Page 11 of Replay

Josh

“Hey, Mom.” My mother and I talked a few times a week, and for this phone call I had something to ask.

“Josh, how are you? How is training camp going? Did management make the final cuts?”

I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. “I’m doing okay. We’re playing preseason games, and the last cuts are coming. I’m glad that’s not up to me. But the team looks good. We should go all the way this year.”

“I’m sure you will, hun. We’re all rooting for you. I wish you could have been home for longer this summer. I miss you.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. Yeah, Mom always wanted me at home, but it wasn’t the same now. A lot of people had moved away, the ones I knew, and the rest were interested in Ducky, the hockey player, not Josh, the person I was when I wasn’t playing hockey. They wanted to talk about hockey all the frickin’ time and expected me to pay for everything. I didn’t mind, but it would be nice if maybe someone just had me over for beer and talking about Star Wars or something like that.

This summer, we all, the whole team, had promised to work hard and be in great shape so that this season we could go all the way. Losing in overtime at home in the finals had been super shitty. I knew Mitchy, our backup goalie, thought it was his fault for letting in that goal. He was in net because of an accident with Petey, our starter, and JJ blamed himself for running Petey down. Petey thought he’d have stopped the shot if he’d been playing, and Cooper and Crash missed a pass that led to the goal—hell, if I’d scored when we’d been down in Minnesota’s end, we wouldn’t have needed Mitchy to stop anything. Lots of blame to go around.

“Josh?”

“Uh, sorry, Mom. Got distracted there.”

“I asked how things were going with your new roommate.” Her tone was disapproving. She didn’t think I needed a roommate; I was an adult and it was my condo. But I liked having people around so I didn’t feel all alone. Plus, with someone in my spare bedroom, I put Mom up in a hotel when she visited a few times a season. She’d been a single mom, and I appreciated how hard she’d worked to raise me. I just needed some space.

“Fitch is great so far. He’s kinda quiet, but he’s nice. He’s going through a divorce so sometimes he gets a little down, but I help cheer him up.”

I didn’t like people being sad. I was a goof, but if it helped someone feel better, that was all good, right?

“Does he bring home women?”

My face heated up. I hooked up more than Fitchy, at least so far, but I did not want to talk about that with my mother. She had to know I wasn’t sweet and innocent. I was twenty-four, and I’d been playing in the NHL for years now. Distraction was in order. “So, guess who I ran into?”

She sighed. I wasn’t subtle. “How would I know who you ran into?”

“Well, you know her. Katie.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You know, Katie. Katie Baker. My old tutor?” And my old girlfriend, but something told me not to mention that to Mom.

“How did she manage to track you down?”

I stared at the fridge in front of me. Why would she think Katie found me? Katie did not like me, not now. She had to know I played in Toronto, but I hadn’t heard anything from her after she moved here. She could have found someone to tell her how to get a hold of me if she’d wanted. Most everyone knew where the teams hung out.

“She didn’t ‘track me down.’ She wasn’t even happy to see me. It was an accidental thing.”

“I doubt that.”

I was never going to tell my mom that I went home with a woman I picked up in a bar and found Katie that way. It would prove Katie hadn’t planned it, but I didn’t need another lecture from my mother on using protection and being careful.

Mom had never spoken like this before about Katie. Like Katie was out for what she could get. Maybe Katie was right, that Mom didn’t like her. “Why would you even think she’d want to see me after the way I broke up with her?”

Could rolling eyes make a sound? “Joshua, don’t be naïve. You’re successful and wealthy. The Bakers would love to get their hands on you.”

What the fuck?

“I don’t think so. She was super pis— I mean, she was not happy to see me.”

Mom sniffed. “Well, I hope you don’t run into her again.”

No need to tell her I was planning how to do just that. “Did you know she was in Toronto?”

“Why are you asking me?”

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