Page 86 of Hot for the Hockey Player
Damon rejoined us at the table, but pulled out his phone, brought up an article, and passed it to his sister.However, alarm bells started going off in my head.“Hey, stop,” I blurted out, before Laurel could grab it and read it.“What are you showing her?She’s eleven, remember?”
Laurel gave me a sharp glare that I shot down with one of my own.
Understanding dawned in Damon’s eyes and he took back his phone, nodding.“Right.Sorry.Uh, one of Mav’s teammates is being charged with assault on multiple women.And Mav spoke about it on the first podcast, and now half the league wants his head on a spike.Even his dad and brothers don’t support him.His brother, Rebel, did an interview yesterday, saying Mav should have kept his mouth shut and backed up his teammate.”
My jaw dropped as well as my fork to my plate.“He what?”
“They think Mav was wrong to defend the women that his teammate hurt?”Laurel asked.“That he should be defending his teammate?This doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it absolutely does not,” I said slowly.God, what Maverick must be going through right now … Feeling attacked and like nobody had his back.No wonder he was filling his days with countless workshops and trying to make new friends.He had no idea the fate of his career—or his relationship with his family—so he was doing his best to not think about it.Was this podcast a contingency plan if he didn’t have a hockey career to go back to?Would the league really get rid of him for speaking out against the toxic masculinity and serial sexual predators in the NHL?
“They are also really upset that he made a point of saying on thePucktasticpodcast that if the women Henderson hurt need financial help with their legal fees, Mav will help them.”
Holy shit.
“That’s huge,” Laurel said, finishing up her spaghetti and taking a sip of her water.
“He said about half the team is on his side and have reached out to him, the other half thinks he was wrong,” Damon went on.
“Then the other half are the problem,” I replied.“Anybody who is aware of such behavior and sits back, allowing it to continue without taking a stand, is the problem.Neutrality doesn’t benefit the oppressed, it benefits the oppressor.”
Both kids nodded, and we finished up our dinner chatting more about the podcast, and all the good it had the potential to do.Damon asked if he could go online and play video games for a while, since he’d finished his homework, and Laurel retreated to her room to get lost in a book.I found myself pacing like a lioness in heat or some shit, waiting for the clock to move its lazy ass to seven forty-five so I could leave.Damon was in the zone with his headphones on, playing some middle earth video game, so he had no idea his mother was wearing a trench into the floor behind him.
This was ridiculous.I was excited.I was nervous.I was …horny.At least, I think I was horny.I must have smelled my armpits like eight times and reapplied my deodorant twice.Not that I was a heavy sweater, but if there was ever a time for that to change, now was it.
My smart watch vibrated on my wrist to indicate that it was indeed quarter to eight now, since I set an alarm because I was unapologetically type-A like that.
“Okay, I’m heading over to the McEvoy’s now,” I announced to the house.
Damon waved but didn’t turn around.
No response from Laurel, which didn’t surprise me.
I swallowed my nerves and took my drunk butterflies out to my SUV.
The drive over to the brewery felt shorter than usual.I approached the security gate—a feature they installed last year after some dangerous mishaps with paparazzi—and hit the buzzer.
“Hey, Gabrielle,” Bennett said over the intercom.“Come on in.”There was a click, and the big metal gate silently swung open.I pulled ahead slowly, parking in front of the second house in the row of five.All the houses were identical, just different colors.It was cute.
Bennett was at the front door by the time I turned off my ignition.He gave me a friendly wave and his dark-blue eyes sparkled behind his glasses.“Raina says you’re definitely going to want to make changes to the diorama,” he said with a smirk as I followed him into his house.
I snorted.“She knows me well.”
His partner, Justine, who was also my doctor, was busy in the kitchen fixing kids’ school lunches.“Hey,” she greeted, her smile warm.
I removed my shoes, since they were also a shoes-off house, and followed Bennett into his cozy and inviting home toward the diorama which sat on the kitchen table.It looked professionally done.
“Did you make this?”I asked, taking in the topography of the land, the gentle slope down to the sandy beach and ocean, and thick trees on either side of the land.The attention to detail was staggering.Driftwood, rocks, even kelp.
He shrugged.“It’s been a fun evening project for the two of us these last few weeks.Not enough to turn me into one of those guys who becomes obsessed with creating a model train world and spending all my time and money painting miniatures, but it’s been fun.”
I snorted again.“You had me worried for a sec there, Bennett.”
“So, like we discussed, we put the row of cabins along this side to allow for more natural light into each of them.If we have them east facing, they’ll only get morning sun, then be dark the rest of the day.Justine suggested skylights on the A-frames for even more light, and while it might not be as aesthetically pleasing or go with the natural vibe we’re after, and cost more upfront, we should consider metal roofs for the cabins.Aluminum, Galvalume, and stainless are all corrosion resistant and fine for near the ocean.We’d never have to replace them.”
“And, we can put rain barrels on them to collect water for the gardens, and other things on site for when we’re in a drought,” Justine added as she joined us at the table.“We put the main rainwater reservoir station up here, since it makes more sense to have it at the highest point and run itdownto all the buildings and gardens below.There is a creek,” she pointed to the stream running behind the cabins, “but it’s prone to drying up in long periods of no rain.”
They’d put in so much work and thought into the entire thing.I was left kind of speechless.His photo earlier definitely didn’t do it justice.
