Page 24 of Hockey Heart

“Oh.” I took my cap off and scratched at my head.Gotta play it nice here Hayden, for Maiden, remember? And then there’s that Porsche outside. Better give them a bit of a show.“Well… You know Jessa Huckley?”

Everyone knew Jessa. The former Playbunny turned good girl, then back to getting her assets out again. She and Randall had been a thing. It was short-lived, but the gossip columns had lapped it up.

“Yeah, I do!” He sounded pleased with himself.

“Well, let’s just say they broke up because he wasn’t thatinto her.” I held up my hand and wiggled my pinky finger to illustrate what I meant. It was nice to get one over on Randy, even if he wouldn’t ever find out about it.

Sports cap guy’s eyes bulged and then he burst into a wild laughter that made me recoil, as if he’d just opened his mouth and moths had flown out of it.

Locklear whacked me heartily on the back and started laughing too.

“DAD!”

We all turned toward the interruption, which came from a small blonde kid sporting a hell of a black eye on his face and a white plaster across his nose. Maiden squeezed my hand harder.

“Can we go on the golf cart?”

“No, Matthew! Not after the last time.”

Matthew looked like he was about to throw a tantrum, then he turned to peer up at me.

“You’re that hockey player.”

“Sure am!” I told him as cheerfully as I could muster. Did these rich folk just go around stating obvious facts all the time? Was that a thing?Oh hey, you’re wearing a shirt. Oh look, it’s a tree. This is my enormous swimming pool.

After a pause, an excited expression came across his face. “Can you throw me in the pool?”

I looked over at his dad to see what his thoughts were on that, and he just shrugged. So I leaned over, picked up the blonde kid, held him up over my head like I was a pro-wrestler, and chucked him unceremoniously into the pool. The other kids stood for a moment open-mouthed, then they started running toward me, all yelling at the same time, “Me next! No, me! Do me!”

I managed an hour of throwing kids in the pool, making idle chat with Tom Locklear and the Wildcats fan, whose name I never got, and getting withering looks from Tom’s mother before we made our escape. I would’ve made up an excuse to get us out of there once everything had been smoothed over, but I actually had one already. One I didn’t really want to think about. Cara.

14

CLARA’S SHEEP

Hayden

This was becoming a real day of it. After dealing with Maiden’s fallout and becoming Locklear’s show pony, I then had to drop Maiden at soccer practice (seriously, what was up with that?), get to my state-enforced therapy session that afternoon, and then there were drinks lined up after that to win over the teacher.

On top of it all, Cara, my living nightmare, was about to bring her special brand of hell back into our lives, despite everything I had tried to do to avoid it. It was always bad news. Every time a woman came into our life.

“Daddy, are we stopping at Ice-Cream Dreams?” Maiden called out from the backseat.

“Sorry champ. We’re late to pick up your mom.”

“Okay.” I glanced at Maiden’s sad face in the rearview mirror and my heart broke for him.That damn woman.Three days and then it would be just him, me, and Joyce again.

“Why’s mom staying with us?” Maiden asked.

I sighed heavily. Me and Cara had made a deal. I hadn’t wanted to, but that hell-spawn in heels knewexactlyhow to manipulate me, and every time I found myself dancing around like a bear in a tutu to her tune.

“I just need to stay at the house, two days, three tops,” she’d told me. Cara never asked for anything. She just told you what you would do for her. How much money you’d send, what bill to pay, what party she needed a pass for, whatever she wanted.

“No way. There is absolutely no chance in hell, Cara!” I’d told her as defiantly as I could.

The woman had no scruples, though.

“Look Hay-Ray,” Ihatedwhen she called me that, and she knew it too, “I let you have your quiet, boring life with Maiden and your lame stick buddies, but that can change very quickly, you hear me? You still in therapy for your anger, by the way?”

---