“Once.”
“Did she want to make amends?”
“She didn’t track me down so she could make up for the fact she was a shitty human being. Since she had given birth to one of the best NHL players to ever grace the ice—her words, not mine—it didn’t make sense that she was struggling to make ends meet.”
“She’d lost her job?”
“She’d picked up a gambling addiction.”
“How did you know?”
“I had hired private investigators to keep tabs on her. Fromthe moment we got drafted in the big leagues, Erik always warned me my mother would come out from under the rock she lived in and ask for money.”
“Did you cave?”
I shake my head. “When she threatened to go public for a quick payday, I told her to go for it.”
“You did?”
“A mother who abandoned her newborn child before even naming him so she wouldn’t lose her puck bunny status—so many cocks, too little time—wasn’t going to garner much sympathy from the public.”
Harley nods.
“She didn’t have a leg to stand on, so she crawled back under her rock, and I never heard from her again.”
Harley shakes her head.
“Here’s the irony, the woman who gave birth to me when she was twenty-one and Dad was twenty-three, was a flight attendant for the Boston team. Devlyn cheated on me with the captain of the Boston Bruisers.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I always hated playing that team.”
A beat of silence passes between us.
“I’m guessing your dad named you,” Harley says, breaking the silence.
“Nana Saoirse did,” I say. “Since my grandfather was Norwegian, my grandmother wanted a name that fits my last name. My middle name is Beckham. She liked the name.”
Harley angles her body on the couch so she’s facing me, in the process her pink, fuzzy slipper falls off a foot. She removes the other one.
“A few articles online suggest you and your dad…”
“Aren’t on speaking terms.” I finishfor her.
“It’s as if he has a vendetta against you.” Expectant green eyes stare up at me.
“I’m lucky I had grandparents who were only too happy and eager to shower me with love and devotion.”
“Message received,” she says.
I reach for my beer, take a swig, and grimace.
Fuck, it’s warm.
I drop the bottle on the coffee table.
“In the short time I dated Chett, I always had the impression there was some kind of weird power-play game he wanted to exert over you,” Harley says.
