Pucking Wild

A few months later, Tess helps Rachel prepare for her impromptu polycule wedding ceremony to her three grooms: Jake Compton, Caleb Sanford, and Ilmari Kinnunen. This reminds Tess of her own wedding to her abusive estranged husband, Troy, and she asks Rachel if she is sure she wants to get married today.

Rachel reassures Tess that she wants to get married despite Tess’s offers to help her escape if she wants to. One of Rachel’s grooms, Jake, wants to talk to Rachel about the complications of choosing a best man for multiple simultaneous marriages. Tess tries to focus on her friends’ happiness while her own heart breaks for the future she expects to spend alone.

Ryan talks with teammates about the very recent revelation that the Rays’ team doctor, equipment manager, and two of their players have secretly been in a polyamorous relationship with one another and are now having a surprise wedding. While the Rays are getting ready for the wedding, they mingle with the famous friends of Rachel’s Grammy-winning father.

At the wedding ceremony, Ryan and the other Rays see just how much Rachel, Jake, Caleb, and Ilmani love one another, convincing even the players most skeptical of the romance that their marriage is as valid as any other.

Ryan catches Tess trying to eat some of the wedding cake, and they both steal a bit of frosting. Just before they can come close enough to kiss, Ryan asks Tess to dance.

Ryan and Tess flirt with one another and discuss the nature of love at first sight as they dance. Ryan admits that he wants to pursue a relationship with Tess, and though Tess says she is interested in him, she makes various excuses for why they can’t be in a relationship—in particular, that she is still technically married to her husband. Tess expects Ryan to want to settle down, but she knows she can never be a “trophy” for another man again and believes Ryan would eventually see that she is a waste of his time.

Tess leaves Ryan on the dance floor and wanders off to a nearby pool, where she runs into Ilmari speaking on the phone to his family in Finland. Ilmari tells Tess about a hasty decision he recently made, and Tess is immediately angered, thinking that he means the decision to marry her best friend. In reality, Ilmari made a rash donation of $.5 million to a non-profit that helps sea turtles (an event described in the previous novel). He recently learned that the non-profit is not nearly as organized or professional as he believed, so he is worried the three people working there won’t know what to do with his large donation. 

Though Tess is a corporate lawyer, she has a degree in non-profit management and advises Ilmari that he should rebuild the non-profit from the ground up. Tess is surprised when Ilmari asks her to run this operation for the next six months, offering to double her current salary if she does. Knowing she has a life in Cincinnati and cannot move to Jacksonville, regardless of how nice the idea sounds, Tess declines Ilmari’s offer and goes back into the reception to say goodbye to Rachel.

Tess comes into work at the Powell, Fawcett, and Hughes (PFH) law firm a few weeks later to learn that Dale Eubanks, the head of HR, has scheduled a meeting with her. She enters the meeting early and encounters Dale, other HR representatives and partners, and her husband, Troy. Dale brings up a morality clause that all PFH employees must sign that focuses on the firm’s “family first” values. Troy, the son of founding partner Bea Owens, slides Tess a folder that contains images of her dancing with Ryan at Rachel’s wedding. Photos of Rachel’s wedding were recently leaked to the tabloids, where speculation is circulating that Tess is Ryan’s new girlfriend. 

The members of PFH tell Tess that this violates their firm’s morality clause, as Tess and Troy are still technically married, and they want Tess to take a six-week leave of absence while news of her in the press settles down. Tess feels this is hypocritical, as Troy was not forced to leave work when he was caught cheating with another employee at the PFH office. Tess believes that Bea, who has always been like a mother to her, will not allow this to happen, but Troy tells Tess this was all Bea’s idea so that they could rehabilitate their marriage.

Troy follows Tess as she goes back to her office, gaslighting her about her reaction to this news. Tess officially asks for a divorce, shocking Troy, who locks the door behind them once he follows her into her office. Tess accuses him of bringing the photos of her and Ryan to HR, and he refuses to let Tess divorce him, calling her “crazy,” “irrational,” and “too emotional.” Tess feels smaller and smaller as he goes on, but she also realizes why Troy is offended by her relationship with Ryan; though both Tess and Troy have had affairs since their separation three years prior, Tess’s previous relationships were only with women, whom Troy didn’t see as a threat to his masculinity. As Tess taunts him about this, Troy chokes her and suggests that if she divorces him, he will have her fired.

