Cross-Checked (Boston Rebels #3)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

McCabe

Colt

Where the hell did you go? AJ was looking for you, and I didn’t know what to tell her.

S hit. When my nanny called me to say that my daughter was running a fever and I needed to come home right away, I didn’t even think twice about leaving the children’s hospital our hockey team partners with, where a few of us were visiting with sick kids this afternoon.

Since finding out I was a dad nine months ago, Abby has been my first priority.

I never would have imagined that my ex-girlfriend would just show up and dump a baby I didn’t know about into my arms, claiming that motherhood would get in the way of her acting career. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t act for shit, and had never landed a role outside of a commercial here or there—Jenna was naive enough to believe that she was destined to be a star, and selfish enough to not let anything stand in her way.

But from the moment I held Abby in my arms, there was no question that, for her, I’d be the best dad I could be. The second she wrapped those impossibly tiny fingers around my thumb, her big eyes staring up at me, she carved herself right into my soul. I knew at that moment, with Jenna still standing in my entryway before she turned and fled, that I’d love and protect Abby, even if it was us against the world.

Balancing hockey season and single-fatherhood was hard enough, but lately, with the pressures of the playoffs, I feel like I’m failing more often than I’m succeeding.

McCabe

Abby’s sick, I had to head home.

I type out the message as I wait for the elevator in the lobby of my building, willing it to hurry the hell up so I can get upstairs and see what’s wrong with my daughter.

Colt

You might want to explain that to AJ because she definitely muttered something under her breath about you not leading by example.

I never wanted to be the team captain. I prefer to lead quietly and not be the center of attention. Being captain has forced me into the spotlight in ways I’m not comfortable with. The only thing I want my teammates, the fans, and the media to focus on is how I play. Leading the team in a public way, that’s the dream for guys like Colt, who have a way of putting everyone at ease but can still light a fire under your ass when you need it. However, Colt’s a goalie, so he can’t wear the C on the ice.

When our previous captain retired a few years ago, I was already an alternate captain and the logical back-up choice. And while no one’s ever tried to make me feel like it should have been Colt in the first place, I know the only reason I have this distinction is because league rules prevent him from having it.

Every year I suggest maybe it’s time to give the honor to one of our alternate captains instead, but my team and management both seem to want me in the role. Honestly, I think they don’t want it to look like they’ve taken it away from me, even though I keep trying to step down.

McCabe

Will do. Thanks for letting me know.

I appreciate Colt warning me, because my contract is up at the end of the season, and I’m still in the negotiation phase with the Boston Rebels. This shit should have been settled long ago, but my agent, Trevor, and my general manager, AJ, couldn’t come to an agreement over my next contract.

According to Trevor, AJ insists that my salary demands are selfish and will prevent her from acquiring new players who will round out the team. But I’m one of the top-scoring players in the league, and I’m not taking less for my next contract than I got for my last one. When negotiations broke down, AJ left it at we’ll revisit this at the end of the season.

So, right now, I can’t afford to look like I’m not invested, even though my mind is already made up to leave. Partly because management not settling my next contract during this season feels like a huge fuck you to the years I’ve spent here—years that pre-date AJ coming to Boston.

Unfortunately, I’ve worked for her almost my whole career—she was the assistant GM when I played for St. Louis, then she came to Boston a few years after I was traded here. Other players love her, but I just keep my head down and try to make sure she doesn’t screw me over again like she did years ago in St. Louis.

If we can’t come to an agreement after the playoffs, I’ll be an unrestricted free agent. Trevor is already talking to Nashville, and they’re interested. Signing with them could be perfect, because my sister lives there with my nieces. We’re the only family each other has, and now that we’re both single parents, we’ve been talking a lot about living in the same city.

I’d miss my teammates, many of whom are like brothers to me, but getting to see my daughter grow up with her cousins and having family around is worth more than what I’ve built here with the Rebels. I never thought I’d say that, but I guess fatherhood changes you.

My phone pings again as I step into the elevator, and I glance down at a text from Colt, followed immediately by another text from my nanny.

