Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Screen Time
Deacon
She’d had enough, and I was just barely getting started. I didn’t puff my chest or pull a caveman move. I just handed her my number, told her to call, and walked away like a gentleman. Not sure how long that’s gonna last, especially now that I have nothing going on for the next few days.
Back at the Puck Palace, I find Dash and Koa still running film in their heads, except this isn’t ice footage; it was gossip, panic, and strategy disguised as shit-talk.
Dash lays his head back on the couch, “Well? You pressing charges or going full Godfather?”
“No charges,” I grunt as I drop onto the arm of the couch, rub the back of my skull. “Doctor says four days minimum. No ice. No practice. No screens.”
Dash snorts. “He say no breathing too? No blinking?”
“You think Dingy is going to apologize?” Koa asks.
“Dingy doesn’t apologize.” I stretch my neck. “Costello’s bringing up Williams Junior, he doesn’t perform these next few games, he’s screwed. The odds of them trusting a rookie and not keeping Johnson at goal ninety percent of the game,” I shake my head.
Dash whistles low. “That’s suicide.”
Koa clicks his tongue. “Johnson’s so in his own head right now, gives a shit less about this team, he couldn’t stop a toddler with a foam puck.”
“Costello dislikes Williams Junior that much?” I ask.
“No clue what’s up with that, to be honest,” Koa says, looking at his watch.
“You have your date tonight.” I remind him. “Focus on that.”
Within minutes, Koa is out the door.
“Moretti,” Dash shakes his head. “Goalies going to be the least of our problems if she fucks up his head again.”
“Nalani?” I ask and he lifts his chin. “Don’t know the ins and outs of it, but thinking her showing up here, having moved her life from where she did, she’s confident in what they have.”
“Four years is a long damn time.” He runs a hand over his head. “The two of them?” He shakes his head. “No one would have guessed she’d have been a no-show when we transferred to Lincoln. Was her push and promise she was coming too that got him to agree.”
“Not saying you two aren’t amazing players, you are, but no one would have known it if you hadn’t gone to Lincoln U. Hayward? No chance to be seen.” I shake my head. “Guessing Nalani knew that, yeah?”
“Can’t admit you’re right until I see he’s not going to lose it to her again.” He crosses his arms.
“Unfair,” I shrug, “but also fair.” Sterling’s vested in this. “You liked her.”
“Coolest chick at Hayward.” He chuckles silently.
“Guessing you’re comparing her to someone you were…?”
“Fuck no,” he laughs. “My situationship was no Nalani. She was a,” he pauses and cocks his head in something between question and realization. He huffs out a, “Huh.”
“Care to decipher, huh?” I ask.
Both our phones spout off message alerts.
KOK: Sterling, gonna be gone awhile. I would like you to check in on Claudia and Savannah if you have time.
Also gonna ask that if you do, you swing by a hardware store and grab a lock like we have at our place.
Maybe a couple of deadbolts that actually fit.
Bronski tried. Moretti, get some fucking sleep.
Dash: On it.
“I got it, bro. We’ve changed locks at the Palace, what, two times?” He counts on his fingers. “Three?”
“I’m going.”
Dash squints at me, “For… security reasons.”
“Yeah, and to make sure you don’t propose to Bronski.” I push up off the couch. “Gonna grab some things, gonna get a room for a few days.”
Gotta make sure the locks are safe. Definitely not using it as an excuse to check on a particular trauma-therapist-breast-milk-goddess-slash-girl-you-ghosted-via-app-two-years-ago.
“Puck Palace is gonna be quiet,” Dash chuckles. “Koa’s got the big ass house on the Hudson already.”
“Stuck here in Brooklyn while you’re all on the ice, while my head heals. The only thing to look forward to is room service.”
I walk into the Hen house and see Paul and Claudia, with Savannah swaddled tight to her body, as they step out of a door and into the entry. Looking at it now, I bet it was one hell of a foyer in its day.
“The Italian,” Paul nods as he looks me up and down. “You here to start trouble?”
“Only if you have a problem with a new lock on the entry door,” I answer, setting down the toolbox we grabbed on our way out the door.
“You’re going to love it, Mr. Bronski,” Dash says as he steps in. “Triple dead bolts, codes, and keys, and you can even hook it up to an app and see who’s coming in.”
“How much is this gonna run me?”
“Nothing, we uh, had it at the house,” he chuckles.
Bronski narrows his eyes.
“He’s telling you the truth. The Puck Palace has had visitors who have swiped keys on their way out.”
“Then we come home and they’ve let themselves in, uninvited.” Dash shrugs and Bronski chuckles. “So, I bought two of these, thinking we’d run into the problem again.”
“Which hasn’t happened, because one of us no longer has keys.” I shake my head.
