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Chapter Thirteen

We’re happy to report that the dream team of Kershaw and Nyquist managed to keep New York at bay last night.

An inside source tells us that Nyquist wanted to take time off to deal with the surprise addition to his family, but this plan was met with resistance from his captain and the Rebels front office.

Despite rumors of a rift between the D-men over the threat these changes impose to Theo Kershaw’s likely final year in the pros, they’ve managed to put that aside as the Rebels org rallied around to resolve Nyquist’s childcare issues.

In an interesting development, Kershaw’s daughter, Adeline, has stepped up as temporary nanny to Nyquist’s love child, a solution that no doubt ensures the Rebels captain maintains control over a volatile situation.

Still no word on the mysterious woman who left the typically unflappable Finn in the lurch, but we have to wonder if Lars’s baby drama has more plot twists in store!

- @RebelsInsider

Lars

I had royally fucked up.

Not just the fact I’d jerked off to fantasies of my nanny—what a cliché—but how I’d reacted.

Who has two thumbs, jacks off to an out-of-bounds woman, then acts like it’s her fault when she catches him in the act?

This guy!

So maybe she should have stepped out the second she realized what was happening in that shower.

Was it possible she didn’t know? Or was I projecting some brand of innocence on her that didn’t exist?

The virginal daughter of my teammate, too curious to flee when confronted with a man in the throes of an orgasm.

As if I needed any more fuel to this fire.

Yet the thought of her there, listening to my desperate moans, stayed with me for the rest of the day. I imagined her rosy nipples hardening to sweet, suckable peaks. Her thighs rubbing together, seeking delicious friction. Her pussy quivering and gushing as I came with her name on my lips.

She was forbidden for a million reasons. I had to weigh every move and decision around her, so I didn’t mess up her life and mine. If she still had that crush on me, then I had the capacity to hurt her.

We had agreed before the away trip that Adeline should take days off when I was back in town and had a break from practice or games.

She had taken yesterday off, spending overnight back at her parents’ house, while I tried to manage Mabel solo.

The kid had slept through the night, if sleeping between midnight and five a.m. was considered a full night’s sleep.

Now she was sitting in the highchair the Kershaws had donated, her face covered with papaya mush, the worst of the baby foods.

I was partial to pear and banana myself, but my daughter had more exotic tastes.

“You like that, huh?”

“Yabby!”

“Yabby,” I agreed while I took a wet cloth to her face and wiped her down, a losing battle because she just smeared the next spoonful over her mouth, heedless of my efforts.

Then, because she knew I wasn’t a fan, she flicked her spoon, shooting the mush in my eye with a precision that made me proud.

I rubbed my face with the cloth. “Nice wrist move, sweetheart. I see hockey in your future.”

The lawyer was working on the options, specifically custody and financial arrangements.

Vicki had vanished back to Cleveland. I’d assumed she lived in Chicago but no, she’d driven over five hours to abandon her kid to a guy with no child-rearing experience whatsoever, and five hours back.

Neither had she done anything illegal by dropping her kid off with her bio-dad, so we couldn’t get the law involved.

Not that you want that, Quinn had said. This should be handled privately, for everyone’s sake.

I agreed. Torn between anger and sympathy, I knew that bandying about accusations of criminality wouldn’t make this more palatable.

My phone rang with a call from Natalie, the Rebels’ publicist.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, Lars! We were hoping you’d stop by the front office after practice today.”

Sure, if my nanny shows after I scarred her for life. I half-expected her to text and tell me she was out. That she’d talked to Rosie or God forbid, her mom, and told them she didn’t feel safe in the same house as me with my hungry gaze and dirty fantasies.

“What’s up?”

“We’d like to run through some possible statements about your situation. While everyone loves a single dad, the press on this one so far has been, shall we say, negative?”

I’d read several articles, posts, and comments about my “situation,” and I didn’t think anyone could shine this turd up. Anytime I was mentioned, the media inevitably brought up my father or my imaginary rift with Kershaw.

“Ignore it.”

“We can’t. People will want a statement about your plans, if you’re going to build a life with the mother, and?—”

“That’s easy: ‘none of your business’ and ‘I banged the mom in a bar bathroom while she was married to someone else so that’s a non-starter’.”

Not even a gasp. Publicists and their nerves of steel.

“And your father?”

