“Yeah, yeah,” she says, sitting up a little straighter. “Don’t forget you promised I get to pick dinner because my mad acting skills got me the lead, and I want tacos. Also, don’t look now, but the feral moms have spotted you.”
Riley gives me a sly smirk as I roll my eyes, glancing to my left to see five or six moms of boys on Ethan’s team—the ones Riley has nicknamed the feral moms—eyeing me in a way that has my skin crawling, my first instinct to duck into the collar of my own hoodie like Riley just did.
“Why do they always do that?” I mutter, tugging up my hood and hunching my shoulders just a little, disappearing as much as a six-foot three-inch, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound football player possibly can.
“It’s the hot single dad thing,” Riley says matter-of-factly, her eyes on the ice as Ethan whips the puck across to one of histeammates. “Also, the professional athlete thing. You’re a hot commodity, Dad,” she says with a grimace, like she finds the idea absolutely abhorrent. “Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”
I do know. I also know that it’s never really bothered me before, the way the moms stare. Or approach me after the practices and games I make it to, using their kids as an excuse. I’ve always ignored it and even found it amusing at times. But for some reason, today it’s unnerving. Okay fine, not for some reason. For one particular reason.
Maddy.
Even thinking of her makes me smile. The way her red hair tumbled over her shoulders while she enthusiastically told me all the reasons why we absolutely could not have a repeat of our night together. The way her green eyes flashed and heated when I ran my hand over the back of hers. The way her freckled brow furrowed when I told her we could be whatever she wanted us to be, that I was happy just to be able to see her face every day. As if it was impossible for her to believe that someone could feel that way about her.
It seems insane that I met her less than twenty-four hours ago because she already feels dug deep into my bones. Like we were meant to meet. Meant to crash into each other the way we did last night.
Like I was meant to know her.
I don’t entirely know what to do with all the feelings swarming around inside me. Not once in ten years have I ever met anyone who made mefeel. There has only been one woman in my entire thirty-four years who made me feel, and I married her. I loved her with everything in me, and I know without one single doubt that I would have kept on loving her for the rest of my life. When she died, I thought that part of my life was over. I had my one great love, and if I couldn’t have the kind of love I had with Lainey, it didn’t seem worth the trouble. I have two great kids and a career I’m proud of, and that was enough for me.
But then I saw a redhead in a bar, and for the second time in my life, I was a goner. And maybe it’s a little weird to have feelings like this for someone who isn’t my wife for the very first time—like stretching out muscles after the longest night’s sleep—but it doesn’t feel wrong. Lainey was a romantic right down to her core, and I know in my bones that if I ignore what I feel for Maddy, Lainey would kick my ass until I did something about it.
So yeah, there’s only one woman I want staring at me, even if she seems determined not to. Or, at least, she thinks she is. I smile a little, thinking of the way we left things earlier today. The look on her face when I dropped the bag on her desk and left her office. The surprised confusion. The crinkle in her nose when she looked at me like she was trying to figure me out. I chuckle to myself, thinking that I would have loved to be there when she opened the bag and saw what was inside.
Go figure that the first person I’ve met in ten years who I feel a connection with that goes deeper than just a first date or a night or two of fun would be the one person I should probably steer clear from in any way that isn’t professional.
Alanis Morisette would have a thing or two to say about that.
The thing is, there’s a part of me that’s never been much of a rule follower. It’s been buried for the past decade under the responsibilities that come with two kids and life as a professional athlete, but last night with Maddy awakened something in me. Something I haven’t felt in years. Something that makes me feel authentically myself, like a missing puzzle piece slotting back into place.
I want to chase that feeling, bad decisions be damned.
With a grin, I pull out my phone and unlock it, tapping on my grocery delivery app to stock up on some supplies.
Maddy’s about to see just how good a friend Cam Lowry can be.
“Uh, Dad? Game’s over.”
I shake myself out of my thoughts at Riley’s voice, relegating grocery delivery and my plans for Maddy to later and shoving myphone into my pocket, glancing at the ice to see both teams filing off. All around us, spectators are getting up, and my daughter stands in front of me, her hands on her hips, studying me like she’s never seen me before.
“Thanks, Ry,” I say, standing up.
“Where did you go?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“In your head.” She follows me off the bleachers to the rink door so we can meet up with Ethan but doesn’t stop talking. “You never don’t pay attention during Ethan’s games, so whatever you were thinking about must have been important.”
Important? Yes.
Potentially life-changing? Also yes.
I toss an arm around my daughter’s shoulders, feeling a warm glow when she doesn’t duck away like she sometimes does when her supremely uncool father shows affection in public. “You’re pretty smart Ry, you know that?”
She grins up at me. “In fact, I do know that. So, what were you thinking about?”
I shrug as we push open the door into the lobby of the arena. “Just work stuff. The regular season starts next week, so life is about to get busy again.”
It’s not the truth of what I was thinking about, but it’s definitely a truth. Even all these years into my football career, the beginning of the regular season and the switch back to travel and game day mode and the regular practice schedule is always an adjustment.
