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She cocked her head and smiled. “What you do, that you’re a hockey player, she was so surprised I had no clue.”
“You don’t follow sports. It’s okay.”
“She was surprised not because I live in a sports-free bubble, but because you’re so popular. So good at what you do.”
“It takes an entire team to win a game,” I said. Sure, I was good, but the league was filled with talented athletes. I wasn’t going to start spouting things like There is no I in TEAM or inspirational shit like that, but hockey was a team sport.
“I’m sure the entire team then has social media followings like yours. Game photos. Locker room shots. Interviews. Magazine covers. I didn’t even know you were one of the Sexiest Men of the Year.”
“As long as you think I’m sexy.”
She looked me over where I was sprawled on the bed, propped up on my elbow in just my boxers.
“You’ll do.”
I leaned forward and gave her bare ass–which was only partially covered by my shirt the way she was sitting–a playful swat.
She giggled. I smiled, loving her this way. Relaxed. Smiling. Bare except an article of my clothing. Her hair wild and messy.
“Nothing happened with any of those women.”
Her smile slipped and she tossed the crust onto the open box between us. “It’s none of my business.”
Just like any man in her life who came before me. Lindy wasn’t young like her sister, who didn’t have a long history of lovers. She was thirty-five. I wasn’t naïve to think she hadn’t had her fair share of guys in her bed.
“It is. I want you to know the truth, not what you read or see online.”
She studied me. “Okay. Tell me.”
“I’m not sure if you heard anything from Bridget, but my father–Mav’s father, too–was an asshole. If cheating was a sport, he’d be an Olympic champion. My brothers are close in age, then there’s me, a few years younger even than Theo. He left for college when I was in sixth grade. I was the only child really for years. I wanted my dad’s attention. His affection. When he took me to my hockey practices or games–instead of the family driver–I was thrilled, thinking this would be it. Dad wants to be with me. That he’ll cheer me on like other parents.”
I ran my fingers over the pattern in the blanket, remembering clearly everything I was sharing. How pleased and special I felt. Then hurt.
“He’d drop me off and disappear. From the bench, or sometimes even from the ice, I’d see him flirting with women. Young ones. Not illegal or anything, but not his age. When I got older, I realized he was going off somewhere in the building and fucking them. He used the rink as his prowling area.”
She crinkled her nose. “That’s pretty gross. Why didn’t your mom divorce him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that. He died a few years ago. I don’t miss him. Neither do my brothers. I don’t think my mom does either. But none of us have asked her why she stayed. It’s not our business.”
“I’m sorry he was a jerk.”
I chuckled. “Hockey was my escape from the house. Silas took me with him one time to free skate, just for fun. I was six. I saw kids playing hockey and I wanted to do it. So I started. Then it became my life. On the rink I could leave my life behind. I just skated. Played. People said I was dedicated, but I only wanted to forget. I got a full ride to play in Minnesota, but I wasn’t there a semester before I was drafted. At eighteen, I wasn’t prepared for the life. The games, the drinking. On the road all the time. Partying. Women. It’s exactly what you think, and it didn’t make a difference I was so young. The only thing I was used to was the money. Some guys get money blind, or spend like crazy, but I came from it so I didn’t lose my shit. I won’t lie and say I didn’t party or work my way through a lot of hockey bunnies, but I quickly started seeing my dad in me. Being at a rink or a bar and not even getting a name.”
“You were a teenager. I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to sleep around. And if women were throwing themselves at you? How could they resist?”
I grinned.
“I stopped. Cold turkey. I always wanted a family. A real family. Wife. Kids. Everything I didn’t get growing up. Then I met you. The only woman who didn’t throw herself at me. In fact, the only woman who built a pillow berm in bed to keep me away.”
She flushed and glanced away, but the corner of her mouth turned up.
“I want a family, too,” she admitted. “I’ve been dating. A lot.”
“Like the dentist.” The guy she left to come home to me.
She nodded.
“No serious relationships at all?”
