“I did,” Maddy says with a smile. “I played hockey from the time I was seven years old until I graduated from college. Now I just skate for fun as much as I can.”
Oh, holy fuck. I’m suddenly assaulted by an image of Maddy flying down the ice in full gear with a hockey stick in her hand, and I don’t know why that’s so hot, but it really fucking is.
Don’t you dare get a boner standing here in the parking lot with your kids.
Your kids, Cam.
Don’t you fucking dare.
“That’s cool that you played.” Riley studies Maddy curiously. “I’ve never met a girl who played hockey before. It’s so badass.”
Maddy glances up at me with laughter in her eyes at Riley’s blunt statement and then back down at my daughter. “Female hockey players are definitely badass. I loved playing. And now I just love skating, and I’m lucky I get to do it here whenever I want.”
I wonder what she means by that. How often she skates. How she can be here when there’s no public skating time scheduled this afternoon.
My eyes bounce between Maddy and my kids as they have a conversation like they’ve known each other forever, and when our gazes lock and hold, I can’t name the feeling that settles into my chest, but I think it’s something like rightness.
And there’s a thought it’s way too soon to be having.
“I love it too,” Ethan says. “I just had a game, and we’re about to go have two dinners because I’m starving.”
Maddy laughs, and the sound is like sunshine. “I’ll let you get to all your dinners. It was really nice meeting you guys. I’m going to go get my skate on.”
“The rink is empty,” I blurt out for no apparent reason except I don’t want her to leave. I want her to stay and keep talking to my kids and especially to me.
Maybe forever.
“My favorite time to skate,” she says with a smile and a wave as she walks past us towards the rink, pushing open the doors and heading inside. My eyes stay glued to her back until she disappears from view.
“She’s cool,” Riley says, yanking me out of my head and back into the moment. “It’s awesome when women work in men’s professional sports.”
“It is,” I agree, leading both kids to the car. “The Renegades have lots of women who work with the team.”
“Every team should,” Ethan says bluntly as he climbs into the car.
“They should, but they don’t.” Riley hops in on the other side and tugs her seatbelt on.
I get in and start the engine, my kids still dissecting and excoriating the lack of female representation in professional sports, and it makes me smile, pride filling my chest. I’ve told Riley and Ethan stories about what a certified badass their mom was. About how she was a math major in college and took so many classes where she was the only woman in the room. How she made it her life’s work to teach kids to love science and math as much as she did. And every single day, they spend time with my mom who, although mostly retired from her position as partner in one of the biggest accounting firms in Pennsylvania, is still a complete boss who raised me all on her own after my dad left when I was a baby and is ten times smarter than any man in any room.
I want the world my kids live in to be one where they see women kicking ass all over the place. For Riley to know that every door in the world is open to her and for Ethan to understand that too.
I may be a single dad, but there’s no patriarchy in my house.
And as I drive home, I think of another badass woman. One with gorgeous red hair and the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen, and I’m already counting the minutes until I get to talk to her again.
CHAPTER SIX
MADDY
“Wait, he brought you how many mini boxes of cereal?”
“Eight.” I answer Emmy with a groan, flopping down on the couch in the living room of the town house Sarah and Sophie share. “I guess he didn’t know what kind I liked, so he got every single kind the store carried in the mini version. There was also milk for the cereal, five bags of different flavored M&M’s, a bag of kettle corn, and four cans of orange soda.”
“And don’t forget about the thermos,” Maya says with a wicked grin, sitting down next to me on the couch.
“I wasn’t going to tell them about the thermos,” I mutter, dropping my head back onto the cushions.
“Well, now you have to.” Sophie leans forward in her chair, elbows on her knees like she’s waiting for the greatest story ever. “I can’t believe your mystery man is Cam Lowry. He does some work for the foundation and is such a great guy. I wish we had stayed at the bar just ten minutes longer so we could have watched it go down.”
