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It was another fifteen minutes into the drill before Cal let himself look back at the bench, but Astrid was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Astrid had spent more time than she should probably ever admit publicly watching surgery documentaries—not the ones where the doctors talked to the camera and shared tense yet uplifting tales of survival. Instead, her it’s-too-early-to-be-awake-and-yet-here-I-am-on-my-couch Saturday mornings were spent with coffee, a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal, and shows that gave close-up views of a surgeon’s hand in someone’s abdominal cavity.
Her YouTube choice? Pimple-popper videos.
And when it came to podcasts, she was all about the medical treatments of yore and what could (and usually did) go wrong.
So yeah, saying she had questionable entertainment preferences and a strong stomach was putting it mildly. Nothing got to her.
That streak lasted until she watched the videos of Cal’s last game and saw the literal pool of blood left behind when they’d finally stabilized him enough to take him to the hospital.
She’d held her breath for Cal to give a thumbs-up to the crowd to let fans know he was going to be okay as the paramedics carried him off the ice on a stretcher. He didn’t move at all, not even a twitch of his closed eyelids. She’d sat there in her cubicle, clutching her giant bottle of tropical smoothie Tums to her chest in the same horrified silence as everyone who’d been at the game.
And when the announcer came on and let everyone know that the league had made the unprecedented decision to postpone the remainder of the game until the next day? She couldn’t focus enough on anything but the replays of the collision in the crease to even flip the bright blue lid of the antacids open.
“Never seen anything like it,” Bear said, startling Astrid almost out of her chair.
The bottle of Tums went flying, but the old defenseman snatched it out of the air and handed it back to her.
“The team doc thought Blackburn’s skate had nicked Matsen’s artery,” he said with a grimace. “The Rage’s owner ordered his private jet to Minnesota for Matsen’s parents before the ambulance even got to the hospital.”
Her hands were shaking, but she managed to get the lid open. “Were you there?” she asked before popping the tropical—but still chalky—antacids.
Bear shook his head and rubbed his massive palm on the back of his head like he still had hair to mess up. “I was with the Yetis, so I was sitting on my couch listening to the announcers speculate like ninety-nine percent of the hockey world was doing at that point. I thought he was a goner. Stubborn son of a bitch proved us all wrong, though,” he said with a snort of disbelief mixed with more than a little awe. “Of course, that doesn’t make him any kind of catch or anything. He’s just another hockey bum like me.” He paused and shot her a self-deprecating grin. “Just without the four ex-wives.”
“How are Mary Beth, Zedra, Pixie, and Sara?” Astrid asked, what little was left of her stomach lining grateful for the change in topic.
“Amazing as always.” He may not act like it now, but back in the day, Bear had been one of the biggest players in the league—off the ice. “I had lunch with Pixie last week.”
She was his third wife, mother of the twins Jimmy and Gus, named for the Leaf’s famed Gold Dust Twins, and keeper of their Boxer Boom Boom.
“Working to rekindle?” Astrid asked, half hoping he’d say yes.
“God no,” he said with a wry chuckle. “We broke up for a reason and that is…” Always great with his timing on and off the ice, he waited the perfect number of beats before finishing the statement with, “I’m a lousy husband.”
By the time Bear had joined her dad’s coaching staff for the Flying Squirrels (one of the minor league teams affiliated with the Rage) when she was in high school, he’d had three ex-wives already and was about to get married to number four. All of them were brainy, beautiful women, but Bear wasn’t wrong. He was never gonna make the marriage Hall of Fame. He still kept in touch with his exes, who’d formed a tight sisterhood. Without exception, they all adored Bear, but as Pixie had put it once, they’d rather chew off one of their own arms than go through all of that again—which was exactly how Astrid felt about even going on a date with someone, let alone marrying them.
“Marriage may not be for you,” Astrid said, “but you’re a great granddad.”
“I kick ass at that.” He glanced over at his cubicle that was plastered with photos of all lucky thirteen of them. Then he looked back at her utterly undecorated desk and the gory still of Cal being carted off the ice, and his grin disappeared. “You good with all of this?”
The memory of Cal’s blood puddling on the ice?
Being back in the hockey thick of things?
Sexting with the person who made her break all her careful rules?
Seeing Tig again for the first time since he dumped her? And finding out that he actually thought that she was the villain in their story?
Not. Even. A. Little.
But she wasn’t about to tell Bear that. So instead, she gave him her best I-am-a-serene-motherfucker face.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m always good.”
Bear shot her a you’re-full-of-shit look but didn’t push. Digging in wasn’t the hockey way. Lost a couple of teeth in the first period? You were back at it in the second. Nose busted after a hard hit? You got patched up on the bench—locker room if it was really nasty—and then you went back on the ice and did the job. That’s exactly what Astrid needed to be doing. Something that would be much easier if she stopped orgasming with Cal or thinking about orgasming with him or becoming inspired to orgasm whenever she was around him.
