“Oh?” Just because Robbie didn’t know what he wanted to do next, now that his hockey career was over, and was maybe in a bit of a funk about it, didn’t mean that he wanted his ersatz kid to worry about it. Or worse, plan it for him.
“Yes. Have you?”
Once upon a time, Robbie’s day-to-day life was not filled with teenage sass. But now that Robbie wasn’t country hopping a couple times a week, the available space in his life had been taken up by his nephew.
It could definitely be worse. Being alone, for example, would definitely be worse. That didn’t mean Robbie had to enjoy the sass.
“Of course not. I just stare at the wall all day while I wait for you to return home.”
“No one could blame you. I’m him. But you need more in your life than just me, Uncle Robs.”
Robbie wasn’t actually sure if the kid was matching sass for sass or if the sarcasm had just gone right over his head.
“At least watch some porn, jeez.”
Could you still sell children to wandering knights and the like? “Let me guess: you know exactly what I should be doing.”
“Well…,” Sawyer started. “No, not exactly, but come on! You can’t just do yoga all day. You could do colour commentary.”
Robbie pulled a face. “No thanks.” He might have enjoyed his career in hockey, but he didn’t want to just jump right back in. Actually, he didn’t want to jump into anything yet—not when the future felt so open, so nebulous, so… undefined. If he took a job in hockey right now, it would be easy not to think about the future and whathewanted.
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “Why not? You’d be so good at it. You have lots of opinions, and for some reason other people think you’ve got rizz.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You collect novelty magnets, tell dad jokes, and dress like you only shop at Goodwill.”
“You say that like those are bad things.”
“Your last contract paid you more than eight million a year,” Sawyer said unhappily. “You could at least dress like it.”
“Ah, but then I wouldn’t have the funds to support your Minecraft habit.”
“Like my games have emptied your coffers.” He ate another noodle. Robbie hoped that his tragically short attention span had moved on to the next subject. “Though Ihavebeen thinking about the future.”
“And?”Here we go.
“Well, I plan to attend college for approximately twenty years, so you’re going to need a lot of money—”
No such luck on the subject change. “Kid, you can’t complain about my unused NHL salary in one breath and thentell me I need a second job to send you to college in the next.” Sawyer pouted. “Try again.”
Sawyer’s eyes narrowed, and Robbie instantly regretted those words. Where most people would hear a brush-off, Sawyer heard a challenge.
Robbie almost dropped his head to the kitchen table in defeat. Lord only knew what Sawyer would come up with next.
“I’ll remind you that you said that,” Sawyer said cheerfully.
Jesus Christ. That was definitely a threat.
While Robbiemight have a brain under his beautiful head of hair, he was still a jock at heart, and he forgot to be on his guard. Or at least he forgot to be on his guard more than minding a fourteen-year-old megalomaniac usually required. Two weeks later, when he received an email thanking him for his interest in being a contestant onDance Your Ice Offand welcoming him to the team, he spent several moments blinking in confusion before it occurred to him that Sawyer had made good on his threat.
He had to hand it to the kid, though: apart from the whole thing where he apparently pretended to be Robbie’s agent and told these people Robbie would be “just thrilled” to be on their show, he’d represented Robbie well. To twist the knife just a little, he’d selected the LGBT Youth Line as Robbie’s charity of choice, which would receive a $50,000 donation if Robbie won the competition. So if Robbie told the truth or pretended to change his mind, he’d feel immense guilt.
Robbie took a moment to Google what the competition entailed, which seemed to be hockey players of all genders pairing up with figure skaters to see who fell over in the leastembarrassing way. He didn’t bother watching the videos; the thumbnail images made the contents clear enough.
He took a few moments to wonder where Sawyer got the audacity, then decided he probably didn’t want to know and hit Reply.
If he also immediately invited Sawyer for dinner, that was hardly unusual.
