Page 12 of Offside Devil

“I’ll chew everyone out before practice tomorrow,” I assure him.

“Don’t bother,” Daniel says. “You’re not their dad.”

Dad.

The word makes me nauseous. Holy shit, I might be someone’s dad.

Then I remember all of the texts on Paige’s phone and think again. The kid could belong to any of those guys in her phone. When I finally left for good, Paige was spiraling. She was blacking out most nights. She called me for months after I’d last seen her to ask if I knew where she’d been the night before. The social worker said she had nothing except for Paige’s word that I was the kid’s father.

I hate to speak ill of the dead, but her word doesn’t mean shit.

Suddenly, Daniel is leaning around me, eyebrows raised. “Where did you just go, man?”

“Nowhere.” I turn away from him and yank my street clothes out of my bag. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

I barely slept last night. Or the night before.

The social worker showed up on my doorstep with the kid, but I’m not allowed to see him until they know if I’m the father or not. Seeing him again might help answer that question, though.

I saw blonde hair and blue eyes. But I should have looked closer. News of Paige’s death had me spiraling. I was so busy thinking about her that I lost sight of what was right in front of me.

“You just need to keep your eye on the prize.”

I whip around. “What did you say?”

“The prize,” Daniel repeats with a confused frown. “Becoming captain… Shit, man, are you okay? You look green.”

No, I’m not okay at all.

My head is a mess and I can’t focus. I’ve been so lost in flashbacks and hypotheticals all day that I could barely track the puck. Forty-eight hours ago, becoming captain was the only thing I could think about. Now, it’s taking everything in me to be here—to condition and scrimmage and be a team player—when all I want to do is track down everyone who might have known Paige and figure out what the fuck is going on.

“I’m fine. I just need to get home.”

Daniel grabs a water bottle from his cart and smacks it against my chest. “You’re being weird as hell, bro. You need to hydrate—and also, you need to not let Carson get to you. Speaking as a member of team management, I’m impartial. But speaking as your best friend, he’s a bastard and I’d send him onto the ice with dull skates every damn day if it wouldn’t get me fired.”

I give him a tight smile. “Save the sabotage. I can handle Deluth the old-fashioned way.”

“Amputating his leg?” he guesses. I choke on my water, but Daniel just shrugs. “What? That’s how you got rid of your last real competition.”

It’s a dark joke. Once upon a time, it was Daniel skating on my left every game. Through club teams, college, and then our rookie NHL season.

Now, because of me, he watches from the bench. The fact he still calls himself my best friend after everything I’ve done is a testament to the kind of man he is. Better than me, that’s for damn sure.

“You’re so fucking twisted,” I mutter, wiping water from my chin.

He laughs again and claps me on the back on his way out the door. “Hydration and concentration. Those two things are the key. You’ll be fine.”

As soon as he’s gone, I drop the water bottle into my bag and my thoughts turn back to the social worker. The paternity test. The kid that might or might not be mine. And the green-eyed Wednesday Addams who ran like hell away from me.

Hydration and concentration.

I hope one out of two is enough. Because my concentration is fucked beyond all repair.

The call comes an hour after I get home. I finally stop staring at my phone long enough to hop in the shower, so of course the social worker waits until then to dial.

As soon as I hear the ringtone, I lunge out of the shower, slip on the tile, and barely manage to catch myself on the edge of the sink.

“Mr. Whitaker? This is Jodie Barnes, the social worker assigned to Aiden’s case.”

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