Page 66 of Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny

I did my best to not look at him like he was crazy, but considering the question, I doubt I pulled it off. “Of course I do. I just saw you yesterday.”

“I’m not talking about yesterday.”

“You mean the quarterfinals game?”

Frustration etched his features. It felt like I was failing a pop quiz in a class I’d never taken.

“I know your mother,” he said. “Didn’t Ryder tell you?”

My muscles tensed. “No. He was busy preparing for the game.” I wanted to believe that was why he’d neglected to mention it, although considering the information, you’d think he could’ve fit it in.

“Well, it’s been over a decade, and your mother didn’t bring you along often, but you’d think you’d remember, considering I put you both up in an expensive apartment in New York for almost a year.”

Instinctively I knew that I shouldn’t respond that I couldn’t possibly remember every guy my mom dated, especially going that far back, even if it were true. One face blurred into the next, and I’d learned not to get attached. I only bothered to commit them to memory if we moved into the guys’ houses. Even then, I’d felt like a stray cat they’d picked up, and I knew at any moment, they might find a cuter cat and kick both Mom and me out. Or she’d be the one to find the better tomcat. And now I really needed to abandon my cat metaphor, because shit was getting weird, and it was already weird enough.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t remember you. Are you sure it was my mom?”There were probably a lot of girls in your past, just like there are a lot of guys in hers. There’s no way it’s—

“Yvette Rivera?”

Swallowing became impossible. Vaguely I felt the condensation from the soda dripping down my hand. A fuzzy feeling crept across my brain and the ground no longer seemed steady under my feet.

“Yeah, I’m sure that I met her on the hockey circuit,” he said. “Just like I’m sure that you’re playing my son the way she played me. She’s the reason my marriage broke up, did you know that? She destroyed everything I’d built up for years, but I’m sure she never gave a second thought to that, either. She was the type of girl who barged in, made demands, and then left someone else holding the bill.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. I’d thought a lot about the guys who’d broken Mom over the years. How they would use her and discard her and then we’d need a new place to live. I’d never really thought of her using and discarding guys.

He advanced a step, crowding my space. “I worked hard to get Ryder to a place where he could have a long NHL career ahead of him, and I won’t let some girl come in and manipulate him for her personal gain.”

“I’m not manipulating anyone,” I said, righteous anger flooding my body. “I genuinely care about your son. And one thing I’ve learned about him is that if he wants something, he’ll make it happen. What he needs is for you to give him a fucking break and acknowledge how good he is, or to get the hell out of the way. That might not be what you want to hear, but if you care about him, you should know that.”

“And ifyoucare about him, you’d stop messing with his head and let him have a chance. He’s been playing worse ever since you entered the picture, and his future is riding on these playoffs. You don’t honestly think you two are gonna skip into the sunset and live happily ever after, do you?”

I clenched my jaw, my pulse pounding faster and faster, until my temples throbbed. “I’m not some naive girl waiting for a guy to come in on a white horse and save me.” I’d almost addedlike my mom was, but right now I wasn’t exactly sure my picture of her was completely accurate. “I realize that he and I are on different paths. I’m perfectly capable of saving myself.”

He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you’re smarter than I gave you credit for, then. But consider this… For Ryder to achieve the great things I know he can, I’m not the only one who needs to get out of his way.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ryder

What the hell was I going to do? Every time I saw Lindsay in the stands, I thought about how I needed to break the news that her mom and my dad…

I wanted to stop that stupid voice in the back of my mind that whispered maybe I didn’t know Lindsay as well as I thought. It was what Dad wanted, and I hated that it worked, even a little bit.

Those fights before my parents got divorced were especially ugly.

Blips from those awful days played through my head. My mom, standing there with tears running down her cheeks.“Who is she?”

“How could you humiliate me like that?”

Dad lifting his chin, never one to back down or say he was wrong. “It was nice to have someone appreciate me for once.”

“She appreciated you for your money. She played you for the fool you are. But now you’re free to go be with her. Like I said, I’m done.”

No matter how many times I told the downer thoughts to shut up, they drifted up again. The initial bomb drop had been bad enough, but what really screwed me up was that last line Mom had delivered, about how Dad went to be with his mistress, only to find she’d moved on with his teammate. I supposed for Mom, it was poetic justice, but for some reason it was seriously fucking with my head.

Lindsay’s not her mom. Maybe she started out going for hockey players for sport, but that was all over by the time she and I got together. Besides, I was the one who pursued her so hard in the first place.

“Ox!” Dane smacked the side of my helmet. “Where are you right now? Because you’re not here, and we fucking need you to be.”

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