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“Something like that.” I laugh, trying to brush away the conversation. Our messy personal lives are none of his business. I may very well become friends with these men; I hope that’s the case anyway. But we aren’t there yet.
“Everyone ready,” Coach asks as he steps up behind me. He flashes a smile to each of the others and a glare my way. I just smirk.
“Yes, sir,” Oli says.
“Let’s board this tin can,” Axel jokes, heading toward the ramp to load.
I hold back and wait for my mother to catch up so we can follow my daughter aboard. We follow her closely, watching the youthful exuberance she has for everything. The way she marvels over all the newness of being on an old ferry boat is almost infectious. She leaves no surface uninspected or untouched.
After about twenty minutes, once the boat is on the part of the lake the press team wants, the program starts. First up is our General Manager, Jonathon Markel. He’s a legend in the hockey world. Not only did he have a long and lustrous career as one of the best centers in the game, but he raised three sons who all played professionally as well. One of them has a son with the same phenomenal potential too. They’re a motherfucking dynasty.
He mostly speaks about the long struggle it was to get a team in this city. It always struck me as strange that they didn’t have one. Seattle and Vancouver practically bleed all over one another, and the youth and league hockey scene here is very well established. Every third person you meet here will have played as a kid, has a kid who plays, or is currently playing in some men’s league. Seattle has always been a ‘hockey town’. We’re only making it legitimate.
Coach is next, he’s never been wordy unless he’s pissed off, so he keeps his speech short. It’s a lot of gratitude to the city and the fans. Then Jonathan comes back up to start introducing the players.
Hugo is called up, handed a jersey, and asked to say a few words. My turn is coming but Sadie is still next to me, leaning her small body against my thigh.
“Do you want to go up there with me?” I whisper. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head vehemently, making me laugh. I hand her my cell phone so the bulk of it won’t show in my pocket on the camera. “Can you take this over to your mom and grandma for me?”
She nods and moves over to where the crowd is seated so she can climb up on Isla’s lap. My ex-girlfriend makes eye contact with me. Again. We’ve been dancing this dance all day. She’s struggling to keep her eyes off me, and it’s impossible for me to look anywhere but at her. It’s a happy day, Isla is all smiles. That same wide grin that used to pump life into my veins. Somehow, even through my disdain, it still pumps blood to certain parts.
At least she hasn’t been glaring at me all damn day. A few times I’ve caught her with a look of longing. Or that’s what I want to believe it is. As if maybe, there is a part of her that misses what we were the same way I do. An ember in her heart that still holds on to the heat of what we could have been. What we should have been.
Wishful thinking on my part, I’m sure. Why am I wishing for it anyway? She’s a damned liar, she’s betrayed me horrifically. Except I want, no… I need an amiable relationship with her. For Sadie. If that means fanning that tiny flame, I’m not above it.
Jesus, we’re fucked up. Hot and cold, love and hate.
Blinking away from her eyes that are far too kind right now, I pay attention to Jonathon as he calls me front and center.
“Welcome back to Seattle, Cillian,” he says, extending his hand out to me.
“Thank you.”
“How does it feel?”
“It feels like coming home.” I face the camera crew, but I speak to Isla and Sadie. “Seattle has always been a special place for me. It’s where my family is, where I want my daughter to be raised, and I couldn’t be happier to be back.”
Isla’s shock is apparent. She must not have expected me to claim Sadie so openly and publicly, but it feels right. More right than so much else in my life that the words flow right out. If I knew more about my daughter, I could talk about her for hours. She’d be my favorite subject.
Of course, that isn’t what Jonathon asks me about. Instead, he peppers me with a few game-related questions and I answer all of them the way I’m trained to do. Isla doesn’t break eye contact with me until I’m walking off the small makeshift stage. She flinches and looks down in her lap. So I don’t miss when her features melt from the awe she wore only a few seconds ago to the haunted mask she’s had since I arrived back into her life.
I don’t know what happened, but I get the feeling any progress we made today just jumped over the side of this boat and into the deep, dark waters of Lake Union.
9
ISLA
“It’s not four.” I open the door for Cillian at three-thirty. The least the guy could do is follow instructions.
“You know I’m a perpetual early bird.”
“I don’t know you at all.”
“Do we have to start this on that note?” Cillian asks. He sounds as tired as I feel.
“It’s going to get ugly, but no, we don’t need to start ugly.” I lead him to the living room and curl my legs under me as I sit on the far end of the couch.
“I want to get to know Sadie,” he says, taking his own seat on the other end. “I want shared custody.”
