Page 30 of Pucking Daddy

Yes.

No.

I don’t answer quickly enough, and that’s answer enough.

His brows lift. “Huh.”

“Don’t start.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

He grins without much warmth. “All I was going to say is maybe someone not folding every time you snap at them isn’t the worst thing.”

I turn my head and pin him with a look.

Nate holds up a hand. “There it is. There’s the face. Definitely not saying anything else.”

Good.

Because I don’t need commentary on Zara Winslow from him.

I definitely don’t need anyone noticing the fact that the woman currently taking care of my daughter is the same woman I had against a wall not that long ago.

I rub a hand over my jaw.

“She was right,” I say before I can stop myself.

Nate goes still beside me.

And because I’ve already opened that door, the rest comes out with it, low and edged with irritation. “We had a fight. I expected something she couldn’t have known. I was being unfair.”

Nate says nothing.

“That doesn’t mean I have time for this,” I add.

For her.

For the way she stands there with those eyes locked on mine, making me feel like the unreasonable one in my own damn kitchen.

For the way my body still remembers exactly how she felt in my hands.

Nate clears his throat. “Sounds rough.”

I shoot him a look. “Your insight is invaluable.”

He grins. “Happy to help.”

I push off the boards before I say something I’ll regret and blow the whistle for them to line up again.

Practice ends ninety minutes later with enough fatigue in their legs that nobody chirps on the way off the ice. That alone tells me it was a good session.

***

The drive home is quiet in the way only New York traffic can be quiet.

Not silent. Never silent. There’s always the low hum of engines, the occasional impatient horn, the blur of pedestrians moving along sidewalks like the whole city is late for something.