“I…don’t get it.”
“Not much to get,” I mutter. “She didn’t like all the attention I was getting from other broads. You know how it is—hockey players are gods. It’s like a buffet of hot girls. Not that I ever sampled the buffet.” I swallow down a wave of bitterness. “I’m not a fucking cheater.”
Jess wrinkles her forehead. “Did Molly think you were cheating?”
“She was scared I would. Didn’t matter how many times I reassured her, she didn’t believe I’d keep my dick in my pants. We were getting married, for fuck’s sake, but nope, she still couldn’t trust that I’d stick around.” I fight my rising anger. “So she came up with a way that I’d have to stick around.”
I stop abruptly, pissed at myself for laying all this shit at Jess’s feet. It’s ancient history, and there’s no reason to dredge it all up. Molly and I aren’t together anymore. So what if I still see her around sometimes. So what if I’ve told my family a lie or two. As long as I don’t think about it too hard, it can’t make me angry.
“When did you find out she wasn’t pregnant?”
“She said she had a sonogram appointment. I was supposed to be on the road, but a snowstorm in Vancouver meant our flight couldn’t take off. So I surprised her at the doctor’s office.”
“And she wasn’t there?” Jess guesses.
“Oh, she was.” I can still picture the freaked-out look on her face when I walked into that waiting room. “But there was no sonogram, because there was no pregnancy. She’d made an appointment to ask her gynecologist for fertility meds.”
Jess gasps. “She’s infertile?”
“No idea?” I throw my arms up. “All I know is that she was trying to make her lie into a reality. As soon as she started sputtering excuses, I knew what had happened. I’d gotten a weird vibe off her when she said she wanted to stop wrapping the weasel.”
“Wrapping… Oh.” Jess rolls her eyes.
“She pulled the goalie.” Five years later, I still almost can’t believe it. Who does that?
“Who does that?” Jess asks.
“Someone who is willing to lie to me.”
“So what did you do? How could you not dump her on the spot?”
“Because she’s…was…family. Molly and I didn’t get together until freshman year of college, but I knew her before that. She’s Brenna’s best friend. They were inseparable in high school and she was always over at our place.” I blow out a breath. “My whole family loves her.”
“Would they still love her if they knew what she did?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But just because she hurt me didn’t mean I wanted to tar and feather her, or cost her a lifelong friendship with Bren. So yeah, I ended it, but she begged me not to tell my family about what she’d done. We told them she had a miscarriage, and then a couple of months later we ‘broke up’—” I use finger quotes “—and told everyone that our relationship couldn’t survive the emotional trauma. But we were dunzo the day I learned the truth.”
Jess is visibly horrified. “Blake! That’s insane! Why wouldn’t you set your family straight? Now they all view her as some innocent victim who got dumped by her fiancé after she miscarried their baby.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” I counter. “Embarrass her? Make Brenna—her best friend—hate her? I was trying to protect her.”
“She doesn’t deserve that!” Jess screeches. Then she takes a calming breath. “Cheezus, Blake, you’re either a saint or the biggest idiot on the planet.”
I finally crack a smile. “Babe.”
“What?”
“You just said cheezus.”
She looks flustered. “I did not.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Agree to disagree.” She shakes her head at me. “I can’t believe that happened to you. Fake pregnancy? A web of lies? That’s soap opera shit right there, dude.”
“Tell me about it.” I can’t believe I just unloaded all of that on her. Then again, Jess is studying to be a nurse. Maybe she doesn’t mind wading into other people’s shit storms.
We go quiet for a beat. Jess turns the key in my macho mobile.
“You totally said cheezus,” I mutter under my breath.
“Did not,” she scoffs.
“Did so.”
“Did not.” She looks over her shoulder to check for traffic and then pulls out and guns it.
I stop arguing because I’m too busy watching a pretty girl drive my truck. At least one thing went right today. In a pretty blue dress that shows off her curves, Jess Canning handled my nutty family like a champ.
If I was ever gonna trust a woman again, she’d be the top seed of the tournament.
18 We Stand on Guard for Thee
Jess
The next two weeks of my life are crazy.
I pass all my anatomy quizzes by never leaving the library except for classes and to sleep. Clinical observation work continues, too, and lately we’re visiting a geriatric home. They taught us to take vital signs, so now we even touch the patients sometimes. The cases there can be sad, but not kids-with-cancer sad.
My friend Dyson works with geriatric patients, and when we chatted on the phone, he gave me a tip. “Sing Ella Fitzgerald,” he said.