Score Her Heart: A Marriage of Convenience Hockey Romance (Philadelphia Bulldogs Book 2)

shoulder. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. Maybe he slept through his alarm,” she tried to reassure me, but she didn’t sound convinced.
Somehow, I knew that we both knew that line was complete and utter bullshit. Eric never slept through anything.
I pulled out my phone and texted him again while Katie tried to call him for the tenth time.
ME: WTF!!!
ME: Where are you?
ME: Mother fucker, I know you aren’t passed out drunk somewhere.
ME: Answer me!
I saw Katie repeatedly saying the word “okay” into her phone, but she wasn’t looking at me. Almost like she was too embarrassed to look me in the eyes right now.
I looked back at my phone and saw the three dots indicating typing, then they disappeared and immediately came back up. Finally, I was getting an answer on what the actual fuck was going on.
ERIC: I’m sorry.
ERIC: I can’t do this. I don’t want to get married. Can’t we go back to the way things were?
ME: Are you FUCKING kidding me?
ERIC: I don’t want to marry you.
ME: Go fuck yourself. Get your shit, and get out of my apartment.
ERIC: It’s our apartment.
ME: And everything’s in my name. Kindly go fuck yourself gently with a chainsaw.
I wanted to hurl my phone at the wall, but instead, I hurled myself out of the room.
“Fiona, where are you going?” Mom shrieked after me.
“The fucking bar!” I yelled back and hitched up the skirt of my ridiculous dress. I couldn’t even think of the fiasco this would cause for my parents. I didn’t care; I needed a drink.
I parked myself in front of the hotel bar in a huff. The bartender blinked at me in surprise. He glanced over my shoulder and then back at me. “I think you’re early?” he asked in confusion.
“It’s off,” I seethed. “Give me a whiskey.”
His face fell, and he nodded before getting to work behind the bar. He put a glass of whiskey down in front of me. “On the house, Miss.”
I shook my head. “Oh, no, don’t pity me.”
He pushed the glass closer to me. “I insist.”
I cocked my head at him. He was kind of cute with his spiky blond hair and five o’clock shadow. Maybe I should fuck him just to get back at Eric. Maybe it was the fact that my sex life had been lacking in the past couple months that I was entertaining the idea of sleeping with a stranger. I took the drink and downed it in one fell swoop. I looked at my phone and saw more texts from Eric.
ERIC: I was happy before, but I don’t see why we had to get married.
ERIC: Marriage is stupid. We don’t want kids.
ERIC: Fi, don’t be this way. I know you don’t want this wedding either.
I frowned but noticed my drink had been refilled. The cute bartender winked at me, and I nodded my head at him in thanks.
The truth was we hadn’t decided that we didn’t want kids; Eric had decided that and never gave me the chance to really think about it. I had been fine with that because I had loved him, but the fact that he didn’t want to go through with the wedding either meant he didn’t love me. How could I expect him to be committed to me if he didn’t show up on our wedding day? PLUS! Canceling all of this shit was going to cost a shit ton of money. I didn’t even want to think about it. My dad was going to be livid if he wasn’t already. I might need to get him a whole bottle of whiskey to apologize. Maybe even a freaking case.
I maddeningly typed out my response into my phone.
ME: AGAIN, how about you go fuck yourself, you fucking asshat? I can’t believe you did this to me. We are DONE. Have a good life, Eric!
My phone was blowing up with texts from guests wondering what was going on, but the only one I looked at was Riley’s.
ME: Don’t come.
RILEY: What’s going on?
ME: Wedding’s off. Don’t come. I’m sorry, I know it was hard for you to get here with your hockey schedule.
RILEY: Where are you?
ME: Bar.
I put my head in my hands and finished off my second glass of whiskey. I put my phone down and decided answering all those texts was not what I was going to do right now. When I pulled my hands away, my eyeliner was smudged on my hand, along with some wetness. Great, I was the crying bride left at the altar drinking alone at the bar.
Way to be a cliche, Fiona!
A glass of water and another whiskey was placed in front of me. “You want to start a tab?” the bartender asked me.
Before I could answer, a deep voice from behind me said, “Yeah, put it on my card.”
I turned to take in Riley in all his glory. He looked great in a suit, his broad shoulders and thick biceps filling it out nicely. His blond hair was tousled in that ‘I couldn’t care less’ style that meant he spent a long time on it. I’d only seen him a few times this year; with his professional hockey career and my writing career, we were both traveling a lot and rarely in the same city. But damn, he looked good today, filling out that suit tailored specifically for him. I felt heat pool in my lower belly, but maybe it was just from all the whiskey. I definitely wasn’t remembering all those times in high school when Riley’s mouth had been on mine. Definitely not.
Riley slid onto the stool next to me and ordered a beer. When the bartender handed him the bottle, that’s when he turned to me and pulled me into a big bear hug. Maybe that’s all I needed because I relaxed into his strong arms, leaning my face against his hard chest. But then I started crying again. To his credit, Riley was a good sport who let me cry on his shoulder