“What about him?” I winced at my sharp tone and sent an apologetic glance toward my daughter.

“We want to offer a clear distinction between the past and the present.”

“Sure, do that. Try to steer them away from the old man’s drugs, gambling, and whoring. Along with his three ex-wives and the army of former business partners he fucked over. Let’s try to avoid all the comparisons.”

A tingling sensation flushed across my skin.

I looked up and there was Adeline, her cheeks pink, her lips wet, and looking just as I’d imagined her during that sexy shower session. The floodgates had opened and there was no stopping this porno now.

Natalie had said something while I tried to wrangle my thoughts. Problem was that lately whenever Adeline was in my orbit, those thoughts became mushy. Scattered. Incomprehensible.

“Say ’gain.”

“Let’s start with the family wants privacy at this time.”

“Sounds like a winner.”

Natalie had the bit between the teeth. “And maybe we could send a photographer, do a photo shoot with the baby?—”

“I don’t want to use the kid like that.”

“Think about it.”

“Sure,” I said to end the conversation.

I looked up and met Adeline’s gaze.

“You okay?”

After what had happened yesterday, she was asking if I was okay?

“Fine,” I clipped back.

“What was all that about your father?”

“Apparently there’s concern in Rebels circles that this recent drama is a little too reminiscent of good ole Sven’s rabble-rousing back in the day. The guy’s dead but his hellraiser spirit lives on in me, that kind of thing.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Not going to deny it, her outrage gave me a little thrill. “You’re nothing like him.”

“You don’t know that. To be honest, given his reckless tendencies, I’m surprised I don’t have more half-siblings beating down my door.”

Her lips tightened. “What about your mom?”

“She died when I was a kid. Dad wasn’t too happy to have to take over, so he decided the way to make it worth his while was to mold me into the best darn hockey player he could. And yeah, he was kind of a dick about it. Took a while for me to measure up to his standard for greatness.”

I had obviously surprised her with my backstory vomit. Sometimes I surprised myself.

“I don’t know much about him except for …” She trailed off.

“The fact he was banned from the league for illegal betting?”

The first person since the fifties. Of all the professional leagues, hockey was the most easygoing when it came to gambling.

They only asked that players and franchise staff not wager on pro hockey games.

NCAA? Place your bets. Fantasy football?

Have at it. Other sports were complete hard asses about it: no wagering on anything ever.

All my dad had to do was obey that one simple rule and bet on any other fucking thing.

The guy had always been a self-saboteur of the highest order. He chose his own sport. Worse, his own games. Decades had passed without an acknowledged infraction by a player until Sven Nyquist called the police because a bookie wouldn’t pay out on a win. The guy was as dumb as they come.

That was the first time. A ten-game ban was his punishment. Six years later, he got caught again, only that time he almost dragged me down with him.

I rubbed my beard, resolved to be more conciliatory. None of this was Adeline’s problem. I needed her, which meant sharing less and keeping what we had on a professional footing.

“Well, the poor kid seems to be doing okay despite being landed with me as a dad.”

“There you go again.”

“What?”

“Making a self-deprecating comment about your fitness to be a father. Not even self-deprecating. More like … self-loathing.”

My hackles rose. “We didn’t all grow up in the Little House on the Prairie .”

“In the what?”

A grim smile shaped my lips. That reference was obviously way before her time, which only went to affirm a million other things. “Family perfection where everyone gets along and the sun’s always shining.”

“So your family wasn’t perfect. Show me one that is.”

Yours, sweet thing. I reached out and rubbed Mabel’s tummy. As usual, she preened and bat her eyelashes like the little attention-hog she was.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is this little girl needs two parents who can be there for her. A father who has a clue what he’s doing. A mom who won’t run at the first sign of trouble. As far as family, she’s already way behind, and I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Just because Sven Nyquist patterned a blueprint of bad fatherhood doesn’t mean you have to follow it.”

“You think I’m screwing up?”

“I think you’re so afraid of screwing up that you won’t let yourself enjoy this. Enjoy Mabel.”

I stood and threw up my hands. Suddenly I was entertaining Theo Kershaw levels of drama.

“Enjoy this ? How the hell am I supposed to enjoy this? This is a baby. A human life. A sponge waiting to absorb, hell, everything. I can’t enjoy that. There’s too much at stake.”