Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Thorne
At what point does occasionally following Mollie around just to make sure she’s okay turn into outright stalking? Because I’m pretty sure I’m not that far off.
I've been past her building three times this week. I know which window is hers because the light stays on later than the others. Also, she has a plant on the sill that looks like it's barely surviving.
“Gordie!” My mangled, 120-pound mutt bounds ahead, gleefully chasing a fast-food hamburger wrapper.
I pull gently on his leash, and he continues to ignore me, snuffling and whuffing. It takes all the muscle and dexterity I have to wrestle the wrapper from his maw and drop it into a trash bin.
Gordie looks at me, his expression mournful for all of three seconds. Then he starts pulling toward the park like he’s hauling a weighted training sled instead of leashed to me. Luckily, I’m a big guy and not about to be swept off my feet by a dog, no matter how big and drooly he is.
My dad gave three quotes to a journalist about my playoff performance this week.
We've spoken twice this year. Both times he called me champ, gave me a lot of old-fashioned and unsolicited advice, and asked if I was taking care of myself.
Both times I said that I was fine and he seemed satisfied with that.
My dad is a famous athlete who destroyed every woman who loved him.
I know this as intuitively as I know my own skating stats.
It comes from memories of my mom sitting at the kitchen table at eleven at night, still dressed, waiting for a call that doesn’t come until five days later.
Covering for my dad at Christmas, her voice perfectly steady, her hands not quite as still.
Shrinking, year by year, into someone who existed only in relation to him.
I watched her do it. After a lifetime of that, I swore I would be nothing like him.
But I still have his voice in the back of my head, the devil on my shoulder.
Gordie pulls on the leash, jerking toward a young couple that eyes me as if they know me.
They might; I’m the face of the latest Seattle Havoc hockey ad campaign.
But instead of approaching me like the fanatics they might be, they look at Gordie and decide bothering me is not worth risking their potential deaths.
His adoption fee is paying dividends right now.
Is it my fault that my sweet dog looks like a hellhound? He’s black as coal, has a big smile full of nasty-looking teeth, and his bark is more of an echoing bellow. All that, and he melts at the merest thought of a belly rub. Win. Win. Win.
Gordie barks and a woman with a little yippy dog crosses the street. See? Better and better. My cell phone rings as she gives me the evil eye. It’s an unknown number, but I have been expecting this call.
“Hello?” I answer as I start a timer for ten minutes. That’s all the time I have to offer.
The journalist asks about my summer, asks about my dad like they always do, and drops the trade rumor question at the end. I give her the standard answers and hang up feeling like I’ve aged a thousand years.
I check my notifications and find that my dad has posted on Instagram. A photo of himself at a charity event, arm around some former teammate I vaguely recognize, caption reading something about legacy and the next generation. He's tagged me. Rolling my eyes, I lock the screen.
“Thorne!”
I straighten at the sound of my name. Beck is waving an arm in the air from over near the swings. Of course he would be there; Rosie is an adventurous four-year-old who loves the swings more than anywhere else in the park. Gordie and I trot over to them.
“Gordie!” Rosie screams, jumping off her perch on a swing and running to her furry best friend.
Gordie is a perfect gentleman, sitting and letting the little girl throw her arms around his neck.
Her white-blonde hair looks ghostly against Gordie’s dark fur.
She mutters, “Glad you’re here,” into Gordie’s neck.
Gordie licks her face and she giggles. I grin at Beck, who grins back. “Hey man.”
“Hey. She’s looking extra angelic today. Look at all that blonde hair.”
He smiles as he looks at her. “That’s all her mom.”
“Yeah, I know. You grew your beard out a few years ago and it was practically orange. You and Mollie are both redheads and pale as shit..”
“It’s called auburn. My hair stylist told me.” He purses his lips.
“Your hair stylist was obviously flirting with you.”
His cheeks color a little bit. “Yeah, he made that pretty obvious. Still counts, though.”
“Alex!” Rosie says, calling my attention to her. She runs up to me and hugs my legs. I squat down and embrace her while she beams at me. She’s a happy kid. “Can we walk Gordie?”
“Yep. Here, you grab his leash right here and I’ll take the handle.” I hand her a section of the leash in the middle. It’s not like I expect Gordie to get a wild hair up his ass and run off, but better safe than sorry.
“Okay.” She takes the leash and puts a hand on Gordie’s shoulders, giggling when his response is to lick her face. “You’re a good dog.”