“Systems changed, I can have keys,” Dash huffs. “I just don’t want them.”
“And you two know what you’re doing?” Bronski asks.
“Pro’s,” Dash assures him. He tosses his thumb over his shoulder at me. “His old man is a contractor back in the old country.”
“Huh,” Bronski says and looks at Claudia. “Guess you’ll have someone to ask if questions arise when you’re redoing yours and your little one’s place.”
“You’re moving in?” Dash asks.
She nods, “One of my foster dads taught me a few things. I know how to mud, sand, and paint. I’m sure I can figure out how to hang drywall.”
It would be very unwise to express how hot that is, right now anyway, so instead I go with, “Well then, you’ll need to know how to run a screw gun. You give me Savannah, and I’ll hold her while you install a new deadbolt.”
“Give me a minute to get back to my place, and I’ll hold the little nugget; the three of you can work on that together,” Bronski calls to us as he grabs his walker and starts that way.
Bronski shuffles out with his walker, and the second the door shuts, Dash whispers, “I bet he hears everything.”
Claudia smirks. “Good. Keeps everyone honest.”
I raise a brow at her, trying not to stare at Savannah snoozing against her chest. I swear babies should not be allowed to be this cute. It weakens defenses. “So, you are officially moving in here?”
She adjusts the wrap, soft and careful, like it is muscle memory already. “Yeah. And I start the new job next week.”
“Congrats,” Dash says, leaning a hip on the entry bench. “You excited to go full boss mode?”
“Nervous,” she admits. “Excited too. They have childcare at the facility for staff, so she will come with me. No scrambling for babysitters. No panic calls.”
“That is huge,” Dash says. “Plus, free skate lessons when she is ready. I got her.”
Savannah sighs in her sleep. Tiny hand curls. Claudia melts, and so do I, which is alarming.
“Skate lessons,” I echo, deadpan. “Right. Because what every baby needs is to be on ice knives.”
Dash glares. “They are not ice knives. They are skates.”
“That is literally blades strapped to their feet.”
“You are dramatic.”
I fold my arms. “I am realistic.”
Claudia chuckles, low and warm. “If she wants to skate, she can. If she does not, she will not.”
Dash grins at Savannah. “I will teach you to cross-step like a beast. Your Uncle Dash has you.”
I feel my lip curl, and yeah, she catches it. Her eyes flick up to mine, slow and searching, and I am kicking myself. Dash misses it completely because he is trying to figure out if cross-step is hyphenated.
“You good?” she asks softly.
I look at Savannah, then at Claudia. “Yeah. I just... it’s not safe for her to skate before she can walk. That’s all.”
“Relax,” she murmurs, amused as she takes. “No baby Olympics.”
She kisses her head as she unwraps her and hands her to me, eyes never leaving mine.
“Alright, let’s do this,” Dash squeezes the trigger on the screw gun and Savannah let’s out a cry. “Shit, I am so sorry.”
“You’re fine,” Claudia says.
Turning, I cup the side of Savannah’s head and pull it to my chest, shielding the other ear.
“Your mamma is going to be working with tools like this; we’re going to either have to get you some baby earmuffs or take a lot of walks, yeah.
” I brush my lips over the top of her head as we head to the back to find Paul.
I stroll toward the back hallway, baby tucked tight to my chest like she’s my VIP.
I find Paul in what looks like a laundry room that moonlights as a command center. He is rearranging folded towels like they offended him.
“Hey,” I keep my voice low. “Little nugget needed some peace from the power tools.”
Paul turns, one eyebrow lifted. “You two putting in locks or building the Pentagon?”
“A lock,” I say. “Dash is just dramatic.”
“Yeah, I figured,” he snorts. “That boy needs to save all that energy for the ice.”
I smirk. “He means well.”
“I hear her sound off?” He asks, making his way out the door, turning toward what I assume is his pad.
I rock Savannah gently, her little lip quiver slowing down, eyes growing heavy. “She is gonna grow up around drills, nail guns, the works. I already promised her baby ear protection.”
“Better get two,” he says without missing a beat. “One for her. One for her mother when you start flirting.”
My jaw actually pauses mid-sentence. “Flirting?”
He looks at me flatly. “Son, I have eyes. And working ears. And for eighty-two years they have served me flawlessly.”
I stare. He stares harder. Savannah hiccups like she knows drama when she feels it.
I clear my throat. “We are friends.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’ll teach her to do drywall.”
“Mm.”
“I’m a helpful citizen.”
Paul squints like I just told him I invented gravity. “You are making heart eyes while holding her child. Either commit or blink normally. You pick.”
I blink like a malfunctioning robot. “I am blinking normally.”
“No,” he says, patting my arm with grandpa judgment energy, “you are blinking like a man deciding if he should build a crib or run.”
Savannah coos. Tiny traitor.