Scoring Chances (Heatwave Hockey)

1. Joshua

Chapter 1

Joshua

T here’s a moment in every athletes career where everything is going right.

You’re scoring goals. Getting sponsorships. Fans love you.

Well, that moment for me ended about a week ago.

I was flying high. Our team was just coming off our very first Stanley cup championship win. Houston loved us. We were the Triple H– Houston Heatwave Hockey –and proud of it!

Then my wings took on some hits. When bad things happen to me. They tend to happen in threes.

First, I get called into management’s office. I’m thinking, this is great! They’re going to offer me a permanent position on the team. I won’t be at risk of being traded. Gravy baby!

“You’re being traded, Hicks.”

Excuse the fuck out of me… traded?!

“Thunderhawks need a left-winger and you’re name came up. Deal’s done.”

Forget that I just led the team in assists this past season–but now our bitter division rivals are claiming me as one of their own?

Ok, universe, I’m watching you.

You, jerk.

Then, I get a call from my agent, Monty.

Monty’s great. He worked me this deal with the Heatwave in the first place. I should be grateful that I was able to win a cup championship with my first ever team in the pros.

But I’m also a little sour that he didn’t think to negotiate a no-trade-clause on my contract.

“You’re losing Boot Farm,” he announces.

“The sponsorship?”

“Yep!”

“Why? What the hell did I do? I’m the face of Boot Farm Boots in Houston.”

“Exactly, Hickey. In Houston . But you don’t belong to Houston come the start of the season. They’re just getting ahead of the backlash. But don’t you worry, we’ll get you something good in Georgia. I’ll be fielding sponsorship deals for you left and right now.”

“So what am I supposed to rep in Georgia, peaches? I fucking love peaches–don’t get me wrong–but I don’t think this is the face of a delicious, juicy fruit, Monty!”

“It won’t be peaches, Hickey. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Not even twenty-four hours later, I open an email from Monty.

Hello to the new face of the Georgia Peaches Association!

I reply with two words: You’re fired.

The same night I get told I’m the new face of peaches, of all fucking things , I’m sitting with my boys debating whether or not I should tell them just how screwed I am.

They were discussing the upcoming Stanley cup summer plans. Every year the winning team gets to take turns taking the cup on adventures in celebration of their big win. They were deciding whose turn it was to take it where–when the doorbell rang. I got up to answer it since I wasn’t feeling particularly celebratory at that moment and I hadn’t yet dropped the news that it would be my last summer with them.

“It’s probably pest control, again,” my team captain and roommate, Keelan Landry, calls out to me. “They’ve come by every day this week.”

I open the door ready to tell off a pushy salesmen but instead I find a pretty Latina woman in wide-legged pants and a vest. She looked all business.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, she said, "Hello! I'm looking for a..." she looked down at a folder in her hand. "Mr. Joshua Anderson-Hicks?"

That was the first time I had ever been addressed that way.

"It's just Hicks. No, Anderson," I said dryly.

She looked at me up and down before opening her folder, "Right."

"What's this about?"

"Well, Mr... Hicks. My name is Priscilla Hernandez. And I'm sorry to inform you that your father, James Anderson, has recently passed." She held the folder against her chest and looked at me solemnly.

My father?

"I have a father. And that man, ain't it," I scoffed.

"Oh,” she looked surprised. “Well our records indicate that he's your biological father. According to a DNA test you took back in–"

"That was just a moment of weakness,” I cut her off.

The truth is—I never met the man. Couldn't care less what became of him.

"So, Old Jimmy kicked the bucket, huh? That's too bad. Why should I care?" I cocked my head at her, casually sliding my hands into my pockets.

The universe was going to have to do much better than killing off my estranged biological sperm donor to get a rise out of me.

“You should care because he's left you something." She waved to her dark SUV still idling in the driveway.

A second later, the door opened and out popped a little brown-haired girl holding a green frog stuffed toy.

She was followed by an emo looking teen wearing jeans too baggy for his own good. The teen then reached back into the vehicle and pulled out a younger boy and set him down on his feet, he grabbed his hand.

The three of them all stood there just staring at me.

I looked around to make sure I wasn’t on some kind of celebrity prank show. And the next words out of the woman’s mouth were so absurd that my brain struggled to keep up.

“As the only recorded next of kin of legal guardian age–the state appoints you the legal guardian of Cole, Maddie, and Parker Anderson. Should you refuse…”

She kept talking, but I lost track of what she said after the words legal guardian.

Legal guardian?

I could barely make it out of bed in time for practice, and now the state expects me to drop everything and be solely responsible for three kids?

It had to be a joke. One big freakin’ joke.

All I could do was laugh. And I think I did. Out loud. Like a total asshole. Because all at once my half-siblings all looked at me like I was some kind of alien species they never expected to see in their lives.Three pairs of confused, pissed off eyes.

To be fair, I felt the exact same way about them. According to my mom, their father– our father –James Anderson was a man with no future who left her alone and pregnant with me when she was just a teenager.

How is it possible that he went on to have more kids? How irresponsible was this guy?

But there was one glaring thing that I couldn’t overlook. The sun hadn’t quite set yet so I could see it clear as day… we all shared my James' signature eye color.

And that was all the proof I needed to know that this wasn’t some sick prank. Not a human prank anyways.

But of the universe? I see you, stupid universe.

I looked it up once. Only two percent of the world's population have teal eyes. I have a better chance of being stuck by lightening than running into someone with that rare trait. Let alone three of them.

Universe: 3… and counting.

Hicks: 0

So… in the same weekend the Heatwave won their first Stanley Cup, I found out that I’d be leaving the next season and that I had half-siblings… three, of course, because fuck me . And I’d be their sole caretaker.

To say I was royally screwed would be an understatement. But now. Now I think the universe really does just hate me.

Because the icing on my shit cake it decided to deliver this summer is that the only nanny I’ve been able to convince to help me watch three kids over the next few weeks, hates me.

Loves kids. Hates me . Those were Fergie’s words when he brought up the idea of asking his ex-almost-sister-in-law if her nanny friend would be open to a summer gig that paid well.

A little too well, since I was desperate and had already failed with the first nanny I asked to help.

I’m sure I would’ve had plenty of interest if I was a normal single dad looking for the help of a reputable nanny. But I’m not a normal single dad. I’m a reluctant legal guardian that has to figure out what to do with three hooligans before I leave for training camp in the fall.

All while keeping the whole three kids in my care things under wraps because my mom could never find out about them. She’d–well–I don’t know what she’d do. But I’d rather not be around to see how she would react to me taking in the devil’s spawn.

So yeah. That’s what’s happening. I think we’re all caught up.

“Hicks?” Landry calls out to me from the other side of my closet door.

“What?”

“Who are you talking to in there?”

I look around at the three empty beer bottles and the half-eaten chocolate bar in my hand.

“Nobody. I’m just doing a little self-reflection. You’re very rude for interrupting,” I say, grabbing my Heatwave jersey I’ve been snuggling and tossing it to the side.

I get up and open the door. He’s leaning on the wall outside of it, arms crossed waiting for me. “Are you sulking?”

I scoff. “No, sulking would require me to have emotions. And I’m dead inside.”

He purses his lips and gives me a once-over, before pushing off the wall and heading out the door.

“Parker’s stuck… again,” he says over his shoulder.

Of course, he is.

The toddler has managed to get stuck in three different places since being put in my care. It’s like he knows that this place is a jail sentence. A holding place of broken dreams. And we’re all prisoners. He’s just trying to bust out.

And honestly, so should I.