Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Talia
The earthy scent of brewing coffee pulls me from sleep the next morning. I crack my eyelids open slightly to gauge the time of day. It’s not bright yet, but the sun is up.
Dad must drink dark coffee these days, because the smell is powerful even in the upstairs bedroom I’m sleeping in with the door closed. I groan and pull the covers back up to my neck.
“Hey, you’re up.” My father is leaning against the frame of the door to the room, which is very much open. “Morning.” He walks into the room and sets a steaming mug of coffee on my bedside table.
“What?” I croak as I squint against the light, my eyes fully open now. “It’s early.”
“We’re leaving in forty-five minutes. You’ve got time to shower and pack before breakfast is ready.”
I give him a confused look. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You are, though.” His voice has a chipper edge to it. “You’re coming to work with me.”
I hum with amusement. “Oh, is it bring your hot mess daughter to work day? Everyone already knows I’m a disaster, so we can skip that.”
He walks over to the other side of the room and opens the blinds, light flooding the room. I protest with a dramatic groan.
“I don’t get up this early. Leave me alone.”
“Tally, you’re welcome to stay with me for as long as you want, but your days of rotting in bed all day are over.”
Ugh, this is the last thing I’m up for. My dad thinks he can bring me out of my perpetual bad mood by spending time with me, and he’s so far off. What I need is to be left alone.
“I rot on the couch, too,” I quip. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“Yes, I am,” I fire back. “I’m here because I’m broke, not because I need help.”
The blinds are open in all three windows of the room now, and it’s like a spotlight being beamed directly at my skull. My father is standing at the foot of the queen-size bed, arms crossed in his trademark I mean business pose.
“It’s been five months, Tally. I get needing some time after what happened, but enough. You shouldn’t have quit your job. It’s time for you to focus on something other than your hurt feelings.”
I balk at that. “Hurt feelings? Like I was snubbed at someone’s dinner party? I’m humiliated. I’d rather take a one-way flight to hell than go to their fucking tropical wedding. Do you know that Audra asked me to be a bridesmaid?”
“I haven’t talked to her much lately, so I didn’t know that. Let’s focus on today. We’re leaving for a four-night road trip. Tampa, Phoenix, and Seattle.”
I lie back down. “Have a good trip. I’m not going.”
I’m pulling the covers back up to my chin when they all fly off me. After pulling them away, my dad drops them to the floor.
“What the hell?” I protest.
“You’re coming on the road trip. I don’t expect you to be happy about it, but I expect you to go.”
“I’m twenty-five years old, Dad. I’m not a teenager you can order around.”
He shrugs. “This is for your own good. Get ready.”
I laugh bitterly. “No way. I’m not going on a road trip with your entire team. When you asked me to come stay with you, you didn’t mention anything like that. And I haven’t even been here twenty-four hours. Let me settle in.”
“It’s time to join the world again.” He looks at the watch on his wrist. “Forty minutes. You can get ready, or I’ll carry you from this bed out to my car.”
“Good luck with that.” I curl up into a ball, cold without my blankets. “I’ve gotten a lot bigger and you’ve gotten a lot older since the last time you picked me up.”
I close my eyes, ignoring him. He leaves the room and I’m drifting back to sleep before he’s all the way down the stairs.
I’m once again pulled from sleep, but this time I inhale sharply as I’m whisked out of bed.
He’s actually doing it. He’s going to carry me to his car.
“No! You’re going to hurt yourself. Put me down.”
“Your old man’s not as ancient as you think,” he says wryly. “This is for your own good.”
“Stop! I haven’t even brushed my teeth! I’m in my pajamas. I don’t have a bra on.”
“Melina’s bringing you some clothes, and—”
I have the fingers of my right hand curled around the door frame and I’m holding on for dear life.
This is a nightmare. Not only because he wants me to leave the safety of this bedroom for the next four days and nights, but because I still have a shred of pride left.
I don’t want his team and staff seeing me like this.
With a twist of his shoulders, my fingers fly off the wood doorframe.
“I’ll go on the next one, I promise. Don’t do this!”
“It’s nonnegotiable.”
I grab the stairway handrail, holding on so tight my knuckles burn. “No!”
“I tried the easy way.” There’s a note of strain in his voice as he tries to pull me away from the rail. His tone quickly switches to aggravation. “You want us both falling down these stairs? Let go.”
“Don’t do this,” I beg. “I can’t be around people all the time. It’s exhausting. It’s why I left my job.”
