Page 65 of Lace 'em Up

And then she’s gone, leaving me in an empty kitchen, the delicious smell of apple pie in the air.

I look around, almost expecting her to pop back in.

When she doesn’t, I go down the hall and retrieve my laptop.

Then I wait for the timer to go off so I can pull out the pie.

But I only manage to give it fifteen minutes before I carve out a slice.

Then nearly die from the nirvana of that first bite.

She’s right.

The cheese makes all the difference.

Nineteen

King

It’s later than I want it to be when I’m pushing into the house, body sore and aching.

Ego smarting.

Because Coach—who hadn’t been on the ice for my fist fight with Pat—had seen the video.

And he hadn’t been happy.

At all.

My ass still stings from the verbal beatdown.

And Pat, fucking cancer in the locker room with his idiotic minion, Duncan, at his side, had sat in the other chairs in the conference room smirking at me as Duncan supported his bullshit story. Saying that I’d acted unprovoked and taken it too far (just because Pat, the fuck, had both eyes blackened and a broken nose to my single shiner).

Smirking while my ass was handed to me.

Over and over again.

Fun times.

I hadn’t thought the post-practice meeting was going to be great.

But I hadn’t thought that it was going to involve the two assholes spinning a story and barely holding back laughter when Coach bought it, hook, line, and sinker, and proceeded to ream into me.

Fun fun.

If I’d known we needed to bring in witnesses, I would have accepted Cam or Rome’s offers to come with me.

Except, Cam’s family is in town and they live on the opposite coast. I’m not going to keep him when he wants to soak up as much time as possible.

And Rome wanted to get back to Chrissy—I’m not going to fuck with their free time, not when we have far too little of that during the season already.

I know plenty about how a lack of time together can make relationships implode.

My temple pulses with a burst of pain.

Because fuck do I ever know about how this job can tear people apart.

You’re not your dad. You can’t make this work.

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