Page 99 of Dirty Pucking Player

BASH

My phone rings as I step out of the car and into the chilly April air. Snowflakes fall around me, a late snow even for here, and it instantly brings back memories of playing in the yard with Rachel and Jameson during the days we got off school because of blizzards and hazardous roads.

I dig the phone from my pocket and glance at the screen, then accept the call and put it to my ear. “Rachel?”

“Look, Bash…”

Oh, here we go.

“I know you hate him, but Dad really isn’t doing well. He had another stroke yesterday, and this one was bad enough that it’s shutting down his organs. He’s on dialysis, and they’re saying it could be any day now. He’s in and out of consciousness.” Her voice cracks, clearly fighting her emotions to make it through this call. “He asked to see you last night.”

My steps falter, and I pause for a moment, the flakes falling and whipping around me in the brisk wind. I force myself to start walking again across the parking lot and step through the sliding doors into the building. “Really? That’s something very un-Dad-like to do.”

The man hasn’t shown any interest in what’s happening in my life for years. Even playing well in the league, even be named MVP, following in his footsteps wasn’t enough to warrant a phone call from the man.

He probably knew I wouldn’t answer or would hang up on him, but he could have at least made an effort. In the years since Mom died, I haven’t even heard his voice. And that’s probably for the best, for both of us.

Any conversation would have only ended with more pain, the same way it always did when he and I would spend “quality time” alone together when he was home. Nothing was ever good enough. I was never aggressive enough on the ice. Never fast enough. Never anything enough…

“Please, Bash, I know how you feel, but just consider coming.”

I make my way down the long, tiled hallway and stop outside room 113. “I’ll consider it.”

Rachel’s head jerks up from where she leans against the wall outside the room, and her tear-filled eyes meet mine. She lowers her phone, and her bottom lip trembles. “You’re here.”

I end the call and shove my phone into my pocket, and she does the same before she launches herself at me and wraps her tiny arms around my waist.

“I’m here.”

Reluctantly.

And with a whole lot of reservations about it.

She pulls her head back from my chest and looks up at me. “Why did you change your mind?”

I break free of her embrace and glance up and down the hallway.

It’s exactly how I remember it. Though, I wish I could forget those awful days, weeks, months watching Mom slowly slip away.

We’ve been here before. The same hospital. The same floor. The same smell of death and the cleaning solutions they try to use to cover it invading my nostrils.

We watched Mom deteriorate here. It’s where I came to say goodbye to her. A place I never thought I’d set foot in again, yet here I am, standing outside the room of the man the world worships but who I’ve wished dead more times than I can count.

“Bash? Did you hear me? Why did you come?”

I shove a hand through my hair and sigh. Caleb’s words from our phone call echo in my head. “I know what it’s like to lose somebody without the chance to clear the air and tell them how you really feel.”

“Something a friend of mine said.”

She grins at me and swats at my chest. “I always liked Caleb.”

I chuckle and roll my eyes. She more than liked him. She had a raging crush on him growing up. One of those embarrassing ones where she wrote “Mrs. Caleb Carlson” all over her notebooks and told all her little friends she was going to marry him. He was always a good sport about it, but it took a long time for her to outgrow it.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Caleb said I would regret it later if I didn’t come.”

It may have taken me a week to suck up my pride and store away all my animosity before I could get on the plane and fly out here, but I did it.

I glance at the closed door to our left. “He’s not doing well?”

---