The Fictional Hockey League

Critiquing hockey romance novels, of which there are many. Overthinking it is the point.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Body Check: Post 8-



Chapter Five: The Plot Thickens

It turns out that the Darcy-the-best-friend owns a lingerie boutique, because of course she does. And she’s in a bad mood when Hayden arrives because a man with whom she’d had one date, which amounted to smoothies and a bit of in-car making out, sent her a bouquet of roses. Hayden tells her that there’s something wrong with Darcy for being freaked out about the bouquet (which she has thrown away) and calls it a sign of Darcy’s commitment issues. Frankly, though, I’m with Darcy on this one. Roses delivered to work after one not-quite-a-date? That’s too much too soon. On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t make me burst out with “What is the matter with the penis species?” the way it does Darcy (56 emphasis original).

After Darcy calms down a bit, Hayden fills her in on meeting up with Brody again. Darcy assumes that Hayden was able to keep to her one-night-stand plan, especially after finding out that Brody is a hockey player, but Hayden also fills her in on the Lakeshore Lounge Public Orgasming Event. Darcy offers two solutions. First, forget Brody entirely by watching porn or have a fling with Brody, since not every relationship is either one-night stand or marriage.

In the next scene, the plot with the soon-to-be-ex stepmother thickens. Hayden has given her deposition (to a lawyer named Diane Krueger. Isn’t that an actress?) and notices that  Sheila is looking haggard. Her father reminds Hayden that she’s agreed to attend a “shindig” at a “gentlemen’s club” (61). I’m sure the author doesn’t mean what it sounds like, so I’ll move on. After that encounter, Hayden is stopped by Sheila-the-Stepmother who drops some hints that maybe she’s not the villain—or at least not the only villain—in the piece. To begin with, she wants to tell Hayden that there’s no hard feelings and that she knows Hayden is only protecting her father. This confuses me since the only thing Sheila has done is give a deposition that Sheila was not coerced into signing the prenup. Nothing the text has given us privy to from Hayden’s perspectives suggests that she’s perjuring herself or anything. Next, Sheila mentions how much she still cares for Presley and how she doesn’t want put all the blame on him, and that in fact it was she who “sent him into another woman’s arms” (62). Of course Hayden doesn’t want to believe that her father might have been unfaithful, but it worsens further when Sheila also suggests that Presley has been drinking again, which sounds like he has a problem, which Hayden never knew about. She tries to push it all from her mind.

The perspective switches to Brody, and I have a great deal to say about the actual hockey parts of this chapter, but I’m going to push that off until the next post. Suffice it to say that as Brody leaves practice, he realizes he’d forgotten his watch, which had been given to him by his doting parents. He heads back to the locker room but on the way finds his team’s captain (Mr Serious, Jonathon Toews Craig Wyatt) whispering intently with the Soon-to-be-Ex, Sheila Houston.

Naturally, Brody eavesdrops. Did those doting, watch-giving parents not teach Brody any manners?!

Anyway, Brody doesn’t stay long, just long enough to hear that Sheila is crying and that CraigSerious calls her “baby.” This leads to Brody wondering if they’re having an affair, which would explain the rumors even if it seems out of character to him for Mr Serious. Brody debates what to do with the information he’s so rudely gathered, and decides to go to Becker, the team veteran.

Oh, and lest you forget he’s pining for Hayden, his scene ends with his wishing her in his bed.

1 comment:

  1. Oooooooh, intrigue!

    Manners, pfft. Manners must be sacrificed for plot!

    ReplyDelete