Chapter 3
Morning came too soon the next day. For a minute after my alarm went off, I blinked around the hotel room, unsure of where I was. The uncertainty was a feeling I was used to. An NHL player spent a lot of mornings waking up in strange hotel rooms. But the season hadn’t even started yet.
Austin, I remembered. I was in a hotel room in Austin. Because Andrew Knight had bought an NHL team and moved it here. And then traded to get me.
I rubbed at my gritty eyes. I definitely had too much to drink last night.
It wasn’t all a reaction to the shock of seeing Gracie, either.
It had been the first time I’d had a chance to catch up with Jay in ages.
That had been one nice surprise when I was traded to Austin, finding out that he was going to be here as well.
We hadn’t been on the same team since we met in college.
I’d spent most of my NHL career in New York but Jason’s path had been decidedly different.
He’d been traded again and again, sent down to the minors more times than I could count, and still he kept plugging along.
I don’t think he’d stayed on the same team for longer than a season or two since we graduated.
Maybe Austin could be a place for him to establish some roots.
And speaking of putting down roots…I heaved myself out of bed and headed to the shower. I was supposed to be meeting with the real estate agent at the new house in less than two hours, and I still had to make it over to my in-laws to pick up Josie.
The thought of my eight-year-old daughter had a familiar anxiety brewing in my gut.
To say that she had been unhappy about the move was an understatement.
I couldn’t blame her. She was a shy girl and I knew the idea of starting at a new school was hard for her.
Even worse, leaving New York meant leaving her mom.
And even though Chloe had never been the kind of mother my baby girl deserved, she was still going to miss her.
Can you miss someone you barely ever saw? I thought to myself, feeling that old twinge of bitterness threatening to rise up.
A fresh start for everyone. It had become something of a mantra over the last few weeks.
Maybe if I said it enough times it would become true.
I climbed out of the shower, trying to feel positive.
Josie would meet new friends in no time.
The schools here were supposed to be really good.
I had done a lot of research on the area since the trade went through and I knew I’d be able to find plenty of outdoorsy activities for us to do in my down time, and Josie had always loved being outside.
She was going to miss the snow come winter, but maybe I’d be able to get us away somewhere cold for a few days if there was a break in the schedule.
The real benefit of this move, though, was the house that I pulled up to twenty minutes later.
It had been a stroke of the best kind of luck to get traded to Austin, which just happened to be the place where Chloe’s parents had settled down after their retirement.
Josie’s maternal grandparents had always doted on her, even as their daughter dropped the ball again and again.
Having them so close was a godsend. I would no longer feel so anxious every time I had to go on the road, leaving my baby girl with nannies.
Everyone who had ever watched her had been extensively vetted, of course, but I still never liked the idea of leaving her with anyone but family.
And since her mother could rarely be counted on…
Enough, I thought, climbing the stairs to the front porch. The last thing I ever wanted to do was let Josie know how little I thought of her mom. So no matter how annoyed or disappointed I was with Chloe, I would never mention it in front of my girl.
I knocked twice on the front door before pushing it open. “Anybody home?”
“In here,” Evelyn called out and I followed her voice back to the kitchen. My heart gave a tug at the sight that greeted me. Josie was standing on a chair next to her grandmother, helping to mix something in a big yellow bowl on the counter, while Peter, her grandfather, sipped coffee at the table.
“Something smells good,” I said.
Josie turned to me and her expression just about broke my heart. A brief flash of what looked like excitement to see me before a newly-familiar scowl settled in place. “Oh,” she said, voice flat. “You’re here.”
Peter shot me a sympathetic smile and I managed one in return. “We get our keys to the new house today,” I said brightly, ignoring the less than stellar reception. “You’ll get to check it out.”
“Yay.”
I almost laughed at her flat tone. I had thought I had a while before the sullen teen years kicked in, but my Josie had always been an early bloomer.
“Go wash your hands,” Evelyn said, bumping her hip against her granddaughter’s. “I can handle this from here.”
“But I wanted to help,” Josie whined.
“You did help.” Evelyn pointed at the empty plates on the kitchen table. “We already ate the first batch. This dough just needs to go in the fridge for now.”
From the scent clinging to the air, I was pretty sure they’d had cinnamon rolls for breakfast. “No fair, you didn’t save any for me?”
“Of course we did, silly,” Josie said, giving me her old squinty-eyed smile. Then, when she remembered that she was mad at me, she turned away.
“Give it time,” Evelyn mouthed from the counter. “Your plate is right there,” she added out loud, nodding her head towards a covered dish on the table.
I stuffed half a gooey cinnamon roll in my mouth while Josie washed her hands at the sink. “Ohh muh gargh,” I moaned around the mouthful of pastry. I swallowed. “Josie girl, that’s the best thing I ever ate.”
She kept her head down, but I could still see the reluctant smile twitch at the corners of her lips. I would take it. Any smile from Josie these days was worth celebrating.
Evelyn and Peter followed us to the new house.
We had our first team meeting later in the morning and they were going to take Josie school shopping for me while I was at the rink.
Having them around was already taking so much stress off my shoulders.
I had dreaded the start of the hockey season last year.
Our custody arrangement stated Chloe would take Josie when I went out of town, but it rarely happened that way.
Last summer at this time, I’d been scrambling to find a nanny I trusted enough for overnights.
Now I could rest easy knowing two people who loved my little girl dearly were within driving distance.
I pulled up in front of the house and turned to face Josie in the back seat.
She’d been completely silent the entire short ride, her nose buried in a book.
Though the sight of her reading was not at all unusual, her silence definitely was.
The girl usually talked my ear off when we were in the car together.
Give it time, Evelyn had told me. Add that to my list of new mantras.
“We’re here, babe,” I told my daughter. “What do you think?”
