Chapter Twenty-One
Celebrate Life with Sprinkles—The Blog
Inspirational Quote of the Day:
“Experience is the teacher of all things.” —Julius Caesar, Roman politician
I remember reading that famous quote by Julius Caesar and saving it into my OneNote file on my laptop as something that should be my mantra.
I stare at my face on Dishing Weekly, with an outlandish headline above it, my hands frozen on the grocery store cart handle, trying to remind myself I learned things from my experiences on Is it Love?
One of them is that the tabloid media will rear its head from time to time.
But seeing the words splashed across my face—and Maxime’s—makes me sick with fear. Of course, I saw it online this morning, and even shared a picture with Maxime, but seeing it in person is much worse. It makes it more real.
Why today? I think, anxiously biting my lip. I’ve signed my book contract. Maxime is coming home tonight. I should be on top of the world, but all I can do is stand in front of the magazine rack, regretting that my past is now toying with my future in a sidebar picture on the tabloid.
IS SWEET SKYE HITTING THE PENALTY BOX WITH BELGIAN HOCKEY HUNK?
Is It Love for real this time? Page 12.
I pull a copy of the magazine from the rack with a shaking hand. The article is going to be painfully cheesy and humiliating. I quickly thumb through the pages, dread increasing with each flick of the page as I get closer to “my story.” Finally, I find it: a two-page spread filled with photos of Maxime and me at breakfast last week. There is one snapped of me leaving the TV studio, and another of Maxime leaving the rink on the day he left for the road trip, with this hideous caption underneath it:
Looking sullen at the thought of leaving his luscious reality show love, Maxime Laurent prepares to jet out for a long road trip.
I swallow hard. The rest of the WAGS don’t drag their boyfriends and husbands into this quagmire of crap. I feel horrible, inferior.
Because I know the article is always worse than the headline. If this one isn’t, one full of hurtful things and absolute lies will be coming.
I chuck the magazine facedown into my cart. I’ll read it at home. The last thing I need is for people to take pictures of me reading about myself in the store. Then the headlines would be “Spotlight-loving Skye can’t stop reading about herself! We caught her flicking through our article on Friday!”
Maxime can handle this, I reassure myself as I keep my head down and begin to push the cart through the store. He told me the tabloids didn’t matter. I remind myself it’s temporary interest, and as soon as the next season starts, they will shift their attention to the new contestants, but I know he won’t like it. I also know it won’t be enough to unravel what we have.
At least that is what I have to believe, or I’ll go mad with worry.
I begin shopping for the dinner I’m making Gavin tonight. He is getting my one specialty; in other words, the one thing I can make without it ending in complete failure: my mom’s chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole. You make it in one pot, and at the end, pop it into the oven for browning. My mom had it growing up, and she made our housekeeper add it to the menu when I was young.
It’s the only thing I can make. Besides cupcakes from a mix.
I go through the list I neatly organized on my phone, acting like I don’t notice people staring at me while I shop. It’s an acquired skill. It’s not easy to pretend you don’t notice when someone is obviously gawking at you.
Bleurgh.
I work through the items on my list, throwing in a rustic loaf of whole-wheat sourdough bread, a bag of organic salad mix, and a bottle of natural low-fat dressing. I head to self-checkout so I can move quickly and get out without more people noticing me.
I head outside into the sunshine, purchases in hand. I open the passenger door and place my bags on the seat, then shut it and slip behind the wheel. I say a little prayer for my car to start, and it does. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I retrieve the tabloid out of the bag. I pass royal gossip and Hollywood scandal to get to my love story:
It looks like America’s Reality Show Sweetheart, Skye Reeve, is no longer crying over Tom Broaden, who broke her heart with his declaration that he did not, indeed, find love with her on the season finale of Is It Love? last season.
Rather, our stunning blonde, sporting her hair in a stylish braid and looking casual chic in a cozy, pale gray V-neck sweater with a crisp white shirt sticking out underneath, seems to have found love with a dashingly sexy hockey hunk from Belgium.
Maxime Laurent, the model-like looker with cheekbones that could chisel stone, is the alternate captain for the Denver Mountain Lions. He only had eyes for his own reality star during their intimate breakfast for two on February 16th in Boulder, Colorado.
According to sources close to the couple, they connected when Reeve landed a job on the TV show Boulder Live this year.
“Skye has never been so happy,” raves one source close to the TV personality. “She’s already planning for a lavish wedding in Belgium next summer.”
I stop reading. What fresh hell is this? Wedding? Just a few weeks before, the tabloids had me drowning myself in donuts over Wanker Tom; now I’m running off to marry Maxime in Belgium?