Colt

Hope Abby’s feeling better soon. Let us know if you need anything.

Lucy

Are you almost home?

I often get the sense that my nanny, Lucy, can’t wait to leave, and today is the perfect example. Abby is prone to fevers, so we’ve been to the pediatrician multiple times. The doctor always tells us that if there are no other symptoms and the fever doesn’t go above 102 degrees, Abby’s just fighting something off and we can relax and treat the fever with infant acetaminophen. But instead of following those orders, Lucy called me and insisted I come home.

She came with amazing references—the kind that are apparently too good to be true, since she’s proven to be flighty and unreliable.

At least this is just a summer gig. As soon as I know where I’m playing next season, my first order of business will be to find a new, more reliable nanny.

I glance back up as the elevator closes, and in the quickly diminishing space between the doors, I swear I see AJ walking into the lobby of my building. Her head is bent as she glances at her phone, but even across the wide marble space, and without seeing her face, I’m confident it’s her.

What the hell is my boss doing in my building?

I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I wonder if she’s here to check up on me after I left the children’s hospital early. No , I assure myself, she’s not the kind to make house calls. And even if she were, we’re barely on speaking terms, so she’d know better than to show up at my door.

What the hell is she doing here, then?

My phone buzzes again as Lucy puts a question mark on the message she sent five seconds ago because, clearly, it’s taking me too long to respond.

McCabe

Yes, I’m almost home.

I resist the urge to add a snarky comment, which is exactly the kind of sarcasm I typically employ when I think someone is overreacting. But I need her to keep showing up until the end of our postseason, so I can’t afford to piss her off.

When the elevator doors open, I stride down the hall. My condo is at the end, the last door on the left. It’s a nice corner unit with walls of glass on one side, and floor-to-ceiling glass sliders leading out to a full-length balcony along the other.

The condo across the hall from me—the last door on the right—was for sale last month, and I halfway considered buying it since it’s a mirror image of mine, taking up the corner opposite me. Our condos share a wall from the end of the hallway all the way to the balconies along the exterior of the building.

If I’d bought it, I could have opened the wall between the two units and made an incredibly sweet six-bedroom, four-bath place for Abby and me. But it didn’t make sense to purchase it since I don’t even know if I’m staying in Boston.

So the condo sold, and the people who lived there moved out without so much as a goodbye. I’ve never even met my new neighbors. The anonymity of living in an insanely expensive building in a big city used to be something I loved. I could come and go without anyone bothering me. I could bring home women whenever I felt like it, and there was no one to judge me. I could retreat in solitude when that’s what I needed, but the lights and parties of the city were right outside my doorstep if that’s what I was looking for.

Now that I’m a dad, it all grates on me—the bustle and the noise outside, and how quiet and lonely it is inside once Abby goes to sleep. I want to live in a place where I have family close by, where I can sit on my front porch and know the people living in my neighborhood, and where my daughter can learn to ride her bike on the street in front of our house.

And that condo across the hall with the nameless, faceless neighbors—who, if the sound of the door opening and shutting is any indication, come home late and leave early in the morning—has gradually become the perfect example of why I want to move.

With a quick glance at the 1706 on their door, I turn toward my condo, number 1705, and push my key into the lock. When I make it to the living room, I find Lucy is sitting on the couch with Abby curled up against her chest. Lucy’s eyes are closed and they’re both breathing steadily, and for a moment, I’m taken back to the first time Lucy met Abby, when she came to interview for the summer nanny job.

She seemed like she loved babies when I first met her—the perfect person to fill in for the summer, between my last nanny leaving to move to a new state, and the new nanny I’ll hire once I know where I’m playing next season. Now, I know what she loves is that I pay well enough that she can hang with her rich boyfriend and his trust-fund friends as if she actually comes from money herself.

I clear my throat, and Lucy’s head whips to the side. “Oh good,” she says quietly, hugging Abby to her chest as she stands. At least she’s trying not to wake her. “You’re here. She needs her dad.”

