Forever Pucked Read Online Free Page B

code, I shoulder my way inside. The front entry is dark, which is unusual. The lights are timed at night, unless the system’s malfunctioned. Maybe it has. Alex will have to call the guy who fixes his ridiculous security system. I heave the beaver into the foyer and hit something. I have no idea what, as I can’t see much.
    Smacking the wall beside me, I shut the door, blocking out the frigid wind. I finally find the light switch and flick it on. Which is the exact moment I scream like a man with his nuts caught in a vice.
    The foyer is filled with cardboard cutouts of Alex. His life-size condom advertisement is front and center, followed by his sports drink promo, the one for hockey sticks, the body wash advertisement, and even the one for the gel that soothes muscle aches. All of my Alex cutouts are welcoming me home, which would be cool, except it means someone has been inside the house, rearranging my shit. That’s freaking terrifying.
    “I have a gun!” I yell. This is a total lie. I’ve never even held a damn gun. Alex, who’s from Canada where they don’t even believe in guns, has held a gun, but I have not. I’m petrified that I’ll accidently shoot someone, or myself, so I can’t bring myself to go near one. Alex thinks it’s sweet.
    Right now I wish I’d had the balls to hit the shooting range at least once when Sidney, my stepdad, offered to take me this fall because this feels like the beginning of a really bad horror movie. I move the giant beaver in front of me, as if it’s going to protect me from the goddamn serial killer with an Alex cutout fetish.
    A figure steps out from behind one of the cutouts, and I scream again. This time it’s blood-curdling. I shove the beaver away from me, knocking over the first cardboard-cutout Alex. A domino effect follows, the two-dimensional versions of my man dropping to the floor with a whoosh and a series of low thuds. I turn around and start reefing on the door, trying to get out, but I’ve locked it, so it’s not opening. And I’m freaking.
    “Violet, baby, it’s me.” Alex’s voice penetrates the haze of my terror. I stop trying to escape and turn to face him. There he is in 3D, standing in the middle of the fallen versions of himself.
    “You scared the shit out of me!” I throw my purse at him.
    He lunges to catch it before it can hit the floor. It was about three feet shy of hitting him.
    “I’m sorry. I wanted to surprise you.” He’s smiling through his apology, which irks me.
    I point at him. “It’s not funny. You almost gave me a heart attack! I thought some psycho had broken into the house.”
    “I didn’t mean to do that.” His hands are raised, probably to reassure me that he’s not a hologram, but in fact my real fiancé, and that he really is sorry. I’m not sure I buy it; he’s still got a dimple popping. He takes tentative steps toward me, just in case I decide to kung fu him in the balls or something, I guess.
    “Well, consider me surprised.” It’s a good thing I didn’t have the dairy or I would’ve shit my damn pants. “Why didn’t you call me to let me know you were going to be home?”
    “It wouldn’t have been much of a surprise then, would it?”
    I replay dinner in my head: all the texts the girls were getting, their excitement at going home to dick-free beds.
    “How long have you been planning this?” I cross my arms over my chest.
    Alex’s gaze darts down and stays there, despite the fact that I’m wearing a huge winter jacket and my boobs are hidden. “Only since we got stuck at the rest stop earlier today. I really wasn’t sure if we were going to make it home. Then we got back on the road, and I decided I’d surprise you. I got here about half an hour ago. I had just enough time to set this up.” He gestures to the fallen Alexes, and then to the beaver lying face down on the floor. “I see you got my present.”
    I give him my bitch brow. I spent the last three hours thinking my beaver was