I sigh and continue reading:
Laurent, for his part, has been quiet on the Denver dating scene and at Mountain Lions functions, never attending with a date.
Apparently, all he needed was for the skies to open up and drop Reeve into his life.
The two looked at each other with tenderness and adoration over breakfast, sharing not just pancakes and bacon, but also sweet whispers, hand-holds, and kisses—right in public!
While making out in front of the world isn’t new for Reeve, it is for the quiet, off-the-radar Laurent.
“He couldn’t keep his hands off her,” says a patron who was at the restaurant that morning. “It was so sweet!”
The sexy hockey hunk, looking deliciously disheveled with rumpled hair and stubble across his jaw, also brushed tender kisses across Reeve’s knuckles, gazing at her lovingly in the brief time they had together before he went on a brutal road trip through Canada.
While Laurent hated to leave his new love so early, insiders close to the hockey-playing star said he’s confident in what they have.
“They are a true team,” says a Laurent insider. “These two are meant to be together.”
Friday is his last game on the road, and we look forward to seeing a happy reunion with our new favorite lovebirds!
Okay. Rather cringe-worthy, especially the wedding bit, but as far as tabloid fare goes, this isn’t awful. It’s actually favorable to us, and while I have a feeling his teammates will give Maxime shit about knuckle kisses and having chiseled cheekbones, I know Maxime will survive it.
And come home to me later tonight.
***
“I hope you are in the mood for retro home cooking,” I say, carrying my casserole dish into Gavin’s luxurious, modern kitchen. “Because I brought a broccoli, chicken, and cheese casserole. Canned soup is included in the recipe.”
Gavin hobbles on crutches behind me. “It sounds perfect. I can’t thank you enough for doing this. You spared my mom a trip from Toronto. I love her, but her fussing over me would have been way too much for me to handle in my current mood.”
I place the casserole dish and the bag of groceries on his vast kitchen island. It’s covered with stacks of folders and papers and a calculator. I bite my lip as I see there are piles and piles of credit card bills.
I know it’s the Veronica mess staring me in the face.
I move to the state-of-the-art Viking wall oven and turn on the temperature I need. I face Gavin, who has dark shadows under his eyes and the start of a golden-haired beard on his face.
“Why don’t we sit down? I’ll let the oven pre-heat, and then I can bring everything to you.”
He moves slowly on his crutches to a large, sectional, theater-style sofa and eases himself down, gently propping his broken leg onto a huge square ottoman.
I follow him and take a seat not too far down from him.
“It seems stupid to ask you how you are feeling,” I admit, “but since I’m a TV reporter, I get to ask the dumb and obvious. How are you feeling?”
A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Let’s see. My girlfriend never loved me and robbed me blind because I’m a clueless sucker. Now I’ve busted my femur, and it hurts like hell, and I’m out for the season. Other than that, I’m fantastic.”
“We’re going to argue on that first comment,” I challenge. “You are not a clueless sucker. You fell in love. You took a risk. It ended badly, but you will come back from this and love again; I promise you that.”
“Oh, hell no,” Gavin says, setting his jaw determinedly. “I’ll never be this stupid again. I’ll hookup, and have fun, but I will be dammed if I’m ever this weak again. Do you have any idea how humiliating this is? She loved my money, Skye. Veronica had me wrapped around her finger like a—” he pauses, and I can tell he’s searching for an appropriate word to use in front of me, “a fool. We’ll go with that. A damn fool.”
“According to this logic, I’m the bigger fool,” I say.
“Why?”
“I fell in love with Tom on TV. He didn’t want anything from me. I was a pawn he played for the cameras. My judgment is infinitely worse than yours, Gavin. I thought he loved me. I thought he was going to get down on one knee and propose to me. Worse, I was going to say ‘Yes,’ to that wanker. So I win this round. He never thought of proposing to me, he lied with every word he whispered, and I had no clue it was all a script he was saying to every other girl on the show. I’m the sorrier one here.”
Now a real smile appears on his face. “You’ve been hanging out with Jude,” he says, referring to my wanker comment.
I smile back at him. “Jude is a good guy. So is Cade. I obviously think Maxime is, and so are you. You will be just as happy as they are once you heal from all of this.”
The smile falls from his face. “No. I’ll heal my femur. I’ll work my ass off in rehab here and back in Toronto this summer, and I’ll be ready for training camp next fall. But I will never get over what Veronica has done. I won’t let myself. I will never be this vulnerable again.”
