She smiles but it’s sad. “I was scared to tell you. I didn’t want things to change or for me to lose you. And I thought if you and Jessica were back together, I could keep us closer because she already loves us. She loves me.” She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall, her vulnerability leaking through. “I don’t know this Queenie woman, and what if she doesn’t like me?”

“Well, I love you and she loves me, so I think as long as you can give her a fair shot, she can give you one too. But in order to do that, you have to stop basing your opinion of Queenie on a highly slanted tabloid news story meant to incite public rage, by a person who might be a few face cards short of a deck. That woman who was busy dragging Queenie’s name through the dirt also tried to blackmail the captain of our team almost a decade ago by using a plaster cast of her sister’s baby belly and posting pictures online.”

“Wow, now that’s some crazy,” Gerald mutters into his scotch.

“She faked a pregnancy?” My mom seems taken aback. She also tends to take anything on TV as gospel.

“Yes. It was a very elaborate ruse. Rook had to file a restraining order.” I leave out the part where she also asked him to ejaculate in a cup so she could turkey baste herself.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. So do you see now how this biased opinion you have of Queenie is based on nothing but slander?”

Mom squeezes my hands. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been very selfish about this whole thing, haven’t I?”

I squeeze back. “We’re all allowed to be selfish sometimes.”

“I only ever want what’s best for you,” she says softly.

“I know. And Queenie is what’s best for me. Now I need to go fix things with my girlfriend, because currently she believes that my whole family thinks I’d be better off with someone other than her. So I’m going to see if I can set things straight.” I kiss my mom’s forehead, then push to a stand, winking at Hanna as I cross the room. “Don’t wait up.”CHAPTER 29

GOOD ENOUGH

Queenie

Today has been one hell of a roller-coaster ride, full of ups and downs and loop the loops, ending in a massive derailment.

Seeing Jessica pawing at Kingston was like a backhand to the face with a cactus mitten. She’s so perfect, and blonde and willowy and Barbie-like, but with normal proportions. And he’s so put together and gorgeous and perfectly him.

On the surface they look like they match.

But now that I know Kingston, I’m aware that there’s a lot more to him than just a polo-and-khaki-wearing Boy Scout.

I’ve spent enough time over the past week looking through his social media. Kingston isn’t the kind of person who would delete his memories, or the people he made them with. So I’ve had a front-row seat to the progression of a fresh-faced Kingston with Jessica posed sporadically at his side all the way up until midseason last year.

I can understand exactly why his mother would want them to be together. They are definitely a picture-perfect couple. Until you really look at the two of them together and compare those pictures to the ones he’s been posting of us over the past few months. The sheer quantity alone speaks volumes.

I can see it in the way they orient themselves around each other: familiar but formal, posed but never relaxed, smiling but always a little tight lipped. And then there are the pictures of him and me together—which totally clog his feed and have replaced more than 50 percent of his pregame skate and workout videos. Kingston’s smile is brighter, his posture is more relaxed, and the expression he wears when he’s taking one of his silly selfies while trying to look at me instead of the camera tells me everything I need to know. That despite how different we are, or maybe because of it, we fit. The way he wants me is the same way I want him.

I get that his family’s perception of me probably isn’t the greatest if they’ve been listening to the gossip mill. But come on, everyone knows 90 percent of that stuff is bullshit based on a grain of truth.

And now I’m annoyed, frustrated, and kind of pissed off. Because his ex is here—probably in his house right now—and the woman who raised him as her son is the one who brought her. I’m not pissed at Kingston; he needs to deal with the situation. But in that moment when I saw them together, with his family standing and watching the whole thing, his mom beaming rainbows of happiness, I realized there was clearly a disconnect. And if I’d stuck around, I wasn’t going to make an awesome first impression. Or second impression, if I’m counting the whole tabloid explosion.

Tags: Helena Hunting All In Romance
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