Page 41 of Hot for the Hockey Player (The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens #2)
Gabrielle
Maverick dropped the kids off just before six, and while Damon asked if we could invite him to dinner, Maverick declined, saying he had dinner plans with his new friend Man.
Did he mean Manpreet Patel, the whittler? They were friends? Since when?
Maverick did, however, follow the kids back into the house, where they talked excitedly about getting to actually weld and solder stuff, as well as try out the laser cutter.
Marco was particularly thrilled by the fact that he got to handle the welding torch and wear the welding helmet that he said made him look like Iron Man.
Laurel came out of her room just as Raina and Marco were getting ready to leave. She said hello to Maverick, then got that look on her face again. That same secretive smile as earlier, before she glanced at me.
Did she have a crush on Maverick?
Last week she said she thought Honor might, but didn’t see the appeal. Had things changed since then? Oh god, please no.
Raina gave me a wink before she and Marco ducked out the door, Austin with them.
“Mom, Maverick’s going to start his own podcast, and he wants me to help him,” Damon said, washing his hands in the kitchen sink. “Says he’s not ‘techie’ and could use someone like me who is.”
I glanced at Maverick, who actually managed to get a little color to his cheeks, twisted his mouth, and glanced at the floor like he was kind of embarrassed. It was a sexy look.
Who am I kidding? Every look of his was sexy.
“Can I help him?” Damon asked. “If I finish all my schoolwork, can I? I think it’d be really cool. Especially since he wants to focus on topics like the guys at my school.”
I narrowed my gaze, not understanding.
“I did another interview today,” Maverick clarified. “With another female sports podcaster, and we chatted more about what’s going on in the league right now, which is similar to the bullshit the kids at Damon’s school are listening to and practicing.”
My brows shot up.
“She suggested I consider launching my own podcast, focused on positive masculinity. Be the antithesis to all the alpha-bro-dude podcasts out there poisoning the minds of young men—like the ones in Damon’s class.”
“ Former class,” Damon corrected.
I hardly recognized my kid. He was so chatty and upbeat now. And he’d only been doing homeschooling for one day. Was the high school on the island that bad? I didn’t really know any other parents whose kids went to the school. Besides business, I kept to myself. It was safer that way.
Maverick shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and bounced his shoulders. “But I have no idea how to do any of the editing or anything like that—”
“But I do,” Damon cut in.
“And I’ll absolutely pay him,” Maverick said with a nod. “But I think it’d benefit both of us. My first guest is going to be my friend, Man.”
“Do you mean Manpreet Patel, the guy who whittles spoons?” I asked. “How’d you meet him?”
“I went to his house and asked him to teach me to whittle a spoon, and he agreed. I was there for like three hours today just chatting with him. Then he invited me back for dinner. He’s making his wife’s dal turka recipe. I have no idea what that is, but I’m very excited.”
I think I’d exchanged all of ten or twelve words with Manpreet Patel in the years I’d lived on the island. And they were one day at the farmers market when I asked him what wood the spoon I picked up was made from. He told me cherry, and that was it.
Did this mean Maverick didn’t want me to come over later? If he was going for dinner at Man’s house, maybe this was his subtle way of telling me to stay home.
“I’m going to chat a bit more with Man about the podcast tonight, but I’m hoping we can record the first one maybe on Friday, then work on the editing together over the weekend.”
Damon’s head bobbed enthusiastically. “Sounds good to me.” He turned to me. “Do you think there’s a way I could claim working with Mav on the podcast as like an elective credit or something?” He dished himself up some spaghetti—Laurel had already done so—and he joined her in the dining room.
“Uh … I, ah, I can email your homeschool teacher and ask,” I said, flustered and confused. Did I go to all of this “preparation” effort for nothing? I met Maverick’s eyes. “Am I … do you not want …” When his brows lifted, I immediately averted my gaze, hating the heat that burned my cheeks.
“I’ll be home from Man’s by eight-thirty. Does that work?” he asked in a whisper.
I swallowed and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
His grin wreaked havoc on my fresh underwear. “You look nice, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I croaked.
He tossed a wave at the kids. “All right, guys, see you later. I hope you had fun today, Damon.”
“I did,” he said through a mouthful of food. “Thanks, Mav.”
