Chapter 5

5

He waited a day.

It was hard to say why. He had practice and appointments with his nutritionist and his trainer, not to mention a stint on Jordan Hunt’s Hockey Grrl podcast. He’d expected a bunch of stupid questions about his favorite hot sauce or the best clubs in Chicago, but Jordan knew her stuff and asked him about adjusting to the move and his hopes for the rest of the season. Being married to one of his teammates probably meant she knew which levers to pull.

Suffice to say, that day’s delay fucked him good. He found out just how much when he put a call into John Delaney, his college roommate who had gone on to become a lawyer because he couldn’t hack it on the ice. No way was he going to run to the Rebels legal department to fix this.

“Delaney, I need a favor.”

“Lovely to hear from you too, Banks. The wife’s doing great. The kids are awesome.”

“And that problem you had with your dick? That worked out?”

“Baby number three is on the way.”

“Congratulations, I suppose.”

Delaney sniggered. “Right back at ya, B-dog! I’m touched you’d call to tell me in person. I’m guessing you need a post-nup, but given your new bride’s wealth, maybe she’s the one who needs?—”

“Come again?”

“You and Georgia Goodwin? She must be quite the gal to have locked B-Dog down.”

Delaney knew her name. He knew she existed .

His phone buzzed. Then again with multiple messages incoming like rapid-fire bullets, mostly from his Rebels teammates interspersed with ones from his former cronies in Nashville.

Congrats, man!

Awesome news!

You registered anywhere?

(From Hudson Grey, who was now first on Banks’s shit list.)

He blinked at the phone. Delaney was still talking.

“… that time you took Mariah Jones to the Copa and she was expecting you to propose?—”

“Where did you hear about this?”

“Where the world hears about everything. Twitter. Or X. Some gossip site.”

Fuck. “I was calling to find out how I can get out of it.”

A pause, then … laughter. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me. All Stars game in Vegas?”

“Yep.”

More laughter, bordering on maniacal.

“This isn’t funny.”

“Oh, but it is. You were always so insistent that no one could pin you down and now what? A few shots of tequila and some little cutie slips a ring on it?”

He wished he could blame alcohol. The real reason this happened was because he was at a particularly low point. Thinking about the end and what came next. Vulnerable to the temptation of a gorgeous smile and shapely legs and … what else? There had to be more.

Back in college, he wasn’t exactly a player, but neither was he interested in settling down. Not like Delaney who married the first woman he met at some orientation mixer in his freshman year. With New York, Denver, then Nashville, Banks had attended more weddings than he scored goals. All the guys he came up with were paired off with ankle-biters milling around. With each passing year, Banks was left squiring the youngsters on the team while the veterans headed to hotel rooms or home to get domestic with their special someones.

The Rebels were no different. More loved up idiots. He wanted to play cards at the weekly poker night, and they wanted to talk about their abundantly fertile women.

Another text came in on the group thread, and his heart, already hovering an inch above the floor, plummeted on a hell-bound hurtle toward the earth’s core.

April

When were you going to tell us?

Sandy

Screw that. When are we going to meet her?

April

I’m guessing he doesn’t want us to meet her, ergo the secrecy.

Kelly

The website said it happened in Vegas … nuff said.

The coven, as he labeled his sisters. If they knew, it wouldn’t be long before?—

April

She knows. And she’s thrilled!

The “she” in that sentence was his grandmother, Constance Flora Bankowski.

He dragged his gaze away from the group thread, which was chirping on merrily without his input.

“John, how do I get out of this?”

The gravity in Banks’s tone had Delaney switching to business mode. “You put in a petition for dissolution. Usually goes through in three months as long as both parties are in agreement and there are no complications with assets or child custody arrangements. One of you needs to be a resident in Nevada for six weeks before you file, though.”

“Kind of hard for me to be in two places at once.”

Delaney chuckled. “You could ask your wife to move there.”

Something tickled his brain. “What about an annulment?” That’s what he’d signed before. He’d been so pissed that he hadn’t even looked at it closely, just dropped his John Hancock on the dotted line.