Tess walks home in the freezing rain and finally lets herself cry when she gets home. Rachel texts Tess to let her know that a caterer leaked pictures of the wedding to the tabloids; however, she also sends Tess a photo that a friend took that shows Tess looking incredibly happy among the other wedding guests. Tess realizes that she hasn’t been happy in a long time and makes the decision to go to Florida. 

A few hours later, Tess arrives at the Prices’ home in Jacksonville. Jake answers the door and offers to call Rachel, who is currently out, but Tess tells him that she is actually there to see Ilmari. When Ilmari enters the room, Tess immediately hugs him and begins to sob, to everyone’s surprise. A few moments later, she asks if the job with the non-profit is still available.

The following morning, as Rachel, Jake, Caleb, and Ilmari prepare for a flight to a game in New York, Rachel asks Tess if she is sure she doesn’t want to come with them. Tess has agreed to help get Ilmari’s non-profit off the ground and plans to stay at the Prices’ home in Jacksonville in the meantime, but she feels like she is in the way of the newlyweds. When Tess voices these fears to Rachel, Rachel tells her she cannot go backward by returning to Cincinnati. Rachel offers Tess a key to Ilmari’s old house so that she doesn’t need to stay in what is essentially the Prices’ honeymoon suite. Before she leaves, Rachel also reaffirms to Tess that the other hockey players are romantically off-limits to her. Once the newlyweds are gone, Tess takes their dog, Poseidon, for a walk on the beach.

While boarding the plane for New York, Ryan gets a call from his agent, Mike Kline, informing him that he was just offered an expensive contract with Nike. Ryan thinks about all he has overcome to get to this point in his career, feeling unusually proud of himself.

During the challenging hockey game in New York, Ryan thinks he spots Tess in the audience, but when he looks up at the crowd, another player hits him, injuring his knee. Rachel, other medics, and several players help Ryan as he struggles. Though he insists he can walk, Rachel makes sure Ryan is carried off the ice, which embarrasses him. He looks up again and sees that the woman he saw was not actually Tess, and he passes out when Rachel tries to get him to stay awake.

Ryan wakes up in the hospital, a place he hates because he watched his father die of cancer in a hospital when he was younger. A few players—Sully, Morrow, and Jake—come to visit Ryan, and he tells them that his knee is sprained and that he will have to be off the ice for four weeks. The other players realize that Ryan’s home has a lot of unmanageable stairs, and Jake offers Ryan a key to the perfect place: Ilmari’s old house.

Tess alternates between the sauna and skinny dipping in the pool at Ilmari’s old house, feeling strange that she has time for relaxation. She is startled when Poseidon begins to bark as he sees a man entering the house.

Tess brandishes a knife at Ryan as he enters the house, not knowing who the intruder is until Ryan has once again spotted her naked. They clear up what has happened—Jake gave Ryan a key—before Tess notices that he is on crutches. She helps him to the sofa. Assuming Tess is here with another man, Ryan acts jealous, and Tess leaves to call Rachel and figure out what is going on.

Tess thinks about Ryan’s jealousy and anger when he suspected her of being with another man; she in turn is mad because his possessiveness reminds her of Troy. She sees several missed calls from Rachel, but then Rachel, Jake, and Ilmari ring the doorbell. The Prices explain the crossed wires, and Ryan offers to leave. However, Tess says that he can stay, seeing how exhausted he seems. The Prices are thankful to Tess and mention that the wives and girlfriends (WAGs) of the other players will be coming around to take care of Ryan.

Tess feels strangely comfortable just knowing that Ryan is in the next room. She thinks this is because she has been abandoned by nearly everyone in her past, from her distant mother to the relatives her mother left Tess with when she was away. Around midnight, she sees that Ryan’s light is still on and goes to check on him. Ryan is awake and complains about not being able to sleep in the position that his sprained knee requires of him. He asks Tess to talk to him because he finds her voice soothing, and Tess feels important to him as she does so. Eventually, he falls asleep.