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TOM

I t felt great to play with the guys and see the new prospects.

Training camp was a great reminder for all of us that you can’t get complacent.

And yeah, I left sore as fuck and starving.

Hopefully, Callie made enough food; we were at the stage in training where the phrase food is fuel became a reality.

The stress of managing Crew made me forget how much I loved hockey.

Every time I laced up my skates, I remembered my first trip to the rink, pushing milk crates, wobbling, and falling on my ass.

And that first day, when I got my hockey pads, I sped around the rink, slamming into walls to prove that the pads would protect me.

And yeah, even after all the fights on the ice, I still had all my teeth.

I couldn’t wait to get Crew in skates so he could start his journey.

As much as I promised myself I wouldn’t push him into the sport if he didn’t want to play, I couldn’t erase the images of him growing up and playing hockey.

I hoped that he would find something he loved just as much if it wasn’t hockey for him.

The best part? I had someone waiting for me when I got home.

I tried not to think too much about the fact that I wasn’t only excited to see Crew.

I listened to the song Callie had sent on repeat; the chorus was already stuck in my head.

It was hauntingly beautiful. When her TikTok post showed up on my For You Page, I shared it with my followers, but it had already gotten a significant amount of engagement.

When I arrived home, the savory scents that filled the townhouse reminded me how much I had missed a home-cooked meal.

As a single mother, my mom wasn’t always home for dinner, and with hockey, I had learned to eat on the go.

But she always planned a meal on Sunday evening.

As I got older, we prepared the meal together, but that one meal a week was where we brought the craziness around us back into focus.

The simplicity of a shared meal could become an eraser for all the noise.

What was home? Was it a place? A feeling? Or just simply the people you chose to share the quiet moments?

“Dada!” Crew ran to me, throwing himself in my arms as I scooped him up, swinging him around.

“Hi,” Callie said shyly from the kitchen. She had set three places at the table. In the middle was a large salad bowl with what looked like a bottle of homemade vinaigrette.

“Hi,” I returned awkwardly, face heating, feeling more and more like a teenage boy. Her hair was down today, the curls unruly. Exactly how I liked them, and enough to bring to mind more than one filthy thought. “How was your day, dear?”

She laughed lightly, “We had a great time at the pool. I met Mariana, Mila, Kayleigh, and Crew, who played with AJ and Lucy. He follows AJ around like he would a big brother.”

“Kayleigh was there?” I questioned. I knew she was in town, but things had ended weirdly with the WAGs when she and Damon broke up. Mariana must have bridged the gap. I don’t know where Alex found that woman, but she did more to hold our families together than anyone on the family relations staff.

“Yes? Does that surprise you?” Callie asked.

“Uh, well, she and Damon have had some difficulties. Some of those stem from her inability to mix with the WAGs and handle the demands of hockey life. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. I’m just surprised.”

“Ah. I had to think on the fly about how we met. I decided to stay as close to the facts as possible. You bought me a drink after I played a set at open mic. I’m helping with Crew while I figure out my next career move, blah, blah, blah.

” She shrugged as the oven timer went off and withdrew an oversized casserole dish full of chicken and vegetables.

Yup, she’d made enough food to account for my appetite.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said, lifting Crew into his seat and filling his cup of milk.

“Juice? Dada?” He said sweetly. I shook my head and handed him his cup. He placed it on the table before him and gave it a little push.

“Remember what we said earlier? You can have juice if you eat some vegetables.”

“Two bites?” He negotiated with Callie, batting his eyes.

“No, bud,” she answered, not falling for his manipulation. “I won’t give you a lot, but you need to finish everything on your plate.”

I watched with wonder, realizing that Callie was somehow a toddler whisperer.

As she leaned over to cut Crew’s meat and vegetables, her shirt gaped, exposing perfect cleavage and a delicate light pink lace bra.

I had always been an ass man, but seeing Callie’s perfect tits, I realized it was only because I’d never been exposed to her tits.

Shit, her breasts over-flowed from the cups of her bra in perfectly round globes.

I imagined coating her tanned skin with lube, sliding my cock between them, and fucking them, her tongue darting out, flicking the head of my cock.

Her eyes lifted to mine, innocently at first, and then, as she realized where my gaze had been, her face flamed as she bit her lower lip.

I just stood there like an asshole in my kitchen, with my kid arguing about eating broccoli and my dick painfully hard as I fantasized about titty fucking the nanny.

Yep, I was going to hell.

“Like what you see?” She asked, licking her lips and then flushing with embarrassment, straightening to stand tall, robbing me of the view.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she immediately corrected herself.

I nodded, swallowing hard, letting her take the blame for the sordid direction of both our thoughts. Like a good little cock block, Crew piped up and began to tell me about his day. Callie and I ate our dinner quietly, letting Crew monopolize the conversation.

“Do you want to handle clean-up? Or bathtime?” Callie asked.

“I can do both,” I said, not wanting to miss out on Crew’s bedtime routine but also not wanting to leave Callie with the dishes after she made the meal. “I’m used to doing it alone, and besides, Crew likes to help with the dishes, right bud?”

“Yes, Dada. I help,” he said with a grin. Crew’s help always created a bit more work, but I wanted to encourage him to want to help with the housework and chores.

“Okay, I guess I’ll go read in my room for a bit. Let me know when you’re ready for tonight’s song.”

“You don’t need to hide out in your room. Make yourself comfortable,” I said and gestured to the couch and chair in the family room.

She nodded and went to her room to get her book.

My eyes were drawn to her ass as she walked away.

Great tits and great ass, a lethal combination.

I shook my head in an attempt to clear the image and prevent myself from thinking more about how her ass would look bare, me pounding in her from behind.

Crew stood on a footstool, doing his version of help.

Yes, he made more of a mess than we started with, but he was excited about helping for now.

When Callie walked past me towards the oversized chair in my living room, I caught the cover, and the book looked nothing like the lighthearted romance I had expected her to be reading. Was that a bleeding rose on the cover?

“Whatcha reading?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.

“Oh,” she blushed. “It’s a love story.”

Interesting, she was blushing and hella evasive. Nope, not going to let this one go.

“The cover looks a little dark to be a love story,” I observed; the background was black, and the roses were wilted.

“Well, it’s about a woman and…” she paused, averting her eyes and somehow getting more red. “And her stalker.”

“Her stalker?” I asked, eyes widening and wondering how the hell someone managed to romanticize a stalker.

“Yeah,” she fiddled with the cover nervously.

“And it’s a love story?” I asked, confirming once more.

“Uh-huh.”

I nodded and looked away briefly before moving in for the kill.

“Okay. Should we let the security guards know they can let in the peeping Toms? I can set up a comfortable chair outside your window. Maybe find a way to let a stalker know you’re open for business?”

After a long silence, Callie burst out laughing, erasing the moment’s awkwardness, as she continued into the living room to read her book.

I kept glancing at her as she read, wondering if I would know if she got to a spicy part of the book.

How could women read filthy books and sit there with these poker faces?

I was pretty sure Callie’s thoughts had strayed in the same direction as mine.

Her tell was when she licked her lips and squeezed her thighs together. I stored those observations away for later, I hoped.