Page 85 of Hot for the Hockey Player
I swallowed and nodded.“Mm-hmm.”
His grin wreaked havoc on my fresh underwear.“You look nice, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I croaked.
He tossed a wave at the kids.“All right, guys, see you later.I hope you had fun today, Damon.”
“I did,” he said through a mouthful of food.“Thanks, Mav.”
“Woodworking on Thursday, Laurel?”
Her mouth was also full of food, so she gave him a thumbs up.But it was impossible for me to miss the way her eyes bounced between Maverick and me, then lit up.Or the way her mouth—as she chewed—kept trying to smile.
Wait, did she know something?Maybe it wasn’t a crush on Maverick.Maybe she knew about our kiss … or … worse?
“I’ll see you later,” he said under his breath, before heading out.
I went to the fridge and opened it, letting the cool air rush across my inflamed face.
“Mom, did you change?”Laurel asked, prompting me to close the refrigerator door and turn around to face her.
“Hmm?”
She narrowed her eyes.“You weren’t wearing that earlier.Did you change?”
Glancing down my body, like it was a surprise to me too that I’d changed out of my loose, tan trousers and long-sleeve black shirt, into olive-green leggings—my burns hurt less now—and a white tank top with a tan colored cardigan.“I … I got spaghetti sauce on my other pants and shirt.Listen, I need to pop out a bit later.Bennett McEvoy asked me to come by his place and check on the diorama for the land proposal.Will you guys be okay?”
“I’m fourteen,” Damon said, giving me a strange look.“You leave me—us—home alone all the time.”
“No, she doesn’t,” his sister argued.“Mom never goes anywhere.”
I started dishing up my own dinner, but paused with the ladle in midair.“Hey!”
“Well, you don’t,” she said, holding her ground with a challenging tilt of her head.
“Well, I am tonight, Miss Cheeky.And I expect the house to be in one piece when I return.”They both rolled their eyes as I joined them at the table.“Maverick’s podcast sounds interesting,” I said, changing the subject.But why I changed it to a topic that just made me lose all rational thought, I had no idea.“You excited?”
“So excited,” Damon said, getting up to grab more food.“I think it’s a really cool idea.He says he’s working with this super smart marketing woman who knows exactly how to market podcasts to their target audience.Because people like mearen’this target audience.”
“What do you mean?”Laurel asked.
“I’m someone who agrees with Mav already,” Damon explained.“And while I’ll enjoy listening to him, he’s not going to change my mind.Because I already think like he does.He wants listeners whodon’tagree with him, but who are open to having their minds changed.”
“Those people exist?”I twirled my pasta around my fork.“This past election wouldn’t indicate that.”
Both my kids—who followed politics, sort of—snorted and bobbed their heads in agreement.
“So like notwoke, but maybedozing?”Laurel added.“They’re not awake, but they’re not asleep either.”
I loved conversations like this between me and my kids.Where we discussed real world problems and events.I got to hear how they interpreted things, and saw the shit show they were being handed and what changes needed to be made to fix it.
“Exactly,” Damon said.“Dozing.I mean, it’d be great if he could reach the asleep people too.But Mav figures that’s impossible.They’re set in their ways.”
We all sighed in frustration at the same time.
Maverick doing something like this, and involving my son in such a positive way, only made that small percentage in my brain that planned to bail on tonight shrivel up and die.Not only was he a wonderful role model for Damon, but he was aiming to be a positive role model for countless young men.Now I really needed to listen to these podcasts he was on.
“Wait, didn’t Mav say something was going on in the league?”Laurel asked.Unless her nose was buried in a book and she was off frolicking in Narnia or with the March sisters from Little Women, nothing slipped past her.