He stops pulling. “You’re depressed. I get it. Seeing you go through this has been hell.”
“Then let me have some peace! You’re the one person I thought would have my back.”
He huffs a note of unamused laughter. “This is me having your back, Tally. I’m not letting you turn into a bitter old cynic like me.”
That gives me pause. He doesn’t say much about his divorce from my stepmom, but it had to be hard. She left him for the contractor who was renovating their home, and he was blindsided by it.
Maybe sincerity will sway him. “I truly don’t want to go, Dad. I know I need to get out more, but I want to do it slowly. This is too much.”
He shakes his head. “I really am planning to put you to work. You won’t just be along for the ride. Contributing to something bigger than yourself is what you need.”
I groan. “Don’t coach me. Just be my dad.”
After a pause, he says, “I am.”
He’s so damn stubborn. Always has been. I may have gotten a little bit of that trait in addition to my mother’s temper.
“Fine,” I snap. “Go ahead and embarrass me in front of your team. sounds super therapeutic. But let me brush my teeth and put some clothes on.”
He walks back up the stairs and sets my feet back on the floor. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
The Crush’s team plane has the team logo on each side. The logo is a scowling Viking-looking man making a tight fist. I guess he’s supposed to be crushing something.
I’ve never been on this plane, but I’ve been on other team planes with my dad.
When I was a teenager, I jumped at the chance to go anywhere and do anything with him.
I didn’t get to see him much because of his work schedule, but during his offseason, he always prioritized time with me and Audra, including us in vacations with him and Angieand their two kids, and also taking each of us on a trip for alone time with him.
The Crush’s plane is a lot like the others. There are fewer seats, and each one is wide and upholstered in leather. Some of the seats recline into beds, and there are tables and chairs where players can eat or play card games.
I managed to get a quick shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and throw a few things into a bag. We rode to the airport in silence, because I’m still in a mood over being forced into this.
“Hey.” The team trainer, Melina, gives me a little wave as I’m stuffing my bag into an overhead compartment at the front of the plane, where the coaches and staff sit.
“Hey,” I say softly.
I slide into a window seat in an unoccupied row, playing a game on my phone to avoid having to look at or talk to anyone. It’s not that I dislike anyone on the team—other than Lucien after last night—but my heart is racing from having my routine upended, and I need to decompress.
It’s not even ten minutes before the plane’s doors are being closed to prepare for the flight. My dad stands in the aisle of my row, the players going silent.
“I hope everyone got good sleep last night, because this one’s going to be a grind,” he says.
“Patton’s officially on the IR. I want everyone watching their film on this flight.
If I catch anyone so much as glancing at social media or pictures of your girlfriend, you’ll have my foot so far up your ass you’ll be choking on my shoelaces.
No fucking around. We need to be laser focused on tonight’s game. ”
There’s a low rumble of players saying, “Yes, Coach.”
“Also, my daughter Talia is joining us on this trip.” He looks over at me. “Stand up and say hi.”
Fuck. I shoot him a side-eye glare as I stand, turn, give a weak smile and a one-second wave, and then sit back down.
“She’ll be helping out the coaching staff for a while, and I expect everyone to treat her with the same respect you’d give me. She isn’t a team employee, but the rules are simple: be nice to her, but don’t touch her. Ever.”
I bury my face in my hands, mortified. He’s acting like I’m a sixteen-year-old virgin.
The “Yes, Coach,” refrain is louder this time. I can only imagine how many looks Lucien is getting right now.
He sits down next to me, but I refuse to look at him, focusing on the view of endless runways outside my window instead.
Anytime I or one of my sisters are around one of Dad’s teams, it’s always been this way. I’m sure it stems, at least in part, from my mom cheating and leaving him for another hockey player.
I didn’t know what was going on when it all happened, because I was so young. Now, though, I see how hard that must’ve been for him. Cheating is the reason I haven’t talked to my mom in five months, and the reason things are tense between Dad and Audra.
When Kyle told me he’s in love with my sister, Mom took Audra’s side, but Dad took mine. And that meant a lot. He could’ve stayed neutral. Said he loved us equally and we needed to work it out on our own.
He didn’t, though. He said she was wrong and he was disappointed in her and wanted nothing to do with Kyle. That meant a lot to me. Not because I’m vindictive, but because it’s validation that I didn’t deserve what they did to me behind my back.
My dad’s been through it twice. I was burned badly enough the first time, though. I’ll never expose myself to that kind of heartbreak again.