“Oh my god, no, please stay,” Ethan gasps, pleading look on his face.
“Yes, please come skate with us!” Riley calls, leaning over the boards. “I’m so tired of being the only girl. Don’t leave me with them.”
“What do you say, Maddy?” Cam asks with a grin. “Want to come skating?”
All three Lowrys look at me at the same time, pleas in their matching blue eyes, and for fuck’s sake. There’s only one answer because I’m a goner for all of them. “Why not?”
When Riley grins, Ethan cheers, and Cam looks at me with warmth in his gaze, I think that there are probably a million reasons why this is a terrible idea, but at the moment, I can’t remember a single one.
“Wildcat?” my dad questions with a wide grin as Cam and his kids head back onto the ice. “I didn’t realize you had reached the nickname stage with your players. Is there a nickname stage in the psychologist-patient relationship?”
“Shut it,” I mutter, feeling my face flame. I grab my water bottle out of the side pocket of my hockey bag, taking a sip of the orange soda inside to stall for time.
My dad bumps his shoulder with mine and, like he’s done for the entire time I’ve known him, he waits for me to be ready to talk. I sigh, feeling the truth bubbling up in my throat. My dad has always been the person I tell things to, so why should this be any different? “There’s…kind of a thing. But I’m trying really hard for it not to be a thing.”
He turns to me, his eyes curious. “Why would you do that?”
I huff out a laugh. “Are you serious right now?” I tick off the reasons on my fingers. “Number one. I’m a psychologist working for the team. He’s literally my patient, so holy ethics violations. Number two. My uncle is the general manager of the team, so it already looks like I’m drowning in the nepotism pool by getting this job in the first place, which will not be helped by the optics of this particular personal relationship. Number three. I’m a woman in professional sports. Can you imagine the blowback if this got out? No one thinks women belong in professional sports, and if I sleep with a player, I’ll just be proving them right.”
My dad winces, pained expression on his face. “Okay, can we use another phrase? Any other phrase. I don’t want to think of my baby girl sleeping with anyone.”
I roll my eyes. “Be serious, Dad. I’m thirty years old. You really think I haven’t slept with anyone?”
I’ve slept with Camis the only thought in my head. If you could call what we didsleeping together. I would call it other things. Like fucking. Dirty, filthy fucking.
Shut it down, Maddy.
Do not think about the dirty, filthy fucking when there are children and a dad present.
“I’d prefer to inhabit a world where you haven’t. I’m a dad. Let me live, Little Red.” But then his eyes soften. “Look, I know better than anyone that when something is right, when it makes you happy, you should grab onto it with both hands and hold tight. All of your reasons are real and valid, but nothing is insurmountable. I promise. So, does it make you happy?”
I glance over at the rink where Cam is shooting pucks at the net with his kids, and as if he feels me looking at him, he glances up. When his eyes meet mine, he shoots me a grin and a wink, and my entire body warms, despite the cold rink air. “I don’t know yet,” I lie.
I do know.
My dad looks at me like he knows I’m full of shit, but he lets it slide. “Well, if the time comes that you do know, I’m always here to talk. Don’t ever forget you have an entire family behind you who would go to war to make sure no one fucks with you and your happiness.”
My eyes burn at this reminder—that my dad would know to give it to me—and my body relaxes fractionally at releasing some of this truth. “I know. But do you think you can maybe not tell anyone about this? Especially Uncle Brian. I want to figure this out on my own before I involve anyone else.”
He nods. “It’s in the vault, Little Red. Not even my brother has access to the keys. Now, what do you say we go show those kids and their dad who can’t keep his eyes off you what the Wrights are made of on the ice?”
When I look back over at Cam, his eyes are still fixed on me.He raises an eyebrow and tips his head in the direction of the ice as if to sayWhat are you waiting for?
And even though there are a million reasons to turn around and walk straight out the doors, there are three very important reasons not to. So, for once, I tell the protesting voices in my head to shut the fuck up and follow my dad towards the ice.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MADDY
Pulling my hockey skates from my bag, I kick off my shoes and bend to slide my right foot into the boot.
“Let me.”
Before I can react, Cam is kneeling down in front of me, taking the skate from my hand.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my head automatically shooting up to determine everyone’s whereabouts, but no one is paying us any attention. My dad is occupied, explaining something to Ethan that involves, like, thirty pucks scattered at their feet, and, for reasons passing understanding, four hockey sticks, and Riley is flying around the perimeter of the ice, head bobbing to the music in her earbuds.
“I’m putting on your skates,” Cam says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
