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Frustration sizzles inside me, along with an odd worried sensation. He really doesn’t look okay—but it’s not my business and I have no right to pry.
“Okay,” I say reluctantly. “Well, we’re done for the day.”
We ride back to Manhattan in the town car together, the silence so thick between us you could slice it with a knife.
I’d have preferred listening to “Macarena” twenty-seven times.
6
MASON
I pacethe floor of my apartment, scowling at the latest text that’s come across my phone. “Mason, it’s me, baby.”
How ironic. Because she abandoned me when I was a baby.
This text came because the season is just about to begin and the woman who birthed me loves to pretend that she had a hand in my success.
Traci Stout-Raker figured out quickly that being a mom was not for her. She’d left me to be raised by my workaholic father and a string of nannies.
Like most kids who are abandoned, I figured that it was my fault. I knew how to get my mom to forgive me for whatever I’d done and come back home, though – all I had to do was be perfect.
I was the best-behaved kid on the planet. I was polite. I cleaned my room before the maids ever got the chance. Washed and folded my own laundry. I excelled in every single sport that I ever played in. And sometimes my mom came home, and stayed for a little while, but she always left again, so I knew that I wasn’t quite good enough.
It wasn’t until I was nine that I learned why my mother came back at all.
She had arrived at the house and headed straight into the house to talk to my dad, after greeting me with a brief hug. I’d handed her a box that I was so proud of, so excited about. It would show her what a great kid I was.
I was standing in a hallway outside the great room. I danced with impatience, wanting her to come back out and open the box.
But then I overheard the raised voices.
“You cheap bastard.” my mother screamed, and I cringed, because I knew that was a bad word.
My father shouted, “It’s not my fault you blew through the divorce settlement. You want child support? I have sole custody and you haven’t even bothered to visit in two years. So good luck with that.”
My heart twisted into a knot.
She’d come back to wheedle money from my dad, not for me. Never for me. I walked out into the hallway and watched my mother stomping out the front door. As she walked, leaving the door open behind her, she dropped a box on the front steps.
It was the special box I’d made for her. She’d never even opened it to look at the report cards, hand-drawn pictures and handmade gifts I’d put in there for her.
Crying, I’d gone into the kitchen to fetch matches. Then I took the box out onto the front lawn, dumped out the contents, and set them on fire.
Minutes later, as I watched the box burn, my father came barreling out. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. Then he looked down at the pile as the paper curled and blackened.
He wasn’t a soft man, but this time, his voice softened. “Mason. Buddy. The problem isn’t you, and the problem isn’t me. It’s her. It’s always been her. Nobody and nothing is enough for her, ever.” He shook his head. “My biggest regret is marrying her without getting to know her better first. But then, if I hadn’t picked her, I wouldn’t have you, would I?” And he had reached out and given me a brief, awkward hug.
Then he looked at the fire. “Go get your nanny to help you put that out and clean it up.”
My father never remarried after my mother left. Dated a lot, never trusted anyone enough to marry them. That’s probably where I got my poor view of romance. Then again, was I wrong? Every woman I’ve ever dated has wanted something from me.
First it was because of my father’s money, then it was because of my hockey fame. Women wanted to marry me before they knew how to spell my last name—and Raker’s not that hard to spell.
As a result, I don’t trust easily, and I find it easier to stay true to hockey than I do to another person.
The cell phone trills again with another text, jerking me out of my unhappy reverie. “Baby boy, I miss you and I just want to have lunch with you. That’s it.”
She missed me? I haven’t heard from her in three years.
