Page 52

TOM

C allie lay next to me in bed after we’d both come down from round one, had round two in the shower, and collapsed into bed.

Our first pre-season game was tomorrow, and the day after that, she and Crew were headed back to Boston.

This trip would be different since I’d be on the road and wouldn’t connect again until we played in Vancouver.

Usually, I wouldn’t have Crew travel that far for an away game, but Callie and Crew would be able to stay with my mom.

“What are we doing here, Cal?” I asked, knowing it was too soon to ask these questions. There were way too many obstacles in our way, not just the miles between us.

“We’re falling hard,” she said without an ounce of hesitation.

“Yeah, babe. We are,” I said, brushing her hair from her face and pulling her tight into a spoon. We woke several hours later when Crew yelled at us from his room.

“Your mom can sleep through that?” Callie asked.

“Yes. I told you we were good. But we have Alex and Mariana’s kids, too.”

At that, Callie jumped up out of bed and shrugged into a pair of leggings as I put on my jeans from the night before.

“You get the kids, and I’ll start the pancakes?” I asked. Callie nodded in assent and took off down the hall to Crew’s room.

Alex: You guys good over there?

I read his text from thirty minutes ago. Shit, if it were me, I’d be panicked by now.

Me: Yeah. Just waking up now. Pancakes?

Alex: Oooh, inviting us over for brunch? Mariana will bring the Mimosas.

I laughed. There was no way we were having Mimosas on a game day, and there was even less of a chance Mariana would have them this early in the day when we planned a night out later.

Me: Pancakes. Anything more, you better bring it yourself.

I couldn’t imagine a better morning, waking up next to Callie, my son asleep in the bedroom down the hall, my mother visiting, and one of my best friends and his family joining us for pancakes.

Add that to the excitement of the first pre-season game, and it finally felt like my life was going in the right direction.

Something I hadn’t felt since I had learned I had a son.

Yes, I knew I was making the right decision with him, but it was hard to relax when our entire lives were filled with constant travel interruptions.

“How were the kids?” Mariana asked when she arrived, hugging Lucy and AJ, who were throwing themselves at her.

“You’d have to ask my mom. They just woke up, and she hasn’t come out yet,” I said.

“I’m here. I fed them tons of sugar and spoiled them all rotten. Everything a grandmother is supposed to do. They were perfect.”

I winked at Mariana, “She wouldn’t tell you even if they were monsters. But we didn’t hear a peep from them once we got home.”

Callie had changed into leggings and a light sweatshirt after hearing everyone’s voices and had joined me to help flip pancakes.

Mariana made herself at home and took over coffee duty.

She was never one to sit and relax while other people did work.

It was another reason she’d earned the team’s social coordinator responsibilities.

Callie explained her schedule to her and my mother, and they gave me sympathetic looks when they realized it would be almost a month before I saw her or Crew.

Could we have made it work? Probably. But with the playoffs coming up and knowing that I would be swamped anyway, it didn’t seem right for me to push to have him travel so much.

But the me facing that long period without them and the practical me who made the decision months ago were currently at war. I was so close to calling Monica and asking if she could squeeze in a travel day.

“What are your plans while you’re in Boston?” Mariana asked Callie.

“Well, when I’m in Boston with Kelsey, I’m probably the most useless nanny you’d ever know. I mostly spend my days trying to keep busy, which is good for writing songs. Unfortunately, most of my inspiration comes while eating Cannolis, which is bad for my waistline.”

“Wait, do cannolis come with powdered sugar?” I asked, putting two and two together.

“They absolutely do, why?” I asked.

“I think I figured out what you had on your suit when you showed up for the nanny interview.”

“Cannolis are literally the answer to everything. Bad day? Eat a cannoli. Good day? Cannoli. Need to waste time because you can’t figure out the right chord or lyric for a song?

You guessed it,” she said with a shrug. “And Boston is one of the best places on this side of the world to find a cannoli.”

Mariana perked up, “Maybe I’ll see what I can do to travel when you all play in Boston.”

Callie practically jumped with excitement. “I would love to show you around my city.”

After discussing it a bit further, I realized that Alex and Mariana had also hired Monica to be their personal assistant. I was positive that whatever they needed her for was nowhere near as demanding as my little family was with her time.

I caught Callie’s eyes, and she met my gaze quizzically. When she joined me at the counter, she asked, “What’s up?”

“Did you tell Monica?”

“Not yet.”

I swallowed back a moment of hurt that Callie hadn’t shared what we had with her best friend.

“I called her while she was in the middle of an event. The time change has been getting in the way of us being able to talk. I didn’t want to text her; I wanted to hear her reaction and not just get her practiced written response.”

So, she wasn’t looking to hide it from her, even if the reveal might put Monica in between two of her clients with her best friend smack dab in the middle.

Alex watched us both carefully. I figured I’d get more than an earful during warm-ups later.

Last year, he’d been more than a teammate; he’d been like a big brother as I navigated fatherhood and tried to balance it with my career.

More than one game, he’d pulled me aside and forced me to get my shit together.

It turns out that when I was off balance, I hit harder, and instead of playing good defense, I ended up in the penalty box too often.

When he sent Mariana over after a particularly rough game, I knew I’d fucked up.

No one wanted Mariana to be disappointed in them.

Mom had been hyping Crew and the kids up to go to the game, and I had to admit, Crew’s excitement to watch me play was better than any other fan base cheering me on. After breakfast, Alex left to get dressed, and I excused myself to shower and change.

Callie’s head flipped around when I left my room, and she slowly appraised me in my suit. It was tradition for players to arrive and leave the rink in a suit on game day.

