“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 wasnot 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 isours?”
“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.
