Page 1 of Penalty Kill

1

Brandon

“You can’t do this again, Olivia. You promised the boys.” I nearly threw my phone against the wall, but this was already my second one this month. I couldn’t let her get to me. It was what she wanted.

“I can’t change the photoshoot. They’ll understand.”

“You really think they’ll understand why their mom isn’t here. Again. They’re four.”

“It's a preschool graduation. It’s not even a real thing.” She sighed. “They’ll appreciate all my hard work when they're older. I’m doing this for them.”

“Oh really? That’s how you're justifying things? How is any of this for them?”

“Because when they grow up they’ll know that women can do anything. They’ll be respectful and supportive of women.”

“I can teach them that. What I can’t do is be their mom. They miss you.” I didn’t know why exactly. She wasn’t exactly the type of mom to create great memories with her children.

“I miss them too. Terribly. Tell them I’ll call them later.”

She hung up and I dropped into the nearest chair. How I’d ever loved that woman was a mystery. She was selfish and cruel, but she hadn’t always been that way. When we met in college, she was shy and focused on excelling so she could one day change the world as a doctor. We got married the summer before our senior year. We were young, idealistic, and so in love. I should have seen sooner how much she’d changed from when we met. It was all there before we said “I do,” but I was blind. My family knew. My friends knew. Even my coaches knew, but none of them thought to say something before we sealed our fates together forever.

After the wedding, she changed her major from pre-med to public health. She said she didn’t want such a demanding career anymore. She wanted to be home with our children.

What she really meant was she saw the attention I was getting from the NHL. The chatter about me being a first-round draft pick. She saw a future, an easier one than she had planned, and took it.

I thought she loved me and wanted us to be a family.

She wanted fame and fortune. When I was drafted by the Utah Fury thirteen years ago, she immediately emersed herself in all the attention she could get. She used me, and now I knew better than to ever trust a woman like that again.

“Boys, are you dressed?” I called out knowing they were probably still playing together in their room. I’d asked them at least four times to get ready for preschool, but I was easy to ignore when they were in dinosaur playing mode.

They’d picked up on the changes in our family despite my attempts to keep things as normal as possible. They knew their mom was gone. I told them she would be back to visit and they would see her soon, but somehow at four years old, they were smarter than me. They knew the truth. She’d never been very involved with them. Sure, the twins looked cute on her social media accounts, but other than a few overly staged pictures, she didn’t take notice of them. The boys were simply props to use in her effort to show the world how perfect her life was.

That’s where she was now. Living her best life. At least that was the hashtag she kept using. She left Salt Lake and took off to live in Malibu with her two best friends so they could continue to build her brand. She was a model now. An influencer. Whatever that meant. All I knew was she was no longer a role model for her boys. She had no influence over them. The two people that should matter to her more than anything else in the world were at the bottom of her priority list.

At this point, I was fine being forgotten, replaced by the attention and love she gained from her online followers. I didn’t care, as long as the boys were happy.

Nearly a year ago, when I came home from a five-day road trip with the team, exhausted and beat up, to find the boys alone in the house crying, I lost my mind. She said she’d only left them alone for a few minutes, but I knew from tracking her phone that she’d been gone for hours. Inspiration had struck for a new post and she just had to go get her shot. She hadn’t bothered calling for a sitter. Nope. She’d been so focused, so in the zone, that she’d forgotten I wasn’t home and they would be alone.

That was the day I told her to figure out her priorities or leave.

She took her chance, told me her calling was in Hollywood, and left.

The divorce papers I filed followed her.

Thank heaven my parents had been smarter than me. They knew where my career was headed and they saw through Olivia in ways I never did. They made sure we had a prenup in place. I owed her nothing more than the gifts I’d purchased for her over the years. I let her keep her car as well. She didn’t want custody of the boys, just three weeks each summer. If it worked around her schedule. That blew my mind, but shouldn’t have surprised me. She said she didn’t have time to be a mother right now. She needed to focus on her. Like that was any different from the last four years.

I stood and rubbed my face as I walked down the hall to the boys’ room. I leaned against the doorframe and frowned. “Boys. I told you to get dressed.”

Their two blond heads popped up from on top of Milo’s bed.

“But Dad,” Finn whined.

“We’re already late. Please get dressed.” I pointed at the clothes I set out for them at the bottom of their ladders.

With overdramatic shoulder drops and sighs, they climbed down and Finn marched across the room. Painfully, so painfully slowly, they got changed before dragging their feet behind me and down the stairs.

I was going to be late for practice, again, but they didn’t care. No one seemed to. My agent, the coaches, the guys. No one said anything when I was the last one on the ice, minutes after I should be. It was like they all agreed to give me a pass. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, and as grateful as I was for their understanding, I hated it. It felt like pity.