Page 43 of Rowdy Hearts

Raffi gave him a look that made Rowdy’s grin widen even more. “I plan to make great choices tonight. Love ya, Mama.”

Shaking her head, Raffi turned back to me. “Have a good time, hon. Enjoy yourself. Krista and I will be just fine. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

I nodded, feeling free in a way I hadn’t in a long time. Not free from a burden, but free to have fun. Bad-girl fun.

“Be good, Krista. Love you.”

“Bye, Mommy. Miss Raffi, can we have more popcorn with the movie?”

“Didn’t you already have some tonight?”

I didn’t hear the rest of Krista’s conversation with Raffi because they moved out of earshot, but my daughter was all smiles now.

“You ready to have some fun?”

Rowdy’s voice was raw meat to that bad girl I’d had to suppress for years. It called to me, seduced me. Made me want to be that girl again. Even if, when I’d been that girl, my life had been heading toward disaster. A disaster I’d narrowly averted.

But I was older and wiser now. And I knew how to control myself.

“Yes, I think I am.”

Rowdy’s smile returned. It’d been missing while he waited for me to respond. But now it spread like wildfire over his face, which had a distinct bruise forming below his left eye.

“Does that hurt?”

His smile turned into a smirk. “Oh, it hurts. But the face, not so much.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I refused to give him everything he wanted. Because I knew he would want everything. And there were things I couldn’t give him.

“Then I guess maybe you should go home and take care of it.”

I realized I’d crossed my arms over my chest in an exact mimic of him.

“I plan to. Later. First, I’m gonna celebrate our first loss of the season with my teammates.”

Walking up to my side, he held out his hand, which also looked swollen. I hesitated a second before taking it, gently.

“Do you always celebrate the losses?”

He didn’t answer right away, leading me down the hall toward the exit to the parking lot. A few of the other guys began to file out of the locker room now, saying “See you there,” as they passed.

I did a double take when I realized a few of those guys were from the other team.

“Sometimes that’s all you’ve got. In this league, we’ve learned to celebrate everything. Hell, sometimes we celebrate the fact that we made it on the ice without a major incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

“Hey, Rowdy. You buying the first round?”

Rowdy stopped and turned, his smile morphing into the one I recognized as for friends. “Of course. Tressy, this is Brian Fiskers, otherwise known as Mr. Whiskers.”

The player I recognized as the assistant captain of the other team held out a huge, battered hand. The guy was taller thanRowdy, with auburn hair that hung below his shoulders, hazel eyes that nearly disappeared when he smiled and a face that showed a matching bruise to Rowdy’s from the fight they’d gotten into in the second period.

The crowd had loved it, banging on the glass, stomping their feet and egging them on. Both men had looked seriously intent on killing one another as they fought. But then, after the referee broke them up, they each skated around their end of the ice, on their way to the penalty box. The theme to “Titanic” played as the crowd cheered Rowdy and booed Fiskers. And, when Rowdy got to the box, he picked up the championship belt waiting there and made a production of putting it on, to the delight of the crowd. I could honestly say I’d never seen that at a hockey game before.

While Rowdy had been beaming at the crowd, Fiskers had continued to call him out, which the crowd loved even more. And when they left the box after serving their penalties, they knocked gloves on the way to their benches, and the game continued as if nothing had happened.

I shook Fiskers’ hand. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”

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