Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Coach isn’t kidding when he says the owner has money.
Their family consists of old money and gold medal athletes who marry themselves to professional hockey players.
While they’ve resided in the United States for a few decades now, they have extended family in Russia that handles a lot of athletic training.
And if Yokav wants Moskins, it means he knows who can create a winning team.
I have a lot to think about. “Did he tell you when he’d need a decision by?”
Coach dips his head, grabbing a piece of paper from his desk drawer and sliding it to me. It’s a phone number.
“By the end of the season.”
The end of the season is going to be here before we know it based on how fast the year has flown by. That isn’t a lot of time to make life-changing decisions.
“Weigh your options,” he says, picking up his pen and turning back to his computer. “Take your time with it.”
I can hear the dismissal in his voice, so I slip the paper into my pocket and stand.
Right before I leave, he says, “Hoffman. Honor has always liked the city. But she’s always wanted to live somewhere quieter.
She had a grandmother who lived in Connecticut—a quaint little town not far from here.
She used to beg us to move there when her mother and I were still together.
There was a small diner called Red’s Place that she always asked us to eat at when we were visiting. Last I heard, it’s still open.”
I swallow at the information that he offers me with good intentions. “Good to know.”
His parting words are, “Food for thought.”
*
I scoop Gemma up under my arm and run with her like I’m running a football to the end zone, with her cackling and squealing the entire way as she holds onto me for dear life.
“Penalty! Holding!” Sebastian yells after us, laughing as I flip him off.
“Fuck off, Henderson,” I call out, stopping at the end of the lawn and setting Gemma down.
She looks up at me. “Daddy. You’re not supposed to say that word. You have to say puck. Like Honor’s dog, remember?”
I wince and ruffle her already wild hair that was made worse by the knit cap she pulled off a few minutes into playing. “You’re right, kiddo. Uncle Bash can go puck himself.”
She giggles and dodges past me to run toward her favorite uncle. “Yeah! Uncle Bash can puck himself.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose as my best friend snorts. “Way to raise a lady, Hoffman.”
When I asked Sebastain to come over, it wasn’t to play with Gemma outside.
But my daughter is obsessed with him almost as much as she’s obsessed with Honor’s dog, so it took less than five minutes to convince him to play with her outside.
Even with a thin layer of snow on the ground and a nip in the air, my six-year-old loves being outdoors.
She lunges at Sebastian, barely giving him enough time to catch her. “Are you gonna come to my birthday party, Uncle Bash? Daddy says we can have it before Christmas this year so I can have alllll my birthday presents early.”
Sebastian chuckles, carrying her over to where I’m standing on the deck. “All the presents, huh?”
Gemma nods enthusiastically. “If you need ideas for me, I has a list and I circled the ones I really, really want.”
“Gem,” I chide, giving her a look. “We’ve been over this. You are not getting a pony. We don’t have room for one.”
She frowns. “We have a whole back yard.”
Sebastian snickers.
I shoot him a look before focusing on the broken-hearted looking child in his arms. “There are regulations here. Rules in place to make sure animals, especially farm animals, are living comfortably. We don’t have the space that a horse would need to be happy.”
Her little shoulders slump. “It doesn’t have to be a full-sized horsey,” she says quietly.
I can see it in Sebastian’s eyes. He’s falling for this. “Don’t,” I tell him.
“But—”
“No” I cut him off. “We do not need a horse or a pony.”
Gemma mutters under her breath and Sebastian sighs heavily. “Now she’s sad. Great job dick—” He stops when I clear my throat to stop him from saying a bad word. “Jerk,” he corrects, rolling his eyes.
My daughter turns in his arms to face him, poking the tip of his nose. “Jerk is a mean word, Uncle Bash.”
I nod. “Yeah, Uncle Bash. You hurt my feelings. Deeply.” I cup my chest. “I’m wounded.”
“I’m sure.”
We walk inside so I can get the hot chocolate started. Sebastian helps Gemma out of her coat and boots, then joins me in the kitchen when she runs into the living room to play.
I can feel him watching me as I pour milk into the saucepan on the stove.
“Are you going to tell me what’s up?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest and staring expectantly at me. “You told me you needed to talk. Figured this was a guy thing, so I told Tori and Beck to stay home.”
It takes me a minute to face him, rubbing my neck and feeling the weight on my shoulders. “I had a meeting with coach. He knows my shoulder is fucked.”
Sebastian whistles. “Damn.”
I nod once. “And the meeting was…” I shake my head slowly, still surprised by what he told me even two days later. “Unexpected. He told me about a new opportunity that he thought would be good for me.”
That has my best friend’s brows raising. “A new opportunity as in…?”
I take a deep breath. “A coaching gig.”
He gawks. “For which team? Ours?”
I shake my head. “A new one in the Eastern Conference.”
I tell him everything. There were two people I wanted to talk to about this.
One of them is the man across from me, and the other is Honor.
But Honor has been busy with work, and I didn’t want to tell her about the potential gig over the phone or text.
It’s a conversation that needs to happen face to face.
Sebastian rubs his jaw. “Wow,” he mutters, seemingly as surprised as I was in Coach’s office. “That’s… wow.”
I watch the slow trickle of bubbles pop up from the bottom of the pan. “I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad,” I admit, feeling just as lost now as I was two days ago.
