Page 25 of Right Pucking Daddy (Daddies of the League #7)

NINETEEN

SASHA

“Leave me fucking be!”

I dropped my phone on the end table and my ass on the couch.

Hawk jumped up next to me, his head landing in my lap.

Mine dropped onto the back of the couch as my hand came to rest on Hawk’s big head.

My thumb brushed that spot between his eyebrows that he loved so much while chaos took hold of my mind.

I’d not been able to think of anything but Aiden since he peeled out of the driveway at the munch, and it only got worse when I found him in the players’ lounge.

Finally, my resolve to keep my distance broke, and I pulled his number off the call sheet given to me for the coaches, staff, and players.

“What was I fucking thinking calling the kid, Hawk? Huh?”

He raised his head, cocked it to one side, and I sighed.

“Yeah. It was a stupid fucking idea. ”

The boy affected me so much, and in so many ways, that for some reason I felt like I was only just scratching the surface of what could be possible with the man if I wasn’t contractually obligated to keep my fucking distance.

I huffed.

I knew this was a bad idea when Mikal called, but I’d never probably thanked the man for giving me Hawk, and I knew my life would’ve been shit without the dog.

He’d been my sole companion since the injury.

So much so that I talked to him as if he could answer back.

Sometimes, I swore he understood English, but Mikal’s call spurred me to step back into life.

And then, seeing Aiden standing there on the edge of the dance floor, watching life…

not pass him by but happen in front of him, well, he called to me, because now that I reflected on it, he and I felt like kindred spirits.

I got up and walked into the kitchen. Half unpacked boxes still sat around the house, and nowhere was that more evident than in the kitchen.

I just hadn’t had the motivation to do anything about it.

Cabinet doors swung open and banged closed in the search for what I didn’t even fucking know.

But at this rate, if I didn’t find something to occupy my mind, I would race out into the night trying to find the boy so we could figure out how to explore what I knew in my gut was there.

Empty.

Empty.

Plates.

A couple of cups and glasses.

A bottle of Irish whiskey .

I slammed the cabinet door on that. There was tons to do here, but it was fucking mindless activity and wouldn’t keep my mind occupied. Cooking was out of the question. I didn’t even have groceries, which meant eating myself out of boredom wouldn’t work.

The usual method of boredom relief wouldn’t work either. None of my woodworking tools were here. One, there wasn’t room, and two, I wasn’t going to let movers near my precious equipment.

Lights shone through the front windows as I turned, surveying my disaster of a house in a last-ditch effort to find something I could immerse myself in. Hopefully, getting Aiden out of my fucking head.

At least that was the hope. I wasn’t confident that would ever be possible, but as I stared out the windows, a smile overtook my face.

Oh, yeah. That would keep my attention. I grabbed my phone and Hawk’s lead.

“C’mon, Hawk. Let’s go play.”

We walked across the expanse of grass between the house and the arena.

Well, I walked, and Hawk played fetch with his favorite tennis ball until both my shoulders burned.

Once inside, I tucked the ball away and continued down to the locker rooms, switching out my shoes and clothes for skates and gear, and grabbing Hawk’s ice boots.

The sound, smell, and feel of the ice welcomed me home.

Time ceased to exist as I fell back in love with being out there.

I’d avoided it for years, thinking it would make me miss the game, and being on the ice with the team had made me nostalgic, but not this.

Skating with Hawk, as he learned to run and stop while I regained my speed and balance, soothed the ragged edges of my soul left behind when losing half my sight and hearing ripped my dreams away.

Aiden was there in spirit. His laughter, echoing across the empty arena as it had this morning, came to me as the ghost of his presence skated around the rink, playing on the periphery of my vision.

My vision.

I had finally accepted my exit from the game. I knew my limitations. I lived them, but all these years I swore I could’ve still played if only the team hadn’t cut me… if only all the other teams would’ve given me a shot.

I could finally admit they were right, and I was so very fucking wrong.

Skating with the team had been difficult, but it didn’t give me the epiphany that being on the ice by myself gave me.

There had been too many distractions to gauge the situation accurately.

Hawk chasing his ball and the puck I gave him while I slapped a puck around made me realize what I’d been too busy with the team to see.

The league and doctors had been right. I was a hazard to myself and others during a game.

They’d given me some platitudes back then about things possibly being different if only the issues hadn’t been on the same side.

But I think, now, all these years away from the game…

no. I know now what I refused to consider back then.

Hockey as a player, an yway, was over for me.

Hawk barked from somewhere behind me. I spun, my eyes connecting with the one person I was trying my best to shake loose from my head.

Aiden stepped on the ice, his skates laced up over yet another pair of skinny jeans that showed off his long ass legs and so fucking tight that had they been anything other than pitch black they were they’d have showed off all the fabulousness underneath.

The arena was cold as hell, and he was only wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt.

The Daddy in me wanted to tell him to go and change if he wanted to skate, but I bit my tongue as his momentum brought him to a stop in front of me.

“Hey, Coach.”

Hawk bounded over to us, panting happily at the new potential playmate. Aiden looked down at him, then shyly looked at me through the dark fringe of lashes.

“You can pet him anytime he’s off-leash and playing.”

He dropped to a knee next to Hawk, talking to him and ruffling his fur. I pushed off, skating backwards away from the two. I needed distance, and if I didn’t get it, I would do something I shouldn’t.