Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Sean
“Seany?” Jade calls my name for what has to be the millionth time, and I pray like hell it’s not followed by another hard question.
The month following Granny’s memorial service has passed in a blur, and though that was hard, every question this little girl has thrown at me on our short drive to work this morning may have been harder.
Every one of them has been about God and heaven .
. . which, I hesitated on. I’m Catholic, and though Aiden’s and my spiritual views align, Godfather or not, I still feel like those questions are meant for her dad to answer.
She started with: “Do you think Granny’s wings are big like Mommy’s?” Then she moved to questions like: “Where is heaven?” and “Are Mommy and Granny together in heaven?” but the one that really got me was: “Can I visit heaven? I miss my Granny.”
Now, that broke my heart. I don’t know how much more I can take.
“What, sweet girl?” I finally answer her.
“Can God see me poop?”
What is it with kids and their obsession with poop?
“God sees everything, princess.”
“Well, that’s just embarrassin’.”
Shaking my head, I laugh as she calls my name again.
I glance at her through the review mirror, ready to spout off another mentally rehearsed response. “Yes, mija?”
“If you swallow your gum, will it will stay in your butt for seven whole years?”
Nearly choking on the gum I’m chewing, I ask, “Who told you that?”
“My daddy. He said if I swallowed my gum, my butthole would blow bubbles.”
“Your Dad is silly,” I laugh, putting the truck into park.
Jade pushes the sunglasses that I bought her up on her nose as I scoop her out of the truck, then wraps her tiny arms around my neck. “Ready to do your schoolwork?”
“Nope. It’s fall break. I get to play today.”
“What kind of homeschooled kid gets fall break?”
“This one.” She giggles, pointing at herself. “I get a whole week off for Thanksgiving.”
“That’s probably why you don’t know that your butthole doesn’t blow bubbles. You spend more time on break than actually doing schoolwork.”
We never got a fall break. We had spring break and only three days off for Thanksgiving.
“Hey, munchkin.” Aspen greets Jade as I set her on her feet right outside the game room.
“Hi, Aunt Aspen.”
“Tucker’s in there if you want to go play,” she says before her eyes settle on me. “I’ll watch her until Aiden gets here.”
Jade leaves me standing in the hallway without a hug or goodbye. So much for being her favorite.
“Alright then. Since I’m no longer wanted, guess I’ll head on down.”
“Oh, don’t be a baby.” Aspen laughs, turning toward her office across the hall. She looks back over her shoulder. “Good luck out there today. You’re gonna need it.”
What the hell?
As I make my way down the stairs, I find my team sitting in the stadium seats, then clock the sludge that is our ice rink.
“Mac. Glad you found your way to work this morning,” Coach says, arms crossed over his chest as he stands in front of the guys.
“Sorry I’m late,” I mutter, heading farther down the stairs. “I had to go pick up Jade. Aiden had court this morning.”
Coach nods, accepting my excuse, then claps his hands together once, pulling everyone’s attention from me to him. “Alright! Listen up. Before we start, I want to go ahead and introduce our new team coach.”
My heart stalls. What does he mean ‘new team coach’?
“Coach!” he yells.
Fuck me!
I drag a hand down my face in frustration because there are only two people I wanna play for: Luke or Hannah. When my eyes lift, I expect to see a man that I don’t know, not my girl, walking in to stand in front of the team.
The world stops spinning.
Pride soars through me as Coach gestures toward his daughter.
“Hannah has been an asset to this team for a long time now. When you’re here at this facility, she’s not your friend, my daughter, or in Mac’s case, his girlfriend. She’s your coach, and I expect every single one of you to respect her as such.”
Hannah smiles at the team with a new level of confidence I’ve never seen from her. She's been different these past few weeks. More positive. A little more outgoing.
“I’m gonna go ahead and give Hannah the room.”
“As you can see, our refrigeration shit the bed,” Hannah says, motioning toward what was once the ice.
The rink looks awful. Paint lines mix with the thick white sludge, stretching across the entire surface.
She continues as she paces back and forth in front of the glass.
“We have waders for each of you. Just think of this clean up as a team-building project. During games, you all have different roles . . . different responsibilities . . . different expectations, but today . . . everyone gets the same shovel.”
She bends down, picks up a snow shovel, and bounces it twice in her hands.
Irritation flits across some of my teammates’ faces. They came here to work out . . . do drills . . . and play hockey, not clean. Grunt work like this is for the crew . . . at least that’s what a lot of them are probably thinking, but what they don’t realize is Hannah doesn’t do shit just to do it.
“Everybody loves game night. No one ever thinks about this part, but this part is why game nights exist. The ice gives you everything . . . Everything . . . Privilege, careers, money, fans, purpose . . . and we’re gonna give back. So, suit up. Grab a shovel or a squeegee and let’s get started.”
Where the fuck did this version of Hannah come from, and why the hell is her bossing us around so goddamn hot?
We all filter down the stairs, doing what she told us to. Cal steps up beside Carter, shoving his feet into the boots and jerks a stiff nod toward the rink. “Could you imagine if Brodie was here in his designer clothes?”
