Page 44 of Offside Devil

He cackles. “I’d love to see you try.”

His wish is my command.

I win the puck drop and, for the first time all day, I feel like myself. I know where Jace and Nathan are going to be before they get there. I see the lazy plays Carson is going to call before he even calls them. When I zip a pass to Jace between Carson’s skates and we score the winning goal to end the scrimmage, even Coach Popov gives me a grumpy nod, which is his version of a standing ovation.

Carson’s team is dragging when we shake hands afterwards and for the first time—maybe in his entire life—he doesn’t have shit to say.

Even better, I get to leave while they’re stuck doing sprints behind me.

After days of not knowing what the fuck I’m doing, it feels good.

Hockey has always been the thing I’m best at. Even when every other area of my life was off the rails, hockey was the last domino to fall.

On the ice, I know what I’m doing. I know where I belong.

It’s the rest of my world that remains a mystery.

19

ZANE

Owen is already sitting in the back corner booth at Cam’s.

The same booth I sat in with Aiden and Mira yesterday morning. The booth where—if I hadn’t been painfully aware of my son sitting next to me and the risk of sending the elderly patrons into heart failure—I would have thrown Mira on the table and saw her little performance through to its natural, sweaty, sticky, sexy conclusion.

It would have been a mistake—but fuck, it would have felt nice. Better than sitting with a steel pipe between my legs for the entire meal.

Owen inclines his head when he sees me. It’s late afternoon, but he’s pouring himself what I’m sure is his tenth cup of coffee for today. I swear the bastard’s veins are chock full of pure caffeine 24/7.

I grab the carafe and shake it as I sit down just to confirm. “Didn’t want to save any for me?”

“Start getting your ass here on time and maybe I will.” He claps his hand on the table. “I don’t have all fooking day to wait for you.”

People learn real fast not to mistake Owen’s charming Scottish accent for him being a charming man. He doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit—not even his own. It’s how he dragged himself out of a decade-long addiction and became a sober sponsor with one of the best success records in the Phoenix Narcotics Anonymous program.

“You know I was at practice. We’re in preseason training right now so?—”

“Fook yer fookin’ hockey.” He wrinkles his nose. “All those pads and helmets. It’s barely even a sport. Now shinty, that’s a sport.”

I’ve spent hours of my life the last four years listening to Owen talk about his days on the shinty pitch. After I fell off the sober wagon, Owen slept on my couch for two days and made me watch old matches he’d taped.

It’s essentially field hockey, but he gets belligerent when I point that out.

“As soon as you want to strap into forty pounds of pads and hit the ice with me, we’ll see who the real athlete is.”

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he gripes. “My knees are fookin’ wrecked from all those years playing a real sport.”

I snort. “Name the time and place, old man. Unless you’d rather keep talking shit you never plan to back up.”

He ignores this and pours himself another coffee. “Speaking of talking shite: tell me what’s going on with you.”

I knew this moment was coming and I still don’t know where to start.

But Owen is one of the only people I tell absolutely everything to. He’s seen me when I wasn’t fit to be seen by a damn soul and he dragged me back from the brink. If he ends up being the only thing standing between me and a relapse, I want him to be armed with all the information he might need to set me straight.

So I start at the beginning.

I tell him about meeting Mira at the coffee shop. About Aiden being all but dumped on my doorstep, the random drop-in from CPS, and the surprise when I opened my door to interview a new nanny and found Mira there instead.

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