Josie turned her head towards the house and her mouth dropped. “This is ours?”
“Yup. I had a nice real estate agent pick it out for us.”
“It’s huge,” she said, eyes wide. “It’s like…a mansion.”
A McMansion was more accurate. In all honesty, I had never imagined myself living in a place like this.
I’d grown up solidly working class in Minnesota.
My parents still lived in the old house, a three-bedroom brick ranch in a quiet little suburb of St. Paul.
When I’d gotten my first NHL contract, Chloe pushed and pushed for a house like this in New York.
Which would have meant living far outside the city and commuting in.
In the end, we’d compromised on a pretty swanky condo close to the arena.
Even that had felt excessive to me, but compared to this place, the three-bedroom condo had been miniscule.
It had also been the only real home Josie had ever known.
“I really wanted you to have a great backyard,” I told her now. “That was the worst part about living in the city, don’t you think?”
She made a face. “In the city we had Central Park.”
I blew out a breath, trying to keep from getting snappy with her. None of this was her fault. “True. But you always loved playing in Grandma’s back yard when we came here to visit. And Nana’s backyard when we go to St. Paul.”
She didn’t say anything and I took it as a small victory. At least she wasn’t sniping at me.
“Let’s go check it out,” I told her, unbuckling my seatbelt.
Peter and Evelyn met us on the front lawn. “Hell, son,” Peter said, staring up at the house. “This is quite the pile of bricks you got here.”
I laughed. “I may have gone a little overboard. I was just so excited about the chance to stretch out a little bit.”
He clapped me on the back. “I hear you. No idea how you managed in that over-crowded city for so long, all piled up on each other like sardines. Being out here in the open air will do you both a lot of good.”
I didn’t mention that Austin was like, the tenth or eleventh largest city in the country. To my former father-in-law, any place in Texas was far superior to any place out East.
“There’s the agent,” I said, spotting a car turning into the quiet little cul-de-sac.
I’d never actually met the woman. Everything had been so crazy with the trade and the team moving I hadn’t had a chance to come check out properties myself.
I’d let my lawyer handle the whole thing for me.
She’d sent me pictures of available houses from the real estate agent and I chose the one I thought Josie would like best. One of the perks of being a rich, spoiled athlete, I guessed.
The agent, Jan, was a pleasant middle-aged woman with a strong Texas twang to her voice. “Y’all’ll be real happy here,” she said cheerfully. “The neighborhood’s just great.” She smiled down at Josie. “Lots of little ones running around for y’all to make friends with.”
“I had friends in New York,” Josie muttered.
I nudged her shoulder. “Manners, young lady.” I could overlook a lot of her attitude towards me during this tough transition, but I’d raised her better than to be rude to strangers.
“Moving can be tough,” Jan said to me kindly. “I understand.”
Once she’d handed over the keys, I signed a few papers and the agent was off, leaving the four of us alone on the front stoop of the giant house. I swallowed, looking up at the somewhat imposing facade. Maybe I had overdone it a little bit.
Filling my voice with all the false confidence I could muster, I patted my daughter’s shoulder. “Well, let’s see how we like it.”
The house seemed even bigger on the inside. The entry hall featured a grand, curving staircase and a sparkling chandelier high above. Most of the first floor had an open concept design so from there we could see back to the great room and kitchen.
“Where’d this furniture come from?” Josie asked, staring at a massive ten-person table in the formal dining room to our left.
“This house came furnished,” I explained.
“So does that mean…” she trailed off, rubbing at her eyes. Shit. I knew what it meant when she rubbed her eyes like that. She was trying to keep from crying.
I knelt down in front of her. “What’s wrong, baby girl?”
“All of our things in New York,” she mumbled, not meeting my gaze with her now-red eyes. “What’s going to happen to them?”
“We left some of it there,” I told her. “In storage, until things feel more settled at least. But I did have them ship a few things to Texas. Why don’t you run upstairs to your room and see?”
She rubbed her eyes again, still looking on the verge of a breakdown, then walked slowly to the stairs, her shoulders hunched. “Will you come with me Granny?” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“Of course, honey.” Evelyn took her hand and led her to the staircase. I watched them go, feeling that familiar tightening in my chest. God, I hated how hard this was on her.
“She’s gonna be just fine,” Peter assured me, squeezing my shoulder. “She’s a tough cookie.”
“I know.” I ran a hand roughly over my face. “Just wish it was easier on her.”
“This will be good for her,” he said. “A little distance from her mom might be just what she needs.” There was a brittle hardness to his voice that was impossible to miss, and I winced.
It was difficult for them, knowing how much their own daughter had hurt Josie.
Chloe had always been flighty but I don’t think any of us could have imagined how things would turn out.
“Come on, old man,” I told him, slapping him on the back. “My agent said she arranged for a grocery delivery. With any luck there’s a couple cold beers in the fridge.”
No sooner had we reached the kitchen did we hear footsteps pounding down the stairs. “They brought my bed!” Josie called. “My white one, from home! They even brought my purple quilt Nana made me! And all my stuffies and my posters, too!”
She appeared in the doorway and my heart clenched at the sight of her happy face. It had been a while since I’d seen her smile so big. As I watched, her eyes widened, something catching her attention outside the sliding glass doors off the kitchen. “Is that a pool?”
“Sure thing, chicken wing,” I said, brushing my hand over her soft blonde hair and smiling when she didn’t shrink away. “You think I was going to move you down to Texas without a pool? Your little northern girl heart would melt like a popsicle in this heat.”
She grinned up at me, showing off her two missing teeth, and I grinned right back. “There’s a play set out there too.”
“Awesome!” She took off for the sliding doors and I followed her, feeling much lighter than I had when we’d arrived. Maybe I’d finally done something right for my daughter after all.