“Woodworking on Thursday, Laurel?”
Her mouth was also full of food, so she gave him a thumbs up. But it was impossible for me to miss the way her eyes bounced between Maverick and me, then lit up. Or the way her mouth—as she chewed—kept trying to smile.
Wait, did she know something? Maybe it wasn’t a crush on Maverick. Maybe she knew about our kiss … or … worse?
“I’ll see you later,” he said under his breath, before heading out.
I went to the fridge and opened it, letting the cool air rush across my inflamed face.
“Mom, did you change?” Laurel asked, prompting me to close the refrigerator door and turn around to face her.
“Hmm?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You weren’t wearing that earlier. Did you change?”
Glancing down my body, like it was a surprise to me too that I’d changed out of my loose, tan trousers and long-sleeve black shirt, into olive-green leggings—my burns hurt less now—and a white tank top with a tan colored cardigan.
“I … I got spaghetti sauce on my other pants and shirt. Listen, I need to pop out a bit later. Bennett McEvoy asked me to come by his place and check on the diorama for the land proposal. Will you guys be okay?”
“I’m fourteen,” Damon said, giving me a strange look. “You leave me— us —home alone all the time.”
“No, she doesn’t,” his sister argued. “Mom never goes anywhere.”
I started dishing up my own dinner, but paused with the ladle in midair. “Hey!”
“Well, you don’t,” she said, holding her ground with a challenging tilt of her head.
“Well, I am tonight, Miss Cheeky. And I expect the house to be in one piece when I return.” They both rolled their eyes as I joined them at the table.
“Maverick’s podcast sounds interesting,” I said, changing the subject.
But why I changed it to a topic that just made me lose all rational thought, I had no idea. “You excited?”
“So excited,” Damon said, getting up to grab more food. “I think it’s a really cool idea. He says he’s working with this super smart marketing woman who knows exactly how to market podcasts to their target audience. Because people like me aren’t his target audience.”
“What do you mean?” Laurel asked.
“I’m someone who agrees with Mav already,” Damon explained. “And while I’ll enjoy listening to him, he’s not going to change my mind. Because I already think like he does. He wants listeners who don’t agree with him, but who are open to having their minds changed.”
“Those people exist?” I twirled my pasta around my fork. “This past election wouldn’t indicate that.”
Both my kids—who followed politics, sort of—snorted and bobbed their heads in agreement.
“So like not woke , but maybe dozing ?” Laurel added. “They’re not awake, but they’re not asleep either.”
I loved conversations like this between me and my kids. Where we discussed real world problems and events. I got to hear how they interpreted things, and saw the shit show they were being handed and what changes needed to be made to fix it.
“Exactly,” Damon said. “Dozing. I mean, it’d be great if he could reach the asleep people too. But Mav figures that’s impossible. They’re set in their ways.”
We all sighed in frustration at the same time.
Maverick doing something like this, and involving my son in such a positive way, only made that small percentage in my brain that planned to bail on tonight shrivel up and die.
Not only was he a wonderful role model for Damon, but he was aiming to be a positive role model for countless young men.
Now I really needed to listen to these podcasts he was on.
“Wait, didn’t Mav say something was going on in the league?” Laurel asked. Unless her nose was buried in a book and she was off frolicking in Narnia or with the March sisters from Little Women, nothing slipped past her.
Damon rejoined us at the table, but pulled out his phone, brought up an article, and passed it to his sister. However, alarm bells started going off in my head. “Hey, stop,” I blurted out, before Laurel could grab it and read it. “What are you showing her? She’s eleven, remember?”
Laurel gave me a sharp glare that I shot down with one of my own.
Understanding dawned in Damon’s eyes and he took back his phone, nodding.
“Right. Sorry. Uh, one of Mav’s teammates is being charged with assault on multiple women.
And Mav spoke about it on the first podcast, and now half the league wants his head on a spike.
Even his dad and brothers don’t support him.
His brother, Rebel, did an interview yesterday, saying Mav should have kept his mouth shut and backed up his teammate. ”
My jaw dropped as well as my fork to my plate. “He what?”
“They think Mav was wrong to defend the women that his teammate hurt?” Laurel asked. “That he should be defending his teammate? This doesn’t make any sense.”