“Why would it be a bad thing? It sounds like it’s still good money and benefits. You’d be staying on the same coast. And Moskins may be a giant prick, but the dude is a damn good player.”
He’s not wrong. Thomas Moskins was ranked one of the best hockey players of the decade by Forbes. If his father-in-law poached him, Moskins must believe it’s a solid team. He’s not one who takes losing well.
“You think I should do it,” I state. It’s not a question, although I’d be interested to know why he thinks that. I would have thought he’d tell me to stay. To tell Yokav to go fuck themselves. That’s not what’s written on my best friend’s face, though.
He uncrosses his arms and pushes himself off the counter where he leans.
“I think your shoulder has been screwing with you all season, and you’ve been hiding how much you’re struggling.
I also think you’ve been debating on how much longer you can do this, and the only two reasons you’re pushing through the pain is for the team and Gemma. ”
Am I that transparent? “You know me a little too well.”
He grins. “I know you have a mole on your right ass cheek, a pension for manscaping, and that you’re always pretending you’re fine with you are anything but.”
I shoot him a look. “You staring at my junk in the locker room, Henderson?”
His lips spread. “Hard not to when everybody’s dicks are out in front of me.”
I have nothing to say to that.
“I also know,” he adds, giving me a look I can’t quite decipher, “that you don’t want to let anybody down. You put people first without thinking twice about it. But what do you want, Bodhi? Because that’s what’s important here.”
I’d counter that Gemma’s happiness is a big part of the decision too. Honor told me how mad she was at her father for not being there for her when she was a child. The last thing I want to do is make my daughter question the level of love I have for her.
Scrubbing my hand down on my tired face, I blow out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know,” I admit, feeling defeated by the truth. “I’ve always thought this was it. I’d play until I physically couldn’t anymore. But then…”
He nods his head in acknowledgment. “But then you had Gemma,” he finishes for me.
“I get it, brother. I would do anything for Beckham. If I were in your shoes, I’d take the job.
I’m not you, though. We can make a pros and cons list or talk it out, but you’re going to have to be the one who ends up deciding what to do. ”
I was afraid he’d say that.
Grabbing three mugs from the cupboard, I begin pouring the cocoa packets into it and then filling them with warm milk. “I know I can still play for another season. Maybe two. What I don’t know is what condition I’ll be in when they’re done. And that fucking scares me, man.”
I pass him one of the mugs after stirring the powder in.
“I get it,” he replies easily. “Have you talked to Honor about any of this?”
My lips twitch at the question. Sebastian and I haven’t discussed my dating life in a hot minute.
Mostly because I tend to shut it down if it’s brought up.
It isn’t because I don’t want people to know—I have no qualms with anyone knowing that I’m head over goddamn heels for the coach’s daughter.
But I know Honor is a private person. And the lifestyle I live can be anything but that if I’m not careful.
The picture of us that went viral is proof enough.
And while I monitored the comments and reposts and media inquiries to make sure that nobody said a bad thing about her, I know it’s only the beginning.
If Honor chooses to be with me, to give me the chance I hope she does, there will be more moments like that.
I refuse to let random people weigh in on my life.
“She doesn’t know,” I admit, staring down into my mug. “I’m going to see her tomorrow. I was hoping to weigh my options before bringing it up, but I don’t know if that’s possible without her opinion.”
“Because she matters to you,” he surmises.
“She does.”
He walks over and clasps my good shoulder. “It’s about time, Hoffman. I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to get past whatever thing you had for my sister.”
I gape at him in disbelief at his comment, which makes him laugh.
“What? Olive is great. She’s my sister, and I love her.
I know your crush wasn’t the only thing holding you back from putting yourself out there, but it was part of it.
I don’t know what happened between the two of you, and I don’t want to.
I’d rather not know the details for the sake of my sanity.
But she went from being playful around you to cautious, like she thought you’d break.
And don’t think I didn’t notice how stiff you’d get around her.
You guys used to banter, and that stopped after she got with Alex.
I’ve been waiting for you to move past that and find someone to make you laugh again. Someone to make you smile.”
I blink slowly. “You make me sound like I’ve been a miserable bastard.”
He grins. “Nah. But I can see when you’re actually happy and when you’re putting on a show. Honor makes your whole damn face light up. I imagine it’s the same way I get when I see Tori.”
Even the small mention of his wife and son makes his face brighten, and I can see what he means. “You should see her with Gem,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s like nothing I’ve seen. When I watch them play, it does something to me, man.”
“I don’t want to hear about your boner,” he cuts in with amusement and seriousness. Some of that melts away when he adds, “But it’s good to hear you have someone. Love looks good on you, Hoffman.”
Love. I’m not an idiot. It took me no time at all to realize that what I feel for Honor is more than some schoolboy crush or temporary lust that would go away with one orgasm. If that were the case, I’d be over her by now.
Every time she’s near, my skin buzzes and my heart races. Her touch, no matter how light or innocent, sets my skin on fire. I’m always craving more. More time with her. More smiles from her. More accidental contact—and definitely more of the intentional kind.
Henderson snickers, bumping his cup against mine. “You’ve got it bad, huh?”
I want to glare at him, but I can’t.
Because I do.
I pick up Gemma’s cup now that it’s cooled down. “You have no idea,” I tell him, walking into the living room and seeing the number one girl in my life curled up on the sofa.
And, suddenly, I can picture Honor curled up under her favorite blanket with her.