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“Yeah,” I say with a smile. “I think so.”
“Then, please apologize to Dean. It would mean a lot to your sister. You can hate me all you want, but don’t take this out on Kat.”
“I’ll make more of an effort,” I promise.
“So, I’ll see you this weekend to help Kat move.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I say. “I still can’t believe Kat is having a baby with Dean. All of you were so sure he was just her friend.”
Dad cups my shoulder. “Kat has always been more comfortable around men. I wasn’t that surprised Dean is the father.”
My sister is a real tomboy. She loves playing hockey and never had a problem getting her hands dirty. I did my best to do girly things with her. I even learned how to do a French braid so Kat could wear her hair like the other girls at school. As much as she tries to fit in with women, she’d much rather be one of the guys.
“Is there something going on with Lila?”
“She kissed me,” I confess. “But I think she regrets it.”
“She’s your doctor,” he points out.
“Yeah, which is kind of the problem. She has a little girl named Max. You would love her. She reminds me so much of Kat when she was her age.”
He cups his hand over mine. “Be careful.”
We hug one last time before he leaves, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest. But I have another problem. What am I going to do about Lila?
Chapter Fourteen
Delilah
Max skates down the ice with a hockey stick in hand. She’s all smiles, her blonde hair shoved underneath a pink helmet that has her name on the back in white writing. I stand with my palm pressed against the glass, holding my breath. The thought of Max playing ice hockey at her age scares the life from me. It’s a dangerous sport. Just look at what Duke did to Dean Crawford if you need a reminder. And I get sick thinking about someone doing the same thing to my baby girl.
Duke skates backward in front of Max, gripping his stick. They slowly approach the net behind him. Max slides the puck from right to left. Duke moves his stick, speaking something to her I can’t hear from this distance. They’ve been on the ice for over an hour now. A few times, Duke let Max score on him. It was so damn cute watching her throw it in Duke’s face. He just shrugged like it was nothing.
I bet he let his little sister win, too. Duke’s that kind of guy. He doesn’t need to win to prove a point. There are so many sides to him that people don’t know. And they’re missing out on it. Because once you get to know Duke, you don’t want to let him go. I worry about what will happen when our sessions are over. Will he go back to being the captain of the Washington Capitals and forget about us? Or will we have a chance at something more?
If I were one of my patients, I would tell them to face their fear head-on, which is why I haven’t pushed Duke away. What we’re doing wrong is still highly unethical and unprofessional. We can be friends until his suspension ends.
After Max looks like she’s about to fall over, she skates off the ice and rushes toward me.
“Mommy, did you see me? I beat Duke at hockey.”
Duke is behind her, laughing his ass off. “You did good, kid.” He pats the top of her helmet.
He drops his stick against the bench and strips off his gloves. Then, he sits down in front of Max to help her remove her equipment.
“Mommy, Duke said he’ll get me a special hockey stick like his.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he says.
He holds up the black hockey stick that says CCM on it. They all look the same to me. I can’t tell one stick apart from the other.
“They make the same one for kids,” he says, setting it on the floor. Then, he leans in close. “Don’t worry. It’s just a standard stick most of us use.”
“Yeah, and she’s going to tell everyone on her new team that she uses the same stick as Duke Baldwin. And that he’s friends with her mom.”
“That should make her pretty popular,” he says with a wink.
