The Faker: A Marriage of Convenience Hockey Romance (Boston Hawks Hockey) by Gina Azzi (little red riding hood read aloud .TXT) 📕

the open. I’m not daft. I know rebuilding a relationship with Father will take time. I also know it will never truly be the relationship I’d like it to be because we have too much hurt in our history. But I feel a ribbon of hope for what my family could look like in the future. Father, Anders, Magnus, Uncle Erik, Johan, Daniel, and me. A bunch of searching men forever held together by our love for the woman who made us. Farmor.

I sit on the edge of my mattress, my chest tight. I miss her. I miss her sparkling eyes and her light laughter. I miss her warm embrace and her wise advice. The image of Rielle holding her hand that night in the hospital slips into my mind, unbidden.

If Farmor were here, I know she’d be urging me to make things right with Rielle. But how can I when I hurt her so badly?

I pull out my phone and text her before I can second-guess it.

Me: It’s done. I spoke to Father.

Rielle: Proud of you.

My throat thickens at her message. Of course she is. Even now, hurting, she has my back and proves her loyalty. It aches and soothes at the same time and more than anything, I wish she was here so I could wrap my arms around her, take her to my bed, and show her all the things I don’t know how to say with words.

Me: Are you okay?

Rielle: No. But I will be.

I frown at her words, the same from last week. I hired a guy to keep an eye on her in New York. I’m sure she’d hate it if she knew but there’s no way I can be here, in Oslo, and not know she’s safe in New York. I know she’s been spending hours around the city, getting lost in Central Park, taking photographs. I know she’s had lunch with her father twice and is staying with her brother and his family, which made me smile. Not for the first time, I realize just how much I don’t know about my wife, her past, and the choices she wants to make for her future.

And I hate myself a little bit for not learning them all sooner.

Another week without Rielle passes and it nearly destroys me. My hands reach for her in my sleep, my thoughts circle around her during the day, and my heart craves hers.

But tying her down to me, a man who’s relocating to Norway, a guy who needs to rebuild so many bridges with his family, a person who is financially secure, emotionally stunted, and mentally drained, isn’t fair. Not when she’s on the cusp of her life. Her twenties have barely gotten started. She hasn’t had the time to explore the kind of future she wants, to find the type of man who deserves to be by her side.

If I’ve learned one thing in my time married to Rielle Carter, it’s that I’m not deserving enough. Not if I would drag her to Oslo, ask her to confront my farmor, and then push her away. Not if I would choose to stay behind and deal with my family business bullshit while she boarded a plane headed for the States.

The only silver lining to my heartache is that things in Oslo, at Hansen Manor, are so twisted that I lose myself in the business, my family, and preserving Magnus’s legacy. The week after we bury Farmor, I spend a solid twenty-four hours drunk out of my mind. Anders, Daniel, Johan, and I sit on the back deck of the Manor and pass a bottle, then two, of whiskey, the good stuff, around. We get rip-roaringly drunk. The kind of drunk that serves as a truth serum. Shit from our childhoods, grudges we’ve held on to, hurts we’ve kept buried, all bubble to the surface and float away with the sunset at nearly 10 p.m.

The four of us spring into action in the following week since Uncle Erik and Father have stepped aside. Father is spending some time in France while Uncle Erik went to visit a friend in the Middle East. It feels like we all breathe a little easier with them out of Norway. Even though Father and I spoke, it feels necessary to put some emotional distance between us.

His absence leaves me with more time to focus on my other relationships. Like gaining back my brother and my cousins. Like spending time with my amazing nephew, a little mini me, who loves hockey and skating, and looks at me with stars in his eyes.

I focus on all of this and try to ignore the dull throb in my chest where my heart used to be. Any thought of Rielle sets me back, distracts me, causes me to turn a million what-ifs and if-onlys over in my mind. During the day, I try to block her out, but it’s impossible. Everything I see somehow reminds me of a memory associated with her. Eating smoked salmon, a childhood staple, now has me recalling that first breakfast I made her in our kitchen. By the end of each day, I’m desperate for sleep to claim me just to ease the longing in my chest. Still, she finds me in my dreams.

Twelve days after she left, I can’t take it anymore. I cave and dial her number.

Listening to the phone ring has my nerves bouncing around, eager and insecure and hopeful.

“Torsten?” Her voice comes through the line and I clench the phone. I take a moment to let her voice wash over me and it’s even better than I remembered.

“Hey Ri,” I murmur.

“You okay?” The concern is heavy in her tone and it causes emotion to swell inside of me because if she answered my call, does that mean she still cares?

“I miss you,” I admit. “I miss you every second of every day.”

She sucks in an audible inhale and I pause, giving her time to collect her