“Oh, I’d pay money to see that.” Carter laughs, picking up a shovel.
“Coach, you’re cleaning too?” Trevor asks Hannah as she steps into the water.
Her lips pinch to the side. “I’m never gonna ask my team to do something I wouldn’t do myself.”
I meet up with Hannah, and our boots slosh through the water as we begin to work alongside each other.
“Congratulations, Coach.” I turn my head and smile. “Are we keeping secrets from each other now?”
“I kept a surprise from you, not a secret. I tried to accept the job right after Granny died, but Aspen wanted me to take time to grieve before agreeing to a new role.”
“She was right to make you wait.” I look around at the floor, then my eyes flit to hers. “You throw yourself into something too soon, and it just causes more destruction. Take this mess for example.”
She glances behind her, and as we both push water into the drain, I continue, “You see what’s underneath?”
Peering down at grey slab underneath, she answers, “Concrete?”
Shaking my head, I stop and prop my arm on top of the handle of the snow shovel.
“A clean slate. See, if you refreeze the ice before stripping the floor, you'll get soft spots, and people could get hurt.
You have to remove all the shit, strip it down to the surface, and scrub it clean.
Only then can you rebuild the ice layer by layer, repaint the lines, and replace the logo. It's the same in life.”
“You’re right. I never thought about it like that,” she admits, heading back toward the other end of the rink. “Umm . . . I’ve been talking to Carter over the past few weeks too.”
I pause mid-push and glance over at her.
“We’ve been working through my trauma from the past year.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah, well . . . People who have problems generally don’t like to admit they have problems, and they especially don’t like to admit when they need someone’s help.
It’s embarrassing when you can’t seem to get a grip on your own.
At least I know that’s true when it comes to me.
I didn’t know if he could help but . . . ” She shrugs.
I’ve been there. I know exactly how she feels.
“Anyway, I’m gonna build the very best version of myself. Not for Dad, not for you, not anyone else, but for me.”
“Fuck yes, you are.” I peer around to make sure no one’s listening, then lean over and speak low into her ear. “I know I’m not your boyfriend right now, but I love you.”
“I know I’m not your girlfriend right now, but I love you too.”
“I really want to kiss you.”
“Don’t press your luck, Mac.” She laughs, pushing me away. “Now, get to work!”
“Keep bossing me around like that and you might find yourself tied up later.”
“Promises. Promises.”
“Mmm. I love it when you provoke me.”
She glances over, a mischievous smile tugging at her lips. “Sean Mac . . . are you looking to get into a little trouble later?”
“Trouble found me the minute I found you, Rebel.”
“Oh, hell no!” Aiden yells from the entrance, and our heads snap up. “Nope. Nope. Triple fucking nope! I’m not coming out onto that floor.”
Hannah wades over, water sloshing around her boots and stops in front of him. “You will do what your coach tells you to do, or someone else will start in your place at the next game. Now, go put on some waders and meet us out here.”
“Coach!” He addresses Hannah’s dad and gestures to his outfit. “This is fucking Gucci.”
“I don’t give two shits what it is, Brodie. You’re no better than anyone else,” Hannah snaps.
“Better do what your coach told you to do, son,” her dad says to him.
One second, Aiden’s on dry concrete, and the next, he’s ankle-deep, throwing Hannah over his shoulder and spinning her around.
“This is fucking Gucci!” she says in a voice that mocks him.
“Fuck Gucci!” He laughs, still spinning her around. “I’m so damn proud of you, Han-Han!”
“Thanks. Now, put me down, you big goober. We’ve got work to do!”
I laugh as she struggles to get out of his hold. Their friendship doesn’t bother me like it used to. In fact, I don’t feel a single ounce of jealousy or insecurity anymore.
He drops her down to her feet, then comes over to me, clapping me on the shoulder. “My name is officially on Jade’s birth certificate.”
“Hell, yes.” I wrap my arms around him and slap his back.
“Thanks for taking care of her this morning,” he says, releasing me and looking around at the mess. “Now I see why Hannah couldn’t.”
“She runs a tight ship.” I take in the state of his clothes. “Well, your outfit’s already fucked. Might as well suit up and start helping.”
We spend hours pushing sludge and running wet vacs while Hannah tells us what to do. Every command that flies out of her mouth makes my dick harder and harder. I’m hanging on by a thread here.
“Everybody, take a seat,” Hannah yells over the conversations as Coach and Carter roll the big ass fans out onto the damp concrete floor.
Wiped the hell out and welcoming the break, we all do what she tells us.
“The Islanders have been kind enough to loan us their ice until we build ours back, so I’ll meet you there same time tomorrow morning . . .” she begins.
Watching her in action is the sexiest thing I’ve seen. She continues to talk, but I can’t pay attention to the words coming out of her mouth at this point because I’m too busy fantasizing about the things I wanna do to her.
“Yes, Coach,” my teammates say in unison, breaking me out of my thoughts.
We filter out toward the locker room, and I whistle the entire way while a plan for her smart mouth takes shape in my mind. After a hot shower, I pick up my stick and head to our machine shop to see if there’s anything I can use to make some modifications.
I never make empty promises, Rebel.