Page 8 of Hot for the Hockey Player
I hadn’t been home for five minutes and already my son’s mopey attitude was grating on me.I didn’t tell him that I ran into Maverick or invited him for dinner.I figured he would like the surprise.But now that we had a guest coming, I needed to get cracking on dinner.
With a deep, weary, but also understanding sigh, I made my way over to where my eldest child was starting his panic spiral, and delicately removed the phone from his hands.“Go find your cousins and kick the ball around for a bit.This,”I waggled the phone, “isn’t going to help Maverick recover.And I’m sure, when he’s ready, there will be a press release with more information.”
Damon didn’t move.“Barbier needs to be suspended for the rest of the season for that cowardly check.Who does that?He was only suspended for five games.That’s a freaking joke.”
“Someone who knows they’re going to lose,” Laurel piped up from where she sat at our dining room table doing her homework.
Damon snorted and finally stood up.
“Have you finished your homework?”I asked him, returning to the kitchen to get to work dredging the chicken.“Even your required reading for English?”
With his shoulders rounded and his floppy brown hair hanging in his face, my moody fourteen-year-old grunted a “yes,” then headed for the entryway to yank on his shoes.
“Put your hoodie on too at the very least, please,” I said, knowing that I’d lose the argument completely—even with evidence—if I suggested a coat.So I compromised by suggesting a hoodie.“It’s winter for a few more weeks, and damn cold.”
Damon, still sulking over his apparent idol being injured, grabbed his black hoodie off the coat rack and yanked it over his head.
“Dinner is in an hour.”
He nodded and left, leaving me in the house with my slightly less moody preteen.I swear we were just days away from Laurel getting her period.I got mine just before I turned twelve, and she was only five months from her twelfth birthday.She was also a hormonal roller coaster of emotions and getting pimples.While we were in Seattle, we went and found her some deodorant she liked the smell of.Her first stick.It was impossible to ignore the pang of melancholy over my baby turning into a woman.It felt too freaking soon, and that just yesterday I was swaddling her little body and rocking her to sleep.
“Any idea why your brother is all of a sudden obsessed with Maverick Roy again?”I asked.“He was when he was little.Then when Mav first joined the NHL.But I haven’t heard him go on and on about Maverick in a long time.”
Laurel lifted one boney shoulder in a half-assed shrug, her pencil moving across the worksheet as she completed her math homework.Both my kids were smart, but Laurel was book-smart and math-smart to an almost freaky level.She could recite the digits of pi to something like the hundred and forty-eighth number.She also loved to read.The girl always had her nose buried in a book—and usually not a book appropriate for an eleven-year-old likeThe Baby-Sitters Club.She was reading Dickens, Tolstoy, Austen, Vonnegut, and Hemingway before her tenth birthday, and when I tried to get her to read something slightly more age-appropriate she argued with me—a lawyer—until I had to give up my case and agree that she could read them, but I had to vet them first.
“I think it has to do with his friends at school,” she finally said, her face scrunched up as she leaned onto her hand, her elbow on the table, and studied the math problem in front of her.While I didn’t want her skipping a grade, her teacher and I agreed that she needed to be challenged more.He gave her math homework from two grades above her—just for home—to challenge and stimulate her.She didn’t want her school friends to know though, because that would just be fodder for teasing.
“What do you mean?”I picked up the flattened piece of chicken from the plate and started to dredge it.
“I think some friends at school were either bad-talking Mav, or maybe saying how awesome he was—I dunno.But anyway, Damon started to brag that he knew Mav.That Mav was like a big brother to him when we were kids—not that I remember him—and then that’s when he wanted to watch the games on television again.And I think what prompted him to ask you for hockey tickets for Christmas.”
“Which Ionlybought because I got a screaming deal, and you asked forbooks.Just books.”
“And I got thejustbooks that I wanted.I am happy.Though, the game was fun to watch.I’m glad I went.I feel bad that Maverick was injured so badly and went out of the game after only playing for like two minutes.”
“Me too, honey,” I murmured, reflecting on Maverick recounting his injuries to me.They were serious, and he spoke about them like they were no more than a scraped knee.Back injuries were no joke and while I’d only ever slipped a disc once in my life because I refused to ask for help when moving an armoire, I’d been in a ton of pain just from that.So I could only imagine what kind of agony he was in after something like that tackle.And for sure, if I crushed my spine, I’d be hanging up my skates and finding a desk job somewhere.
Slamming her math book closed, Laurel stood up from the table, breaking me out of my trance.“I’m going to go read in my room until dinner.”
“Or, you could go find your brother and cousins outside and get some fresh air, you little hermit.”
“Who’s calling who a hermit?You never leave the house either,” she challenged, cocking a hip and giving me a look way too old for her age.
“I went outside to go to the grocery store.”
“And I went outside to catch the bus, for PE at school,andto catch the bus home.”
I narrowed my eyes at her.She narrowed her amber ones—identical to mine—right back.
“At least Ihavehobbies,” she added, layering on more cheek.“I read, I do watercolor.What do you do?Work, work, Pilates, cook, work, work, and occasionally drink wine.”
“Drinking wine can be a hobby,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes, exasperated with my lack of coolness.“Can I compromise and go read outside?”
Smiling at her shrewdness, I finally had to nod.“Fine.But put a coat on.”
“Damon only had to put on a hoodie.”Her tone was in mirth, so I just fixed her with a look.