“Gavin, I felt the same way. Sitting in that café in Brussels, I was at my lowest point. People were laughing at me, making GIFs out of things I said on the show, and having a field day with things that weren’t true. I wanted to die, to hide, which is why I ran to Europe. And that’s where I found Maxime.”
Gavin reaches for his water bottle, undoes the cap, and takes a long swig. “That’s still crazy how you guys were at that same café.”
“I know. We were meant to meet. There will be, when you are ready, some other woman for you to meet, too.”
“I won’t find anyone like you, or Sierra, or JoJo,” Gavin says, his voice tinged with bitterness. “I can’t read women. That’s painfully obvious. So, I’m done. Sex and out.” Then he glances at me. “Sorry for the bluntness.”
I smile gently at him. “I’d like to think we’re going to be friends, as I know you mean a lot to Maxime, so candor between friends is okay. So, my turn to be blunt. What are you going to do about Veronica’s theft? Are you going to press charges?”
He lets out a long, painful-sounding sigh, and my heart aches for him. Gavin pushes down on his backward Mountain Lions baseball cap and keeps his light-blue eyes straight ahead, to the TV that is tuned to the channel where the Mountain Lions game will air in an hour.
“No,” he says, his voice quiet. “I should, but then this will be all over the media. I can’t take that humiliation. I’d rather eat the loss than put her in jail.” He pauses for a moment, and I watch as he swallows hard. “I also can’t put her in jail because I still love her.”
A lump forms in my throat.
“I loved Tom for a while afterward,” I admit. “I came around pretty fast, but when you give your heart, you give it. It would be nice if we could erase those feelings, but we can’t. Now I see that it’s part of life. It’s part of the road you take to get to where you need to be.”
“To Max?” Gavin asks, turning his attention toward me.
I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face. “Yes. To Maxime.”
A true smile appears on Gavin’s face. “He’s crazy about you.”
My heart flutters. “That’s good to hear, because I’m crazy about him, too.”
“We gave him so much shit for not hooking up,” Gavin says. “We were like, ‘Dude, you can hit anything. Why not at least ban—err, sleep with girls?’”
I repress the giggle that climbs up in my throat.
“That’s not his style,” I say.
“No, it’s not. You’re not who I pictured for him at first, to be honest. I watched Is It Love? with Cade and Jude. Maxime gave us shit for watching it, ironically. When I heard you two went out on a date, I was shocked. But sitting here with you now, I get it. You’re real. You just happened to be on a TV show, that’s all.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“You’re good for him.”
“Maxime’s good for me,” I say. Then I clear my throat. “We’ve both had relationship disasters, Gavin. Once you heal, however long that takes, you’ll be fine.”
He snorts. I can tell the topic is going nowhere with him.
“Okay, okay, I’ll let it go. For now. But I will bring it back up at some point because that is what friends do.”
“Skye?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s an honor to be your friend and get to know you.”
“Same,” I say as genuine affection for my new friend fills my heart. “Now, why don’t I get that casserole in the oven? We’ll watch the game, and you can explain the intricacies to me so I can give Maxime some pointers when he gets home,” I tease.
Gavin laughs. “Deal.”
***
We’ve spent the rest of the night watching the Mountain Lions take on Toronto, the last game of this never-ending road trip. I’ve watch as Gavin cycles between elation at good plays and frustration when he sees things that are going wrong or mistakes being made on the ice.
There's a lot of swearing involved.
Now there are a few minutes left in the game, and the Mountain Lions are down 2-1. If Gavin could pace, I know he would. I’m chewing a hole through my lower lip. The Mountain Lions have headed back toward the offensive zone with two minutes and two seconds left in the game.
“Kelly hesitates for a moment, passes to Laurent,” John Lewis, the play-by-play announcer, says.
I watch as Maxime rips a shot on goal that sails past the goalie and into the net.
I leap off the sofa and cheer.
“Hell yes!” Gavin yells.
“That’s my Maxime!” I cry excitedly.
“Ka-bang!” Martin Czeck, the analyst, yells. “Maxime Laurent has tied it up!”
I watch as they replay the brilliant fake out by Brayden Kelly before slipping the puck over to Maxime, followed by another shot of the goal.
Maxime goes down on one knee after he scores and skates across the ice in a moment of rare exhibition. He gets up, and I see a smile of pure, unabashed joy on his face as his teammates hug him on the ice. Pride surges through me, watching him score the tying goal for his team.
“Wicked shot there, Max,” Gavin says, grinning.
The camera follows Maxime as he skates to the bench, fist-bumping everyone as he goes down the line. My adrenaline is still high from the goal, and I have to remind myself to breathe as we watch the remaining time play out.
