Page 33

I couldn’t fuck it up.

TEN

CALLY

My dad was already seated when the host walked me back, his suit jacket still on despite the fire roaring in the grate behind him. He stood when I got to the table, gripped my hand, and pulled me into the one-armed half-hug he only ever gave me in public before settling back down into his seat.

“You’re late.”

“I got here five minutes ago” I told him, pulling my chair out, the heavy wooden legs dragging over thick carpet.

“You got here just now,” he said, swiping his hand in a small arc over the table. “Which is five minutes late.”

“I’ve been waiting for them to—” I sat with a shake of my head, unrolling my cutlery from the black cloth napkin before settling it across my lap. “Never mind. I’m here now, as requested.”

I placed the fork and spoon on one side of the plate, their bottoms perfectly aligned, and the knife on the other as a waiter appeared to fill my goblet with ice water.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” he murmured, moving to fill my dad’s glass.

“Sparkling, please. French. Not Italian.”

I forced myself not to roll my eyes. There was no way he could tell the difference between Perrier and Pellegrino or whatever brand they had here. He was just convinced that anything French was classier, and he wanted everyone to know he was a Very Classy Man.

When the waiter left to fetch his water, my dad turned his attention back to me. “Remind me again why we couldn’t do this yesterday.”

“Because I had a game yesterday?” I hated that my answer came out sounding like a question rather than a statement, but that was what this man reduced me to—second-guessing myself and wondering if I was missing something that would have been obvious to others.

He lifted a tumbler of whiskey to his mouth, taking a slow sip before speaking. “It was pre-season. Doesn’t count.”

I could have let the comment go like I did with most of his passive-aggressive bullshit, but yesterday had been my first NHL game, and that counted for a whole fucking lot.

“It counted for plenty. I was on the ice for nineteen minutes.”

“Against a team even worse than the Marauders.” He lifted his fork and turned it over, rubbing out what was likely a non-existent water spot with his thumb. “I faced more rubber in a single period than you’ll see all month. Guys firing ninety-five off the stick, and no whistle to go hide behind for two minutes.”

I knew what came next, of course: his generation constantly played hurt, nobody tracking their workload, and somehow they’d all managed to survive. Except to hear him tell it, they didn’t just survive—they thrived. He’d never come right out and call us modern players pussies, but it was one hundred percent what he thought.

He set his fork down with a frown. “And I didn’t need to go home and take a nap afterward.”

And … there it was.

I opened my mouth to explain that the load was different now than it was when he played. That sports science had caught up to what bodies actually did under repeated high-intensity output. That a structured recovery protocol wasn’t weakness, but rather the reason guys today lasted well into their late thirties instead of their bodies breaking down early the way his generation’s had. But those arguments would fall on deaf ears. There was simply no world in which Robert Callahan, NHL Hall of Fame Goalie, would hear any of that and take it to heart.

“Right.” I reached for my glass, proud to see my hand only shook a little.

The waiter saved me from further critique by returning with the bottle of sparkling water and letting us know someone else would be by shortly to take our order.

“By the way,” my dad began when we were alone again.

I mentally braced myself for whatever bomb he was about to drop. Anytime he started a sentence with those three words, it never ended well for me.

He took another sip of his whiskey, dragging it out. Giving me time to panic. Finally, he set the glass back down.

“I talked to Voss this week.”

My stomach dropped. “Why were you talking to my GM?”