“Who says I wasn’t a late boomer? Maybe I was conceived the same?—”
“Wow,” Rina’s voice interrupted. “I take it back. You’re the normal one.” She looked at Ming. “Who would’ve thought?”
“I once spent anentireday with these two. That was a whole twenty-four hours of chatter that made zero sense tome. They’re a different breed of human, I suppose. It’s so weird, but man, they’re so adorable,” Ming replied.
“I don’t even want to imagine it. Brooke used to tell me somuch about Reece. At some point, I was convinced she was making him up. Like, honestly, nobody’s as perfect as she makes him out to be.” Rina looked at the screen that listed all the finished food orders. “Oh, our food’s ready.”
She was just about to get up when I told her to stay seated. “Brooke and I will get it.”
“Why me?” Brooke groaned but got up and followed me either way. “I was just getting comfortable.”
Interlocking her fingers with mine, we made our way over to the register. “Ming’s trying to make a move on your friend. We shouldn’t be there for that.”
“Oh, Rina knows.” She laughed. “He’s more than obvious.”
“Yeah, but we make him look bad.”
“How so?”
I showed the guy at the register our receipt with our number on it to get our order, then turned back to Brooke as we waited. “Because it’sus. We’re perfect. We make everyone look bad.”
“Here you go,” the guy said before Brooke even managed to open her mouth.
I took the tray with our food from him. “Thanks.”
“Enjoy your meal.”
“Thank you,” Brooke replied, smiling at him kindly. “We’re not perfect,” she then whispered as we made our way back to our table. “We fight. A lot.”
“I can’t remember the last time we did.”
Brooke stopped in her tracks, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as she cocked her head at me. “Seriously?”
“Yup. Not a clue.”
“This morning?” I shrugged in response. “We were fighting about going to this stupid party. Which, by the way, was super unnecessary because we weren’t even there for two hours.”
“Because of you.”
Her head lifted in a slow nod. “You didn’t want to go to that party either.”
Yeah, I probably should’ve worded it differently.
I would’ve rather stayed at home with her than gone to that party, and I was actually really relieved that we could leave early, but that really wasn’t the reason why we left.
Brooke walked past me, rushing toward the table. I couldn’t even reach out to her because of the tray in my hands.
“Brooke!” I called after her. She turned around, looking at me, anger etched into her features. I couldn’t even blame her for being upset as it really sounded like I was blaming her for leaving. “We left because you, Ming, and Lane started stupid rumors. I wasn’t going to stay at a place where everyone was going to look down on you and say you’ve cheated on me.”
The tension on her face faded as it was replaced with shock. “Cheated?!”
We stayed an entire hour after emerging from the bedroom, and the looks we got were… not nice. I was used to having eyes on me on the ice, but at school, I was invisible. Or I tried to be.
Despite Holden and a bunch of other guys from the team trying to stop the cheating rumors from spreading, once one started making its rounds, it was almost impossible to stop it. We now had to learn how to live with that shit being out in the open, at least for a few weeks until the rumors finally dimmed down.
Most people at the party were throwing disgusted looks atBrooke. While she might’ve not noticed them because she was too busy telling herself nobody was judging her so she didn’t have a panic attack, I noticed them. And I could interpret the looks just fine. I wasn’t going to stay somewhere my fiancée wasn’t wanted.
I nodded. “You and two guys in a room? With the door locked? What else would those who saw you walk in there think was going on? I mean, seriously, baby, everyone who saw us walk into that room wasveryaware of us having sex. They definitely assumed the same about the three of you.”