Page 10 of Puck of the Irish

“Little of both. Since Hattie can’t skate, I’ll be on the ice keeping an eye on things and helping out.”

“Well, after this afternoon, hopefully that won’t be the case anymore.” She grins at that.

“This is going to be so much fun. A small, evil part of me can’t wait to watch her bust her ass. Payback for the pickle shots,” she adds when I eye her and I wince, remembering the night Mac brought what she claimed were lime Skittle shots to the table only for us all to find out after downing them thatthey were dill pickle. Nat had had a…not very eloquent reaction, promptly puking into the bushes off the patio at the bar. We’d all died laughing, but apparently she’s been secretly plotting her revenge.

“Wait until you see the surprise we made for her. It’s going to be epic.” We both laugh a bit and then she gets that calculating look in her eyes.

“We’re good, right?”

“We’re good,” I assure her with my most winning smile. I’m still feeling some kind of way about the whole thing, but no matter what, I’m not going to let it mess things up, so I’ll suck it up and deal with it. Whatever this is will pass, I’m sure of it.

“Good.”

“Good,” I repeat.

She holds my gaze and the gray seems to darken. I can’t help but smirk when she darts a glance down at my lips.

“Are you sure you don’t want an encore performance…?”

“Ok I’m going now, Thirst Trap,” she says with a shaky laugh. “Behave yourself out there.”

“I make no promises!” I call as she hurries up the nearest set of stairs. I watch her go, trying not to be super obvious about checking out her ass in those jeans as she jogs up, up, up. I finally tell myself to stop being a creep and pull my gaze away, slapping the top of the wall and skating over to meet up with a few of the other guys who just arrived.

“Jules! Howey! Get over here, I got a plan for later…” I run down my idea of teaching Mac to handle a puck and, with the help of the rest of the team, help her score a goal on Shep. They both grin when I finish.

“Oh, we’re all over it, Rizz.” Jules rubs his hands together like an evil villain from a movie and I laugh, punching him in the shoulder and setting off to skate some circles around the Man in Red himself.

Seven

NAT

“Hey, dad,”I say, sliding into the seat across from him at our usual table. We meet for dinner at this roof-top restaurant every other Tuesday, as long as he’s not traveling, and though lately the meetings have been more and more strained, we keep up the tradition.

Things with my dad have always been a little…complicated. Well, not always. When I was little, I was a complete and total daddy’s girl. He was my hero and some of my favorite memories involved the two of us going on little adventures all over Seattle. Once I hit those lovely teenage years, though, things shifted. I do love him, but we butt heads constantly. Mom always said it was because we’re too much alike, but neither one of us will admit to that out loud. He’s just always had this idea of what my life should be, and I’ve always disagreed and pushed back—to a point. He pretty much always ended up getting his way in the end, but I made it as difficult as possible most of the time. At least until a year ago. It wasn’t until I moved back here after mom died that I actually put my foot down and stopped goingalong with his plans completely. He’s been…frustrated, is one way to put it.Waiting for me to fall on my face and realize that he’s right and I’m wrong and I need daddy to fix my life for meis another.

“Hello, Natalie.” A waiter comes over and fills my water glass and dad signals for another drink for himself. Macallan I’m assuming. He’s in an impeccable suit, as always, his salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, his matching mustache and beard trimmed to perfection. We have the same gray eyes, the same cleft in our chin (though you can’t see his, of course), and the same stubborn personality.

“You left early the other night,” he observes as I dig into the bread. Of course Erin would have ratted me out when she found my table empty and no trace of me in the ballroom. I don’t blame her. She’s nice enough, but she’s dad’s lap dog and that means she’ll always take his side over mine. My lips twitch remembering Rizzo thinkingErinwasAaron. The offer to have a little “chat” with the fictional ex-boyfriend stalking me through a fundraising gala was actually surprisingly hot for reasons I don’t want to explore. I’ll just blame the romance novels Hattie let me borrow last week.

“I was there, as promised, and stayed through dinner. I was tired,” I lie with a shrug. “How did it turn out?”

“Enough raised to fund the construction of a whole new wing.” I can’t help but smile at that and he lets his iron façade soften a little bit, smiling back. In these rare moments, I can see how mom could have fallen for him all those years ago and I remember how close we used to be, how easy our relationship was.

“Mom would love that,” I say, eyes watering a bit. Willow’s House was named for her, after all, and was one of her most beloved projects. It’s a children’s hospital, mostly focusing on varieties of childhood cancers, but there are fully furnishedapartments on-site available for the families to use so they can all be together during treatments.

“I think you’re right.” He and mom were madly in love, but they just couldn’t be married to each other. It was the kind of love that burns too brightly I think. They were better as friends with, I learned as I got older, occasional benefits. Talk about scarring me for life when I walked intothaton a Wednesday morning before school…and confusing the hell out of me. I know you can’t blame your parents for all of your issues, but I think some of my relationship hang ups can definitely be laid on their doorstep. I’ve gotten over most of them over the years with the help of some therapy, but yeah, they really screwed me up for a while.

We talk about mostly trivial things over our meal—some of the foundation’s new projects, trips he has coming up, how the guest bathroom shower needs to be replaced at my house—until he finally asks the inevitable question.

“Have you finished this little game, Natalie?” He says it in that tone that grates on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard, like he’s talking to a petulant child who refuses to eat her broccoli. “It’s been nearly a year. You’re working as an assistant to something or another in a hockey organization.” He makes it sound like it’s the most ridiculous job he could fathom and my hackles rise even more. I love my fucking job. I love the people I work with and the work we do. It makes people happy, and more importantly, makesmehappy. But he doesn’t care about that. All he cares about is me following in his footsteps and re-joining the family business. He didn’t see or care how miserable I was for the years I spent working for him in the New York office after graduation.

But after mom died, everything shifted. It was like losing her so suddenly just ripped away the blinders and I could finally see how unhappy and unfulfilling my life really was. I decided thenthat I was tired of settling for the lifehewanted me to have. I wanted to do something on my own. I had no idea what, exactly, but I knew I didn’t want to be in New York anymore. He was pissed as hell when I told him I was quitting and moving back to Seattle, but beneath the anger, he understood. Mom’s death hit him extremely hard too, he just didn’t let anyone see it.

So, he’d agreed to let me have this “sabbatical” as he calls it. I could do whatever I wanted job-wise, as long as I didsomething, until I got it out of my system and he wouldn’t hound me. Who knew I’d find something I loved so much—and that turns out is the bane of his existence.

“You have a degree in business from Yale for God’s sake, and you spend your time…what? Getting someone coffee? Asking hockey players what their favorite breakfast food is?” I grind my teeth, trying hard to keep myself in check and not make a scene.

“First off, I work for the Assistant Director for Media and Marketing for one of the top American Hockey League organizations. Second, I didn’t want that fucking degree, dad.Youdid. I got it because…well, I don’t really know why anymore, but I sure as shit didn’t do it for myself. And third, I’mhappyin this job. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

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