Chapter 25: You Can’t Have it Both
Ways
Please note that posts may be a bit slapdash and a bit irregular through the month of March. My sincere apologies!
Also, hey, it's my 100th post! Neatokeen!
Also, hey, it's my 100th post! Neatokeen!
Chapter
twenty-five opens post-coitus with Billie and Logan settling in to snuggle and
talk. Logan asks what Billie’s news is and when she says she’s made a decision
about her future plans, he asks if it’s to be his sex slave. There’s flirting
after she says no, but eventually Billie explains she’s going to open her own
hockey school. She’s going to pay to get ice installed at the town’s old rink,
which is expensive, but “you don’t even want to know how much parents are
willing to pay to have someone with my experienced teach their kids everything
I know about hockey” (415).
Yes….
Except no. First, I’m surprised that a town as small as New Waterford is
described as being just happens to have an abandoned rink sitting around. (That
it was just left sit and a new one built with two sheets of ice instead of
being added on to.) But okay, sure. Second,
yes, I think a former Olympian would be an excellent person to teach hockey…
except given the climate in the town right now about Billie—where people are
vandalizing her car and couples are fighting so badly with each other that they
aren’t sleeping together, and where people laughed instead of bidding even a
few bucks on Billie’s offer to, well, coach
hockey during a charity event—it seems like an enormous gamble.
I
mean, the auctioneer even said that the coaching would be a great opportunity
for people’s kids or grandkids, and everyone laughed and made slut shaming
jokes. What makes Billie willing to gamble her savings on those very same people
being willing to bring their children to her hockey school? The only way that
this makes sense is that the book is starting to wind up (we actually have 100
ebook pages left, but we’re 415 in, to give you some idea).
Don’t
get me wrong—Billie has to win over the town.
The set-up of the book practically dictates that. But the only movement
we’ve had toward that so far is a) Shane and Logan’s conversation about how
stupid the town is being b) the girls’ team coach admitting he was wrong and c)
Billie apparently having a good time with the her teammates at the bar when
Logan got back to town. That doesn’t seem like enough to risk one’s entire
financial security on as Billie is evidently doing.
Logan
disagrees and thinks that Billie is amazing.
He
also decides that this is the time to tell Billie that he wants to go public
and about Betty. Of course, it takes a while for him to quite work up the
words, so she thinks he’s breaking up with her. It’s as frustrating a
conversation as it sounds.
Billie
apparently no longer has any of the concerns she had a few weeks ago when she
asked Logan to stay quiet about their relationship. Instead she just coyly
asks, “Are you asking me to go steady, Mr. Forest?” (419) and acquiesces
immediately. He has to tell her to wait (for more sex) because he needs to tell
her about Betty, too.
“I slept with your sister.”
Shit. He went there
(421).
She
buys time by asking which one and he explains that it was a long time ago and
he’d been drunk, and blah blah blah.
Pain crumpled around her heart and
she was surprised at how much it still hurt that he didn’t know. After all this
time
(423).
Really,
Billie? I mean, I know we haven’t really gotten into the fact that it seems
highly incredibly super-dooper unlikely that Logan, even drunk, could have sex
with one sister, identical or not, and not, y’know, notice the deception. But I’ll
handwave that for the sake of fiction, I guess. But I don’t know that you can
have it both ways—that these sisters look that
similar, even in dress and mannerisms, that Logan couldn’t tell at the time
AND that he’s supposed to have magically known because Billie has a vagina of
magic sexy fun times of Twoo Wuv.
Also,
again, she’s upset that he couldn’t magically tell it was her, not that she did
something horrifically wrong. And perpetuates that first wrongness by, in fact,
not coming clean here. She admits
internally that she needs to confess and now is the time to do it, but instead
she just says “okay,” in response to Logan’s confession and then demands more
sex.
No,
Billie. No that’s not actually okay.
Euw. I don't want to think too much about this triplet mistaken identity stuff too much. I find it gross. Also, I hate the fake suspense. Talk to each other, then take on the town together. Of course, books that address issues in a timely, honest way are much shorter.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm starting to get excited about whatever book might be next.
I officially finished this book last night and chose/started the next one. Despite reading the first chapter (and even drafting the first post) I still have zero idea of what to expect with this next one. But then, each one is an adventure. :D
DeleteClues, please. You know I want to guess.
ReplyDeleteAnother small town, but back to the thinly veiled not-NHL. Free agent signs with his hometown team and is immediately faced with his past mistakes. And by immediately, I mean train wreck in the first chapter!
Delete