Why would it be any other way?
The season is over.
My teammates are all off having fun, moving on, like I should be doing.
If not for me, then for Aubrey.
I love her entirely too much for this to go on.
Grunting, I skate up the ice with a newfound determination, taking aim at a line of pucks I’ve set up along the blue line.
One, two, three, four…
Whack, whack, whack, whack.
Every single one goes into the net.
Of course, it’s easy with no goaltender and no defenders hanging on your ass.
I retrieve the pucks and set them up again in the exact same way.
What I should be doing is attending the cake tasting Aubrey scheduled for us. It’s this afternoon and the second time around, as the first one didn’t go so well.
Poor Aubs broke out in big red hives.
Shit, it was really bad.
How could we have known she’s allergic to pineapple?
“That has to be the reason,” Aubrey said as I was driving her to the ER that day. “It’s the only ingredient in that one cake that I’ve never had before.”
“You’re joking, right?” I asked, almost wrecking the car.
Okay, not really. But I was shocked.
“No, I’m not joking, Brent,” Aubs replied dryly, clearly finding her admission not nearly as amusing as I was.
She was pissed already, so I went ahead and asked, “How can you have lived a quarter of a century on this earth and never tasted a single bite of pineapple?”
“I don’t know, Brent,” she snapped. “How can you have lived on this earth almost just as long and not have learned not to aggravate your wife-to-be with silly questions when she’s in the middle of a medical emergency?”
Aubrey was beyond irate by then, so I wisely shut my mouth.
See, I’m learning.
But I’ve regressed lately, falling into old ways.
I know Aubrey isn’t happy with me, especially when I actually admitted I wasn’t feeling this wedding planning stuff lately.
Bad move.
Then I went ahead and booked ice time for today.
Not smart.
“Why would you have done something stupid like that?” Aubrey asked, eyes narrowing.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I kind of forgot about the cake tasting this afternoon.”