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Astrid headed toward the door, her pace a little quicker than usual. “I did that five years ago when I went on the honeymoon by myself.”
“If you really believe that, then it’s no big deal to spend some time thinking about what scares you so much about being vulnerable with another person,” Dr. Kowecki said, sounding way too reasonable. “In our next session, we can chat about if that’s really what you want out of life, and how does your avoidance of establishing true intimacy with a possible romantic partner tie into that?”
God. Astrid had lived through Brazilian waxing sessions that had been more fun than this therapy homework, but that was fine. It was okay. She could make it through the hard stuff. She always did. It wasn’t like it was going to change anything, not really.
Chapter Eight
Walking outside after setting up her next monthly appointment, Astrid took a deep inhale of the unique smell of late summer in Harbor City. It wasn’t a good one—it was somewhere between hot trash and hot dog water with briny harbor air thrown in for good measure—but a person got used to it, and then they stopped noticing it, and then one day when they needed something to ground them to here and now, it wafted back into their life like a hug from an elderly aunt who wore way too much perfume.
Her steps feeling lighter the farther down Eighth Avenue she went, she was head bopping along to the song on her earbuds and barely even felt the urge to look down Cove Street to the giant billboard showing Tig Jones hawking underwear so she could flip it off. The moody black-and-white image showed off exactly why fans had started chanting “Giant Prick” during Ice Knights games, and the spot in front of the billboard had become a tourist favorite for selfies.
Yeah, some hockey news wormed its way into her head despite her best efforts since Tig dumped her from the airport on his way to start playing with the Ice Knights.
After that therapy session, though, she’d had enough of dealing with old shit that she really was totally and completely over. Plus she needed to get her mind right for her weekly dinner at her dad’s. They’d play rummy to decide who got to pick where they’d order food from, watch a classic black-and-white film noire, and studiously avoid talking about or looking at the hockey photos that had been turned face down for her visit. He didn’t have to do that. Yeah, she had the Fuck Hockey jar at the pub, but that didn’t mean she wanted her dad to pretend the sport he loved more than anything (excluding her) didn’t exist. Her dad was clumsily sweet that way, sorta like how he made sure to drop so many hints about knowing people who painted houses after what happened with Tig that she had to tell him point blank she appreciated the over-the-top support, but he didn’t need to contract a murderer for her to understand the lengths he’d go to so she wouldn’t feel sad.
She knew that—had always known that.
And when a year ago, after he lost his job with the Rage, he’d gotten offered the job as the Ice Knights coach where he’d have free rein to hire all of the assistant coaches he wanted? Well, she broke her no-hockey-talk rule for him and told him straight up that she didn’t care about what had happened with Tig anymore and that he had to take what had always been his dream job with the league’s premiere team—even if that meant having that asshole for a goalie. She was over the drama, the whispers, the sly looks to the point it was as if her almost wedding had never happened. All of which was true.
The only time Tig even crossed her mind was when she heard that song, and she’d perfected the art of yanking the jukebox’s power cord from the outlet without even having to glance down at the wall. Easy peasy. Problem solved so hard it didn’t even exist anymore.
However, it was immediately apparent that something was up the minute she walked through the door to her dad’s penthouse. The cards weren’t sitting on the dining room table. Her dad had on actual pants instead of the pajama bottoms with baby otters frolicking on them that she’d gotten him for Christmas he usually wore for their dinners. And the mouth-watering scent of cheeseburgers and cajun fries from Vitos hit her before she even got to the dining room to see the table piled high with a catering order for at least ten.
Feeling a little like Dr. Kowecki, she lifted an eyebrow in question. The too-wide smile he gave her in response did absolutely nothing to ease the sense of impending dread making her palms sweaty.
“So I have a little surprise, and I need to ask you something important,” he said, looking at every tipped-over picture frame on the side table rather than at her.
Astrid’s spidey sense went from tingling to taser strength. “That sounds ominous.”
“What?” He started pacing the room, picking off lint that wasn’t there from the tablecloth. “I don’t ask you things?”
She snorted. “Not beyond who that one guy that is in half a scene in a movie because you don’t want to ask Alexa.”
“She never understands what I’m asking. I ask for how many tablespoons are in a cup and she tells me the weather,” he grumbled. “That is not helpful when I am in the middle of rolling raw meatballs.”
Forget the stereotypical O’Malley corn beef and hash; her dad’s specialty was lasagna made with meatballs that put a person in the world’s best food coma. He didn’t cook often, but when he did, it was fantastic.
“I want you to come back,” he blurted out, the request coming in like a verbal sprint without any breathing space between the words. “I need you to be my assistant again.”
She stepped back involuntarily, her hand going to her stomach and pressing into it hard as her pulse kicked up into light speed. But it wasn’t the blood rushing in her ears that she heard. No. It was the skates slashing against the ice. It was a coach’s barked instruction to the players. It was the metallic ding of a puck hitting the post. They were the soundtrack of her childhood, the hectic, happy noise that made her feel like everything was right with the world.
Of course, all that had changed.
“Dad, you know my rules,” she said, surprised at how steady her voice was even as she white-knuckled her nothing-flusters-me-at-all persona. “No hockey games. No puck talk. No team involvement.”
“You can have all of that—well, almost.” His smile faded, and he let out a weary sigh. His broad shoulders rounded, the ones that always seemed like they could easily bear the weight of the whole world. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a big deal.”
He ran his fingers over the edge of one of the overturned photos, the distinctive frame of which gave it away as a picture from his last game as a player. It was a shot of him in the penalty box, eye already puffing up from the punch he’d taken, grinning like a man who was the happiest he’d ever been in his entire life.
“I’m retiring after this season.”
Astrid’s legs gave out from the shock, and she landed with a plop onto the couch. “But you love coaching. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“No one is ever one hundred percent sure about anything in life,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s like a fast break when you’re down by two; you just have to skate your heart out and take it to the net.”
Despite everything, Astrid chuckled. It was not the first time her dad had gone into coaching mode with her, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. The man was who he was, and she loved him for it.
He picked up one of the signed pucks sitting on his bookshelf and fiddled with it. Like daughter, like father. Neither of them could keep their hands still when the game was on the line.