Gavin and I watch on edge, and when a Toronto shot rings off the goal post as time is about to expire, we both gasp with relief. Whew! We’ve made it to overtime.
Gavin explains how overtime works during a commercial break. It consists of three-on-three hockey, for five minutes, and if a goal isn’t scored, they go to a shootout. Gavin has a natural ability to break things down to a level where I can understand, without making it sound like he’s talking down to me.
He’d be a great coach for kids, I can’t help thinking.
After the break, I see Maxime skate out as part of the first line to hit the ice in the overtime period. He skates next to Cade, covering his mouth with his glove as he speaks to him, and I see Cade nodding as he listens.
Maxime moves into the circle for the face-off. My heart is pounding, and I’m braiding my hair as I watch the screen.
“This is intense,” I murmur, anxiety filling me.
“It’s fun,” Gavin says. “God, I wish I was out there.”
I’m about to acknowledge his comment when the puck is dropped and they take off. The pace is insane! I watch as Maxime passes to Cade, who fires a shot on goal that the goalie deflects. They race back to the other end, with Mountain Lions’ defenseman Andrei Petrov blocking a shot by throwing his body in the way of the puck.
Gavin continues to swear. I’m now unbraiding my hair, and each shot on goal is a hold-your-breath moment, either praying for it to go in or praying for a save. It’s both exhilarating and nerve-fraying at the same time.
The clock winds down as a Toronto player intercepts the puck and flies down to the other end of the ice.
“Shit!” Gavin and I both yell at the same time.
He fires a shot that looks like a sure goal when our goalie, Westley Pratt, comes out of the net and makes a huge save.
“Pratt with an incredible save!” John yells.
“What anticipation by Pratt,” Martin adds. “He knew he had to come out to make that save!”
Overtime ends.
“Shootout time,” Gavin says, taking off his hat and putting it back on.
“Who will take the shots?” I ask, my stomach in knots.
“Well, I’m usually one of them,” Gavin says, sighing. “My guess is they will move up Jude, as he has a sick set of hands and is awesome in the shootout. Then Maxime. If it goes further, then Phillips, Kelley, and Callahan. But let’s hope Maxime can close this game out.”
Gavin was right. After the shootout is announced, Jude takes to the ice.
“Here we go in the shootout! First up is Jude Parker,” John says. “He grabs the puck at center …”
I hold my breath as Jude comes up the ice. He closes in on the Toronto goaltender, moving the puck one way, then the other, and then he shoots, and bam! He scores!
“Jude Parker scores!” John cries. “What a slick move to beat the Toronto netminder.”
“Yes!” Gavin yells. “He schooled him!”
“Way to go Jude!” I cheer.
“What a beautiful move, a backhand, forehand, roof,” Martin says.
Next up is a player for Toronto, who takes off from center toward Westley. He tries to fake him out, but Westley drops and deflects the puck with his stick.
“Yes!” I scream.
“Come on, Maxime. Get on the board,” Gavin says, fixated on the TV.
I put my fingertips to my lips. I feel all the pressure Maxime must have on his shoulders right now, to put that puck into the net.
Maxime takes to center ice and puts his stick on the puck. I can’t decide if I want to cover my eyes or not, but I keep my hands still, my eyes riveted to Maxime.
“Laurent brings the puck up the ice,” the announcer says. “He slows up a bit …”
I’m going to have a stroke.
I watch as Maxime takes a shot on net, holding my breath.
“To the backhand and he scores!” John roars.
Gavin and I are yelling in unison now.
They replay Maxime’s move, and then they show him skating over to the bench and high-fiving his teammates.
“If Pratt makes the save here we win,” Gavin says.
Come on, Westley, I think. Close this game out.
The Toronto player skates toward Westley. I once again have my fingertips pressed against my lips, anxiety filling me.
The player goes back to make his shot. I watch he releases the puck, but it’s snatched by the glove of Westley!
Gavin and I are both screaming in excitement now.
The Mountain Lions have come from behind and won the game.
They show the Mountain Lions players coming over the wall and forming a line to congratulate Westley on his incredible showing tonight.
“What a thrilling way to end what has been a great road trip for the Denver Mountain Lions,” John says.
Pride fills me as I watch Maxime congratulate Westley by patting him affectionately on the top of his goalie helmet. They cut away from Maxime and show the announcers in the booth, but at this point, I don’t hear what they are saying.
Maxime played brilliantly. There are no words to describe the happiness I have for him.
Best of all, he’s coming home now.
And I can’t wait to show him exactly how I feel about him tomorrow night.