Page 62 of Stick Play

“No,” she says, and shakes her head so hard, she’s giving me a headache. “I’m never calling him that, Mommy.” She pulls away from me and runs from the room and that’s when I get it.

She doesn’t want to call him Uncle Ash, she wants to call him daddy.

Oh boy.

20

Ash

It’s been a long fucking day traveling to Tampa, and I hate flying on the best of days. Add in bad weather and turbulence, I’m ready to call it a night. I make my way toward the elevator, anxious to get to my room to call Gina, when Coach steps up to me.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Fuck.

His brow is furrowed, and I’m guessing he has something very important on his mind, something that probably has to do with me hanging out with a single mom. I really fucking tried to keep my head down, but this is sweet Gina we’re talking about. I didn’t have the strength to resist her. Which is why after fucking her in her café kitchen last year, I’ve been sniffing around like a goddamn stray cat, hoping for scraps. But dammit, she gave me so much more than scraps and I’m fucking addicted.

If the coach tells me to back the fuck off, what the hell am I going to do? Hockey is my life. I worked hard to make a name for myself. Not only for me, but for my dad. Not only so I could provide for him but to show him how good of a job he did, single-handedly raising me.

I exchange a look with Brady as he and a couple of the guys step into the elevator, and the strangest sense of doom washes over me as the door closes. Coach puts his hand on my shoulder, and I follow him across the lobby to a set of chairs in the corner.

How decent of him to tear me a new one in private. “What’s up, Coach?”

“You don’t know?”

I sink back into the cushioned chair. How do I play this? “Listen, if you’re talking about Gina?—”

“I am talking about Gina. Gina Martin.”

How the fuck does he know her last name? Then again, he does seem to know everything about all of us and I guess that’s part of his job. If one of us is in a slump because of personal issues, he needs to know these things.

“And her daughter, Zoe.”

Well, fuck me sideways.

“I know,” is all I can get out as my chest squeezes tight.

“I realize you aren’t on social media, since well…and you guys have been traveling today, so I’m going under the assumption that you haven’t seen any of the headlines.”

Headlines?

I sit up a bit straighter. Jesus Christ, did those pictures really make the news. I snort out a humorless laugh. Of course, they did. Social media posts get way more hits when they’re sharing juicy gossip.

“I’m not sure who the younger woman was who latched onto you?—”

“She’s nobody you need to worry about.” I glance at the phone in his hand. “What are they saying?”

“Basically, who wore it better?”

“What the fuck.” I nearly fall off my damn chair as I lean forward to see what the fuck he’s talking about. “Who wore what better?”

“They show you with that young woman wrapped around you, and you with the little girl in your arms, and her mom Gina by your side.” He holds his phone out to me, and my blood drains. Gina didn’t want this. She didn’t want any of this attention.

Why?

Oh, because we’re just having sex…with a fucking deadline.

Maybe I should just end this before she walks out of my life. My father’s life. We both know what that’s like. Why the hell did I set us up for that again? But more importantly, I wasn’t able to protect Gina from the spotlight, from the possibility of our secret getting out.

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