“Possible, though the bar is higher there. Bigamy, underage, fraud, want of understanding, insanity.”

Insanity? That sounded about right.

He checked the family text thread again. They’d moved on to wedding reception planning.

Meanwhile, Delaney had launched into a patter about decrees and alimony implications. Banks inhaled a deep breath and seesawed back to the coven’s text thread.

She knows. And she’s thrilled!

Then from Kelly:

It’s all she’s ever wanted.

So Grandma Connie was pleased that her only grandson had finally tied the knot. That didn’t mean he had to stay hitched.

He refocused on Delaney. “Tell me what I need to do.”

April called first. He was tempted not to answer but he’d have to listen to her whining for months, so it was just better all-around to get it over with.

“Make it quick. I have practice in ten.”

“Hold on, I’m getting Sandy and Kel in on this, too.”

Approximately twenty-three seconds later, Sandy was screeching. “I want to know everything!”

“As you can probably guess, this was not intentional.”

Kelly chuckled. “How drunk do you have to be to get married in Vegas these days? I’d never have thought you capable of being so clichéd.”

“That’s me. A walking cliché.” He cleared his throat which was the signal to his sisters to quit and be serious. Not that it ever worked but he lived in constant hope. “I can’t believe you told Gran.”

“Uh, she told us ,” April said. “She’s got a Google alert on your name, dummy.”

“Right, but it was months ago. I don’t even know how it got out.” Though he had an idea. Very soon, he’d be wrapping his fingers around the thick neck of O’Malley or Grey. Probably both. “I thought it was fixed, but apparently there was a paperwork snafu.”

“A paperwork snafu?” April blurted, voicing the disbelief Banks felt right now. He was not the kind of guy who fell victim to a “paperwork snafu.” He pored over the small print of his contracts. He monitored his 401(k) quarterly and made the appropriate changes if his equities allocation tipped above 60%. He didn’t get married to trust fund party girls or screw up the legal documentation that severed their connection.

“Did someone forget to file something?” Kelly was being kind, trying to give him an out.

“Never mind that,” Sandy cut in. “What’s she like?”

Annoying, chipper, his complete opposite. “She’s a socialite.”

“I’ve seen pictures of her online.” That clicking sound was April on her laptop. “She’s gorgeous.”

“She’s like that, only … concentrated.”

“Like frozen OJ?” Kelly laughed. “What does that even mean?”

“She’s a party girl.” But not that night. Sure, they’d had a few drinks, but he was sober enough when he slipped that ring on her finger and said “I do.”

The lead up, however? Georgia on the dance floor of some club, and it was fucking murder. Just watching her shimmy and let loose, with the eyes of every asshole on her, he’d felt positively possessive. He barely knew her, but he knew that much.

Mine.

Two months later and in the cold light of day, he couldn’t believe thoughts like that had even entered his mind, never mind dug their claws in deep enough to take him to the marriage license bureau and the chapel. He was not an impulsive person.

What kind of witchery did this woman possess that made him go off the rails like that?

“So when do we meet her?” April’s voice held a note of amusement.

“Never. I’m getting a lawyer on it.”

“That’s not fair,” Sandy whined. “We haven’t had a chance to make a determination.”

Jesus.

“How did she manage to pin you down, D?” Kelly’s tone was curious. “You must have seen something in her to get that far and she clearly saw something in you, though that’s not hard. You’re amazing. You can’t ignore that kind of connection.”

Kelly was a bit woo-woo when it came to this kind of thing. Fate, destiny, kismet—she believed in all that crap. He was surprised they weren’t giving him a harder time. They had hated Stacy.

“The connection was fueled by a bottle of Patron.” Any other explanation would be tequila on the flames. “And if the paperwork had been filed properly and someone hadn’t blabbed, you wouldn’t even know about it.”

“Gran wants to meet her.”

Those words, uttered casually by Sandy, struck a puck-hard blow to his chest.

“Dylan,” April said softly when he didn’t respond. “It would make her happy. Right now, all she knows is that you’re married. She doesn’t know the sordid details.”