We start off at a snail’s pace, walking exactly as fast as Rosie’s tiny legs can go. She starts telling her best friend a rambling story about god knows what, laughing the whole time. Again, she’s really fucking cute.
“So did you hear this crazy rumor about the Seattle Havoc hunting for a trade?” I ask Beck.
His expression flattens. “Where’d you hear that? I thought you stayed off social media.”
“This journalist just asked me about it. I called it a rumor and shut her down.”
“But you’re actually worried about it?”
“Maybe. The rumor is about the Havoc hunting for offensive talent. And you know as well as I do that whenever teams are trying to find space in a budget to bring in hired guns, the first place they look is with the team’s vets. That’s you and me, in case you forgot.”
“How could I?” His lips lift, but the smile is humorless. "I hate the casual gossip about our careers. But what I hate more is that there's no way to know if it's real or not. That part slays me." He slides me a look. "You're thinking about Kuznetsov."
"Hard not to." I roll my neck. "You looked into the Los Angeles thing?"
"The teammate? Dabrowski." He presses his mouth into a thin line. "Four days inpatient. Nobody will say what started it. Dabrowski won't talk. Neither will Kuznetsov's camp. The Sharks' front office put out some statement about a personal conflict that escalated and then never mentioned it again."
"His own teammate." I shake my head. "Whatever Dabrowski said or did, whatever started it, you don't put your own guy in the hospital. That's not a hockey fight. That's something else."
Beck looks at me for a long moment. "Cross knows all of this."
"Obviously."
"So, either Cross thinks it's manageable, or he thinks the upside is worth the risk." He shrugs, which is Beck Tate for ‘this situation is deeply unresolved and I'm going to pretend otherwise for the sake of my blood pressure.’ "Either way, it's not our call."
"It becomes our call," I say grimly, "the second he sets foot in our locker room."
He scrubs a hand over his chest.
I clap his shoulder and shake my head. “Sorry, man. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You’re not exactly telling me anything I don’t already know. The fact is, every season is likely to be my last. But there’s not a single thing I can do about it. Staying up late at night worrying whether it’s going to happen this year or the next isn’t a good way for me to spend my time.”
“That’s a pretty grounded view.”
He slides me a grin. “Can you tell I’ve been hitting the sports therapy hard for the last couple of years?”
I open my mouth to tease him, but I’m interrupted by Rosie shrieking. “Mollie!”
I turn to see Mollie walking up. She drops Gordie’s leash and flings herself at Mollie, who grabs her, spins her around, and kisses her enthusiastically. “How is my favorite girl on the whole entire planet today?” she asks.
“Good.” Rosie shrieks with laughter as Mollie tickles her.
Oh, what the fuck? This was supposed to be a nice afternoon in the park with my best friend and my goddaughter, not with the number one most annoying Seattle Havoc employee.
My eyes dip down, taking Mollie in. She’s wearing a short lilac dress with tiny skeletons sprinkled all over it, oversized sunglasses, and yellow Converse sneakers. Her hair is a chaotic mess of copper curls that verges on bedhead, and it complements her heart-shaped face and pouty pink mouth.
She has toned, athletic legs that are still so white they’re a bit hard to look at in the sunlight. Her left ankle has the faint pink web of scarring. I got her medical files eight months ago.
The trimalleolar fracture. The surgical notes. The projected recovery timeline. I've read her history so many times, I could recite it.
That isn’t the issue at hand, though. Currently, I can’t look anywhere but at the hem of her dress, which is so short that she’s just begging for a flashing incident. I scowl at her.
She completely ignores me and bounces Rosie on her hip, directing all her attention to my goddaughter. “How was your soccer game? Did you have fun?”
“Good! We ran all over the place! And Ms. Mary gave us orange slices after.”
“Whoa, that’s awesome. I bet you had fun getting all the wiggles out.”
“Yeah.” Rosie shrugs, a movement that is clearly learned from Beck. “My friends Kate and Ollie play, too. They’re my best friends.”
“What about Gordie?” Mollie asks. She tilts her head, drawing my attention to the slim column of her neck. She’s been getting some sun recently, because a few new freckles dapple the skin there.
Rosie looks at Gordie, then squirms in Mollie’s arms to be let down. “Gordie needs me.”
“I won’t argue with that, short stuff.” Mollie puts Rosie down, nearly flashing Beck and me as she bends.
Beck throws up a hand. “Jesus, Moll. You’re about to showcase the goods, if you get my drift. I’m sure Thorne doesn’t want to see that, either.”