I eye Abby, whose cheeks do look a little pink, but it could be thanks to the heavy blanket Lucy has her wrapped up in like it’s the middle of winter.

“She looks okay to me,” I say, not because I don’t want to be here with my daughter, but because I’m annoyed that Lucy had me rush home.

Management already knows I hate doing PR shit off the ice—the visits to hospitals and schools, the media appearances, the charity work—and the last thing I want in the midst of contract negotiation is to act in a way that reinforces the narrative that I’m not a team player. And this doesn’t seem like the emergency she claimed it was.

“Well, she’s not. I’m going to let you take over from here because I need to go pick up my boyfriend.”

Lucy’s boyfriend lives in a penthouse condo that makes mine look like a hovel and drives a sports car that costs more than my first year’s salary as a hockey player in the AHL.

“He couldn’t just drive himself?”

“My car’s in the shop, so I have his car,” Lucy says, and it occurs to me that, because I left my car with the valet so I could get up here as quickly as possible, I didn’t see his car parked in the spot beside mine that I let Lucy use.

If that prick doesn’t have more than one car, I’d be shocked. And I know he has access to a driver, or could just grab a ride through a rideshare app, the same way any of us do.

He doesn’t need her to come get him; she wants to go.

“I see.” I fold my arms across my chest. “And would needing to go get him have anything to do with why I had to come home?”

“What?” She sounds shocked, her eyebrows pinching. “No, I just told him that since you’re coming home, I could pick him up before we go out to dinner. Oh, and”—she reaches her arms out to hand me my sleeping daughter—“not this weekend, but next, I’m going to need a couple days off to go to Nantucket with Tim’s family. It’s his grandmother’s birthday, so not something we can miss.”

I take Abby and bring her up to my chest, where she opens her eyes and fusses for a moment. Snuggling her into me, I sway back and forth from one foot to the other, humming her favorite song as I breathe in her baby scent. She settles right down, closing her eyes. Her lips are turned up at the corners, like she’s realized Daddy’s home and she can relax.

God, I hate being away from her.

“Uhh, that’s not how this whole nannying thing works, Lucy. That weekend will be the start of Round 3 of the playoffs, and I’ll need you here with Abby,” I tell her. Even though we are just starting this series, we’re already dominating.

Our goalie, Colt, just broke Carolina’s best player’s nose so he’ll be out for at least a couple of games. If we don’t wrap this series up while we’re in Carolina this weekend, I’ll be shocked. But even if we have to play into next week to clinch the division title, I can’t fathom a situation in which we’re not moving on to the next round.

“Okay,” she says breezily. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“The only way it’ll work out is if you’re here when I need you to be here.” I don’t want the words to come out in the low, almost menacing way they do, but I can’t help it. I don’t have anyone else to watch Abby, not even during the day while I’m at practice, much less overnight, and she knows it.

“Okay, I’ll find out the details and let you know,” she says, giving me a broad smile, like she just knows she’s going to get her way. I don’t think she understands that work is supposed to come first, especially when your job is caring for a baby.

“Alright. I’ll see you back here tomorrow, right?” It makes me nervous that I even need to ask this. She’s staying here with Abby for the next five days. After tomorrow afternoon’s game, we’re flying south to play our next two games against Carolina at their home arena.

“Yeah, of course. But what if she’s sick?”

“Then you’ll need to take care of her, and maybe take her to the doctor. You can handle it. You’ve taken her to the pediatrician before.”

She inhales a shaky breath, and not for the first time, I wonder if I made a huge mistake hiring a college kid to take care of my baby on her summer vacation. A month ago, she seemed like she was going to be perfect. Now I’ve got serious reservations, but no alternative.

I absolutely hate feeling like I might not be doing what’s best for Abby, but I have a contract, and I have to be there to play. I’m the leader of that team, and showing up for work seems like the bare minimum, especially when so many of my teammates also have kids. None of them are single dads, though.

“Okay,” she says, heading for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

I really hope she shows up.