Page 90 of My Lucky Charm

“Gray?” Eloise says my name, and it’s like waving away a cloud of smoke.

“Sorry. Yeah. I should go.”

“Okay, we’ll see you after the game,” she says. “Good luck!”

I end the call and turn to find a few of the guys side-eyeing me. “What?”

“You have a kid,” Jericho says. “You didn’t tell us that.”

“You didn’t ask,” I say, walking back to my locker.

“Grayson,” Jericho uses a very proper, British-mocking tone. “Great assist in the second period, old chap, and watch for the breakout from the corner, and oh, by the by, do you have a child?” He’s standing in the center of the room, completely naked after his shower.

He really doesn’t have any modesty, this guy.

I wave him off. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Right,” Jericho says. “Having a kid is no big deal.” He rolls his eyes and grabs a towel, thankfully. Instead of covering up, though, he throws it around his neck. “I have kids, man. They change everything.”

That’s an understatement.

My dad told me once before a game that being around Scarlett made me soft.

I got into two fights that night.

Eventually, I learned how to mostly ignore his “instruction” because I didn’t want to parent her the way he parented me.

I glance over at Jericho. “Do they change the way you play?”

“Nah, man” he says. “My kids know when I’m working, I’m a machine.” He flexes his biceps and lets out a grunt like a caveman.

“And when he’s home, he’s a teddy bear,” Kemp says.

“A whipped teddy bear.” Finn chucks an elbow pad at him.

“Do you spend as much time naked at home as you do here?” Burke asks, laughing.

“How do you think I got them kids, bro?” Jericho responds, wagging his eyebrows and his hips. And then, he walks over to me, and because I’m sitting and he’s standing, we’re not exactly seeing “eye-to-eye.”

“She watched you play in Philly, right?”

I raise a brow. “If you’re going to talk to me, you’re going to need to put some clothes on. Or at least cover it up.”

I grab a washcloth and toss it to him. “There, that should about do it.”

A chorus of ooh’s and awww’s come from the guys.

“Oh, naw, man, Hawke’s got jokes now, right?” He grabs the towel from around his neck and wraps it around his waist and sits. “She come to your games?”

“Yes,” I say. “But she was younger then, and she didn’t really get it.”

“What’s her name?”

“Scarlett.”

“Cool name. How old?”

“Do you really want to know?”

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