Page 9 of Hockey Nanny

“Just Dawson is fine.” I stood there awkwardly for a moment while Carissa looked around, confused, rubbing at her eyes as she returned to consciousness. Eventually, I cleared my throat. “Uh, want some tea? I thought you might need it.”

Though her expression remained a question mark, her mouth curved up at the corners when she spotted the cup in my hand. “That’s so sweet, thank you.”

I rubbed a hand over the base of my neck, all at once uncomfortably aware of how inappropriate it was to be hovering in her bedroom in the middle of the night. “Sorry, again. I—uh, thought you were awake.”

“It’s okay.” Carissa took the teacup and blew steam from the top. “I was awake, until I… wasn’t.” She looked irritated with herself, scowling at her books like they had betrayed her. “I was supposed to be studying.”

“You probably shouldn’t be staying up so late to do it.” I tilted my head to the side, watching her yawn as she sipped her tea.

She raised a brow at me, hiding a smile behind her cup. “And what are you doing up so late, Dawson?”

She had me there; I had to admit. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Neglecting my body’s need for sleep, same as you.”

“Well, Pot, meet Kettle.” She chuckled through another yawn, and I found myself staring.

Even half-asleep in her crumpled clothes, Carissa McCabe was gorgeous. With a pointed pixie face and warm brown eyes, one small glance from her could melt me. Lamplight caught on her long lashes and painted gold streaks in her hair, illuminating the faintest flush of pink in her cheeks.

Catching myself ogling at the same moment her eyes met mine, I wrenched my gaze away. “Anyway,” I tried not to sound flustered, but the gruff tone fell flat when my heated face betrayed me. “I should… go. Goodnight.”

“Wait, you don’t have to go right now.” She made a point of sitting up straighter, blinking a few dozen times to banish sleep from her eyes. “Look, I’m awake. And we’ve barely gotten to chat since you’ve been back.”

“So you want to do it now?” I said, incredulous. “At…” I checked the digital clock on her desk. “Almost two in the morning?”

She shrugged, pointing her chin at the spare chair in the corner and silently urging me to sit. “I have to finish my tea, anyway.”

It was, I’ll admit, easy to relent to her. We were both well past the point of exhaustion, but hanging around for a while was appealing, nonetheless. Maybe it was because I’d spent the past few weeks surrounded by sweaty, rowdy hockey players. A few minutes talking to a pretty woman felt like a welcome reprieve.

“Alright, if you insist.” I dragged the chair into the lamplight and settled in with a sigh. “How has Henry been since we’ve been away?”

“Eagerly waiting for you to come back,” Carissa laughed. “When he’s not having lessons or playing helicopter, he’s got his nose glued to the TV watching your games.”

I smiled at that, but another thought still bugged me, like an itch in the back of my mind. I looked down at my hands, palms calloused from gripping a hockey stick all my life.

“Do you think he’s happy here…?” When I looked up again, Carissa was watching me with a thoughtful look on her face. “What?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she started slowly, carefully choosing her words. “What made you decide to foster Henry in the first place? It couldn’t have been an easy choice with the life you three lead.”

“You mean, why did I, an NHL star player, decide to foster a kid right before the start of the season with no prior experience with raising children?” I drawled, having asked myself the same question over and over again. “It was a crazy decision, I know.” I ran my hands over my face. “And Boone and Gage don’t go a day without reminding me.”

“So…” Carissa tapped her finger to the side of her cup. “Why’d you do it?”

I considered lying to her, giving her the same load of bullshit I gave everybody else.‘It looks good for the team. It shows people we care. It was the right thing to do…’But I found I couldn’t bring myself to form the words. Maybe it was the way she was looking at me, like she already knew the real answer. Maybe because I saw no judgment in her eyes. Even though she was little more than a stranger to me, I wanted to tell her the truth.

“Honestly?” I sank back in my seat, spearing a hand through my hair, still damp from a run through the shower. “I just… wanted to take care of him. When we met, he was just a little kid who barely knew how to skate. But the way he looked at me, like I was some kind of hero just for taking him on a lap around theice… I don’t know. It felt good. Being his hero felt good, and I wanted to do more for him.”

I expected a response from her akin to the one I always got from Boone when I worked above my skill set for no reason.‘You’re doing too much, man. You can’t fix yourself by fixing other people.’In a way, he was right; I knew that. But there was more to it. Boone may have been my brother in every sense of the word, but he still didn’t quite understand me.

I wasn’t doing this for me; I was doing this for Henry.

Carissa, however, said something else entirely. She said something I didn’t expect: “I think you’re a good man, Dawson Barnett.”

“I…” I blinked at her, thrown for a loop by the casual way she said it. “What?”

Carissa only shrugged, still sipping her tea. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I think you’ve definitely bitten off more than you can chew, but that’s what you have me for.”

I had to laugh, leaning my head on my knuckles. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Because it is,” Carissa grinned at me, pulling one knee up to balance her chin on. “Henry’s doing fine, and he’s got the best helicopter models in town thanks to you. The kid couldn’t be happier.”