me the way she did, misguided as that fighting may be. Maybe the best I could do was being Sharon’s trophy husband.

Even thinking of myself that way made me want to gag, though. I wasn’t a trophy by any means. For some reason, I flashed back to the night of Michael’s sister’s party. How Rachel Henning, the girl I’d fawned over for most of my youth, had called me arrogant. And the shame I felt at that prospect, mixed with disgust at the idea that she thought I was full of myself. Hell, I played it cool on the ice, but inside I was still the shy, insecure kid that had followed her around like a puppy.

Fuck.

“Hey, fellas!” Our team manager called across the ice, and we all looked around to see him standing just off the rink, a woman behind him. “Gather round, guys! I’ve got someone I want you all to meet.”

This must be our new marketing director, since Marissa had just left. We’d kind of all seen it coming, since she clearly had the hots for Roman, and there was no way he’d pass up the opportunity to have an inappropriate workplace relationship with a pretty, breathing woman. We all gathered like Ray asked, and when I was closer, I was shocked to find that it wasn’t just any woman standing behind our manager, but Rachel Henning herself.

“Team, I want you all to meet our new marketing director, Rachel Henning. You may recognize her name, since she’s twin sister to our boy Mikey!”

“But that in no way means I’m going to prioritize my brother in our marketing initiatives,” Rachel clarified with a little bit of a smile. “We were together in the womb. I’ve had enough of him for a lifetime.”

All of the guys snickered, but I just couldn’t stop staring at her. In the dark outside of Candy Cane Jane’s, I hadn’t really gotten a good look at her, and I wouldn’t have dared look too closely when Michael re-introduced us before the party. He knew about my crush on her way back when, so he’d be keeping his eyes peeled for any hint of it resurfacing. But now that she was in front of me and I was encouraged to look at her, I could see the ways in which she’d grown up, become a professional woman in the years since I’d seen her last.

She wore a dark pencil skirt that hugged her hips, black heels that emphasized the length of her legs, and a deep purple blouse that looked lovely against her creamy skin tone. In combination with the work-appropriate but slightly sultry makeup she had on, the artful way her hair fell in loose curls around her face, she was fucking gorgeous. Hell, she always had been, but now there was an extra layer of maturity and confidence giving it all a shiny new veneer. It was captivating.

I’d grown up a lot since she last lived in Mistletoe too. I knew that much was true, even if I wasn’t sure how confident I’d become. It made me wonder if she even really remembered me. Of course, Michael had addressed the fact that we knew each other after the friendly. But Rachel was hard to read, and I hadn’t exactly made a huge impression on her back in the day. She’d been so far out of my league, we weren’t even playing the same sport. As far as I knew, she only knew who I was as a concept. Her brother’s friend and teammate. But not me, not Wes from next door.

“I’m excited to get to know you all as I work on pushing the team from a marketing perspective,” Rachel explained to all of us, her warm, low voice making it easy to listen to her but hard for my starstruck brain to really comprehend what she was saying. “We want more attendance at games, more publicity—all the good attention we can get to help you guys out so you can focus on tearing up the ice. And on that front, I want to start with profiles on each of our players, as well as a themed photoshoot. We could use some updated promotional photos, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

Some of the guys were buzzing about this idea, but I was instantly vibrating with anxiety just from the prospect of a camera being pointed at me. Christ, I wasn’t a model. I could hardly stand being in family photos, or the occasional selfie Sharon had made us take for her social media.

“We’ll use some of the shots for social media profiles on each of you too,” Rachel went on. “So I’ll be getting with you all individually in the coming days to ask some fun get-to-know-you questions. Don’t stress about it—it’s meant to be fun for our followers, but I hope it’ll be fun for you guys too.”

Yeah, fat chance of that. Not long after this news, our group broke up and practice ended for the day, which gave me an opportunity to track Rachel down one-on-one. Just to talk to her, see if I could get out of the photoshoot before I broke into hives or something. There was an element of near celebrity to being on the Santas, and that was plenty of attention for me. I had no interest in being more recognizable to the public if I could help it.

I finally caught up to Rachel in the parking lot. The evening had gotten chilly, so I saw her wrap her arms around herself for warmth, since that blouse didn’t seem very warm. She was several paces ahead of me, heading toward a gorgeous old Thunderbird in a light blue color that was a less moody version of her gray-tinged eyes—a sunny day instead of a brewing storm.

I knew it was a mistake a nanosecond after I did it, but I approached her from behind, starting with my attempt at friendliness, “Beautiful car.”

Rachel about jumped out of her skin, wobbling a little on her stilettos as she whirled around to face me. Her expression went from terrified—because yeah, approaching a woman in a parking lot at night as a large, athletic man certainly appeared threatening, no matter how innocent my intentions—to pissed off. It was a fast enough switch to send me reeling.

“Why the hell would you approach me like that?” she snapped, her tone icier than the air as autumn crept slowly into full gear. “Are you obtuse?”

Obtuse ? Christ, she really was the same Rachel I’d known way back when, always biting and clever, but mostly she’d aimed it at other people. Not because she had any particular fondness for me, but because I hardly even registered to her. Completely under the radar.

“Jesus, sorry,” I said back, my tone defensive and a little peeved. Residual pissed-offness from Sharon’s shenanigans, plus my nerves were all worked up at the idea of the photoshoot. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick. It was an oversight. You could stand to thaw out a little, ice princess.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed, and I knew I’d poked the bear. She stepped closer to me. And goddamn, why did the extra few inches of proximity turn me on? I could feel my dick twitch in my pants, threatening to get hard if she looked at me much longer with those hurricane irises.

“What do you want?” she asked, not taking even a second to apologize for snapping at me in the first place. I swallowed hard and told her, not mincing words.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m not doing a photoshoot.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

I’d meant to approach her a little softer with this. To ask permission to opt out. But now that we’d crossed that threshold into rudeness, I couldn’t uncross it. “You heard me. I’m not doing it.”

“You will, and you’ll smile like you like it,” she told me, her voice low and deadly, and fuck, the authority in it had my cock going half hard in my pants. I shifted on my feet, but subtly enough that she wouldn’t notice. She was too busy glaring daggers at me anyway.

Before I could come up with something else to say, Rachel’s entire demeanor changed. Like the wind went out of her sails, and her fiery rage was now just a slow-simmering disappointment. She shook her head slowly at me, not looking me in the eye anymore.

“You know, you used to be such a sweet kid,” she said, shattering any illusions I had that she didn’t remember the old me. “And sure, you’ve gotten hotter on paper, and you’re some athlete hot shot now. But you’re not nice anymore. I think I liked you better when you were a nerd.”

I was completely speechless as Rachel climbed into her sexy car and drove off, leaving me to stew in half-aroused, half-regretful confusion.