She crossed the room, leaving the breakfast dishes only to stand before me, her hands ready to touch but frozen.

“You like me in a suit?” I asked with a smirk, trying to cover up the emotions her reaction stirred in me with my signature cockiness.

“You could say that,” she answered.

“Am I interrupting something?” My mother asked with a chuckle.

Callie turned red and began to sputter her response.

“It’s okay. Must be the first time you’re seeing him dressed up?”

Callie nodded, still mute.

“I gotta go,” I said, kissing her before calling Crew to say goodbye to him. “See you all in a little bit.”

I rode in with Alex, both of us careful to avoid the microphones shoved in our faces on the way into the rink.

I hated how most of the questions I was asked related to my relationship with Sam Drummond and had begun my most recent interview with a warning that I’d walk out if they asked me anything about him.

That probably wouldn’t work this year. Somehow, Sam was ending the regular season with better stats than last year, and last year, he’d thrown a perfect game.

I guess happiness did great things for us athletes.

And it was something I had a taste of these last few weeks.

Before Crew, I would have been fulfilled traveling, playing hockey, and maybe even fucking around a bit with a puck bunny or two.

Since then? The stakes were higher, and I had difficulty flipping the switch when he returned to his mother’s house.

And yeah, getting involved with his nanny, a woman paid to be with him, meant more lonely nights than I was cut out for.

“You good, man?” Alex asked, noting my quietness.

“Yeah, sorry. I just realized that the rollercoaster ride will be in motion after tonight. Callie and Crew are headed back to Boston tomorrow. I won’t see my son until Vancouver, and Callie will be with him.”

“Does she need to go back with him?”

“She’s his nanny, so yeah.”

“But do Kelsey and Sam put her to work while she’s there? I met them, they’re hands-on, and I can’t imagine them needing a nanny.”

“So, what? Do we out ourselves and potentially threaten her job and everything we planned to get through the hockey season? I wouldn’t have started anything with Callie if I wasn’t positive that we had the potential to do something real, but at the same time, I don’t want to force this to become something it’s not meant to be. ”

“Ah, so we get to deal with your moping, right?”

“I don’t mope,” I protested.

“Dude, on the ice, you’re fucking vicious. But once you get back to that hotel room alone, you turn into fucking Eeyore. No one wanted to be around you last year.”

Jonah walked up behind us and busted out laughing. “Fuck, Bendy, you can’t tell him we call him that.”

It was then I realized that half my teammates surrounded me, and everyone had averted their eyes.

“Yeah, man,” Charlie said, “We all know when you’re getting laid, too. This week was the first since Columbus.”

How the fuck was he right? I had one encounter with a puck bunny after an away game at the beginning of last season.

And it sucked. I spent the entire time worrying about her getting pregnant, and after the fact, I took her number and called her every single day until she assured me that her period had come.

“Yep, that means none of us bought it that Callie was your girlfriend,” Andre piped up. “Though I get why you wanted to keep those assholes away from her,” he said, gesturing to Cooper Rice and Jackson Gregory, two of the new guys on the roster.

Damon jumped in, “And now you’re fucking the nanny.”

“I’m not just fucking my nanny,” I said. Shit, Callie was so much more than just sex to me.

Alex shushed everyone. While he couldn’t be our official captain, thanks to NHL rules that prohibited it, he was our leader off the ice as the veteran player. “Show some respect to Callie. Treat her like you’d want us to treat Kayleigh.”

Fuck. Alex realized he’d misspoken as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Every set of eyes went to Damon, who stormed off and slammed the locker door behind him.

I went to go after him, but Charlie pulled me back. “Give him a minute to get it together; he’s not up for talking about it.”

Damon was back in the locker room, and the discussions went from personal to business.

It might be pre-season, but the first team we faced won the Cup last year.

Sure, they’d had some post-season shake-ups that included a key retirement and a major illness with their Center, who had been responsible for the most goals on the team last season.

He was back, but rumor had it that he was not exactly ready to be on the ice, but the team had been tight-lipped about his health.

I checked my phone once more before I headed out to the ice. I found an adorable picture of Callie and Crew, him covered in paint and art supplies, which I assumed she was using to make a sign for the game.

Sam: Good luck tonight.

Leave it to Sam to think of me as he headed out to close out his 150 th career win. At 29 years old, this would put him on track for the Hall of Fame. And here he was, wishing me luck before a meaningless pre-season game.

Me: Thanks. Same to you.

We skated out for warm-ups, and the crowd had shown up, reminding me of another reason why I loved this game. Sure, the adrenaline from being on the ice, blood pumping from exertion, and making and taking hard hits was amazing. But I liked it when the kids came to the games.

Through a writing contest, the team offered a four-pack of seats at every home game for local Denver school kids.

The winner of this game was a ten-year-old boy who described living with his mother and sister.

He’d lost his father at six, and his grandfather had stepped in to help his family.

He was honest about not knowing much about hockey, but he wanted the tickets for his grandfather, and winning them was the only way he’d ever get them for him.

His story reminded me of my own, and I had arranged with management to bring him out on the ice for photos and some one-on-one with the team.

We had also chipped in to sponsor him for a year at a local youth hockey club and cover his equipment costs.

Yeah, at ten, he might be on the late side for youth hockey, but we wanted him to have the opportunity to try it if he wanted.

At home games, the WAGs had a family room where they could watch the game on the TV, eat, drink, and keep all the kids entertained.

They also had the ability to move freely between that suite and seats.

My eyes darted over to where I knew I would see Callie and my mother, and I was briefly disappointed when I didn’t see them right away.

Until I realized that they were hidden behind a sign that said, “My Daddy hits harder than your Daddy.”