Page 55 of Sweet Thing

Rosie

Sorry!!! We were bonding and I felt the need to keep the good times rolling with hot goss. Is he being a jerk?

Me

Actually, he seems to think Lars needs protection from my claws at this difficult time.

Rosie

LOL. Finally, you’re a maneater!

Another text came in from an unknown number.

It was nice to meet you today.

This is Rowan, btw.

Hmm.

How did you get this number?

Unknown

I have my ways. So, would you like to hang sometime?

Straight to it. I wasn’t sure I liked that. I wasn’t sure I was even attracted to Rowan. My experience was that people were usually interested in me because I was a Kershaw first, a woman a distant second.

Hatch had told me to stay away from hockey player assholes. Even Rosie thought the idea of me being a maneater was hilarious. No one gave me much credit, that was for sure. But neither did I like the idea of dating someone to prove something.

Me

I’m pretty swamped these days.

Unknown

I hear you. Let me know if your schedule opens up.

Lars

For consistency’s sake,we had reworked the schedule so Adeline stayed over even on my nights off. I needed sleep and I couldn’t get much if I had to attend to Mabel’s every whim. And yeah, I knew she was a baby and that whims were her brand.

Only sleep was near to impossible because this woman was in the next room with my daughter. I turned over, noting the time on my phone: 2:06 a.m. Punched the pillow. Considered a silent jerk-off, which usually did wonders to send me asleep. But now I couldn’t because the woman I dreamed of was next door and I’d promised her—and myself—that I was drawing a line under it.

I stared up at the ceiling, making out shapes, turning them into plays on the ice. Defensemen didn’t usually think too hard about plays, but sometimes I liked running the lines in my head, like counting sheep. It usually helped keep thoughts of Sven at bay, yet my surprise fatherhood meant he was on my mind of late. I was trying to remember good things, but I could only focus on the negative.

My father once gave a TV interview about five years after he’d been banned from the league, so a good ten years ago. His trophies filled the background, his softening body filled a leather chair. He’d aged twenty years in five and was still as bitter as the day he was kicked out of professional hockey.

“Do you regret your decision to gamble away your career?” the interviewer had asked.

“What’s the point in regrets?” he’d said, his thick Finnish accent making him sound like a Bond villain. “It happened. I cannot turn back time.”

“And what about your son Lars? How’s your relationship with him?”

Sven’s palpable disgust leeched through the screen. “Nolla.”

Null. Zero. Nothing.

I couldn’t forgive him. He saw nothing worth forgiving.Nollawas right.

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