Just like that, his phone buzzed with an incoming call from the woman herself.

“That’s her. Stay on the line.”

“Time to pay the piper …”

“Don’t kill her dreams …”

“We’ll check in later …”

They hung up. Sisters? The worst.

Drawing a deep breath, he pressed accept and said, “Hey, Gran, what’s up?”

“Why did I have to hear it from TMZ?”

“It was …” A mistake. A catastrophe. The best night of my life. “A surprise.”

“I bet it was. The news said it was the All-Star game weekend. A Vegas wedding!”

“Right. But I hadn’t just met her.” Because that would be absurd. “She’s a neighbor of one of my teammates.”

“So it was a spur of the moment thing? I didn’t even know you were dating anyone after Stacy.”

His mom’s voice cut in. Gran had put him on speaker. “Dylan, this seems kind of sudden.”

It wasn’t said to criticize. She would never, but she did worry. Plus she was right: he had spoken to her that night and hadn’t given the slightest hint that he had a woman in his life.

Gran jumped back in. “Now, tell the truth … have you knocked her up?”

“Nope.”

“Any chance you might soon? I could probably hold on for another great-grandchild.”

“You have four already and you’re not going anywhere,” his mom said. “Besides, you don’t need the grandson and heir to produce.”

“But I need him to be happy.” Gran sounded wistful. “And having him settled with a family of his own would make him happy.”

“Not sure where you get that idea, Gran.”

He had a good life. A family he adored despite how much they annoyed him. A career that had treated him well. So he was bruised and battered, and hadn’t reached the pinnacle in his sport, but there were other measures of success.

None of them involved marrying a flighty stranger who couldn’t even file a form correctly!

For the rest of the conversation, Banks tried to steer the talk away from his new bride only to have his grandmother bring it right back to where it started. Eventually he ended the call with a promise to set up a FaceTime check-in with Georgia, who was “currently out running errands.” All he had to do was say it was a mistake, but the words refused to come.

Three minutes later, his mom called. “I’m hiding in the bathroom. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“A mistake that should have been fixed by now. Maybe you can break it to her?”

“I don’t know, Dylan. She’s thrilled.”

He closed his eyes. “But it’s not … real. I’m working on making it go away.”

His mom sighed. “Listen, you’ve never been a risk taker and it’s kept you on a solid trajectory with your career and your life. But sometimes we need to shake the tree, see what falls out.”

“Are you saying that getting impulsively married to a stranger in Vegas is my way of shaking things up?”

“I know you weren’t too happy about your trade. You hoped to stay in Nashville, maybe win the Cup before your time is up. Things are changing—moving to a new city and team, reckoning with the final years of your career, and thinking about what comes next. Marrying and starting a family would be considered a normal move for someone in your position.”

“I got close already. And that experience made me rethink whether that’s for me. I decided it wasn’t.”

His mom hummed. “Sounds like the universe had other ideas.”

“ Not a message from the universe.”

“Often it’s the universe inside your head that dictates the next move.”

“Sure thing, Yoda.”

She laughed. “All I’m saying is that you’ve made your grandmother happy and given her something to look forward to. I’d never ask you to put your life on hold to please an old lady, but let’s face it, divorces take time and the next couple of months will be busy with the playoffs?—”

“If we make it.”

“Which you will. What does your new bride think of all this?”

She wants to stay married. For money.

“We haven’t really discussed it.”

“Okay, maybe you should? You say it was unintentional, but you’re not an unintentional person. Something led you down that aisle and made you put a ring on this woman’s finger. You tried to keep it under wraps, but the news still found a way to come out. I’m seeing a lot of signs here! Don’t you owe it to yourself to explore what led you to this point?”

“So I should stay married because the universe says so?”

“Maybe, and because it will make your grandmother happy.”

His mom might be onto something. He hadn’t been drunk, no matter how much he’d like to spin it that way. He didn’t buy the because-the-universe-decreed-it argument, but he also wondered if part of his resistance to Georgia’s proposal to stay married stemmed from his anger about how she’d initially handled the annulment.

Because, fool that he was, he had wanted to give this thing a go.