Page 14 of Three Pucking Words
I can feel Puck’s judgmental stare before I even look at him. “I know,” I grumble, walking past him to the counter with my pill organizer on it. I rub my temple where a headache is starting to form and try not panic over it becoming more. I haven’t had a seizure in months, and Puck would alert me if one is coming.
You’re fine,I remind myself.You are not alone.
I sigh and glance down at my dog, who is still judging me. “I’m a bitch. I’ll apologize to her in the morning.”
He huffs, like that isn’t good enough.
And maybe it’s not.
But it’s all I have in me right now.
Because it’s not them that I dislike.
Not really.
It’s me and this situation I’m in.
I may not want to be anybody else, but that doesn’t me I love the person I am either.
CHAPTER THREE
Bodhi
Coach Erikson’s testymood leads to an intense practice that leaves most of us limping into an ice bath afterwards. We’ve all seen him mad before, but it’s usually at one of us. It’s obvious whatever caused his shit attitude today has nothing to do with the team.
“What crawled up his ass and died?” Sebastian Henderson, our starting defenseman and my best friend, asks as we walk off the ice after a brutal two hours of drills.
Someone passing by us says, “He must have gotten into it with Sylvia.”
Henderson and I share a look. He’s the only one who knows that Erikson has a daughter. I told him about my strange, albeit short, outing with her when we got to the complex this morning for our annual physicals.
He then proceeded to drill me with questions about her as if I could have gotten to know anything interesting about the girl—thewoman—who I spent less than ten minutes with.
Yet, those ten minutes felt like déjà vu in ways I still can’t make sense of. The way her teeth bit into her bottom lip, or how her eyes darted to the right when she talked, and how she tugged on the hem of her shirt when she was nervous seemed familiar. But racking my brain over the past two days gave me nothing that was indicative of why.
So, I chalked it up to lack of sleep.
Gemma has been waking me up in the middle of the night saying the monsters are back. I’d go and check, promise they weren’t there, only to be woken up again within an hour for the same reasons. Eventually, I let her crawl into my bed and sleep with me. You’d think a California king would be big enough for a thirty-five-year-old man and his six-year-old daughter, yet somehow I wound up getting kicked in the kidney at least four times by the tiny girl. If I looked in the mirror, I’d probably see bruises.
Between my exhaustion, the team doctor telling me he couldn’t give me anymore cortisone shots in my shoulder and wrist, and Coach’s short fuse, it’s been a long ass day. I’d already been in a crappy headspace hearing that my previous rotator cuff injury was flaring up without many treatment options outside of ibuprofen, physical therapy, and surgery. Coach getting pissed off and hammering down on us for the smallest things only made it worse.
Henderson drops his voice. “You think it has to do with his…?” His eyebrows go up in question.
His daughter.
“You can say her name. Pretty sure everyone is going to find out about her anyway,” I point out, pushing the locker room doors open. It smells like sweat, body odor, and expensive men’s body spray. Not the greatest combo, but I’ve become immune to its familiarity.
My teammate starts stripping out of his uniform a few lockers down from mine. “Wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep Honor on the downlow. From what you said, she sounds…unique.”
Compared to most women we meet, sheisunique. Puck bunnies will come out of the woodwork just to be around us. They’ll do anything we want if it means winding up in our bed by the end of the night. Not Honor, though. She couldn’t havegotten away from me fast enough, like my very existence scorned her. I found it oddly flattering.
“She was a bit flaky,” I note. “And has some obvious daddy issues.”
Henderson’s lips quirk up at the corners. “I hear daddy issues can be hot.”
I match his grin. “You would know, wouldn’t you, Henderson?” He and his father don’t get along. I don’t know the man well, but the few times I’ve been around him were more than enough. Maybe if the dude didn’t give so much shit to Sebastian’s little sister, Olive, I wouldn’t mind him so much. Henderson probably wouldn’t either. But if we’re talking flakes, their father is the biggest one.
“Touche, douchebag,” my friend muses, chuckling with a shake of his head. “But, seriously. Coach is a good man. I don’t see what her problem could be with him.”
