We go back down to the kitchen and I pull out my supplies.
“What is it?” she asks when I finish laying out the pieces on the table.
“It’s not what it is right now,” I say as I unfold a square. “It’s what it’sgoingto be.”
Her little brow furrows.
“This is the start of a blanket.”
Now the furrow deepens. “It doesn’tlooklike a blanket.”
“Nope,” I tell her as I reach back into my bag and pull out a stack of pink fabric. “But I think the best blankets are the ones that are made from lots of different pieces.” I line up one square of pink then another and another. “See if every square is a piece of something special”—I hold up a scrap of sparkly gold that will go well with the striped pink I’ve just placed—“when you put them all together, you get something even better than you planned.”
I lean back.
She’s silent, studying the pattern I’ve begun to lay out.
Then she reaches for another square. “How about this one next?”
“I think that works perfectly.”
She smiles, starts sorting through the pile, looking for the next perfect piece, and I find my gaze drifting up, sliding across the room.
To Rhodes, who’s back to propping up the wall.
Our eyes connect again and he nods approvingly…then tilts his head down the hall. “I’ll leave you two girls to it.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Chloe says distractedly, focused on choosing her next square.
I nod.
He nods back and I know I’ve got the job.
Butterflies in my stomach. My heart thudding against my ribs.
And the distinct sensation that my life is never going to be the same.
Two
Rhodes
I hear the music first—andChrist, it must be King’s day to run the speakers considering the boy band anthem that’s blasting through the air, greeting me as I walk down the hall and into the locker room.
Which smells like sweat, tape, and a fruity hint of stick wax.
That’s to say—it smells like hockey.
Noise and chaos and teammates andhome.
Shit-giving radiates through the air, competing with the pop song’s chorus, punctuating the beat with bouts of laughter. But it’s not just the noise, it’s the activity from my teammates too—Huddy stick-handling in the corner of the room, the golf ball he’s training with moving almost faster than my eyes can track, Rome tying his skates, West taping his socks, Cam tugging on his shoulder pads, Wilder parading around in his jock like the goofy rookie he is.
The golf ball flies through the air, beaning Wilder in the ass.
He yelps and turns to glare.
But the rest of us are laughing.
“What can I say?” King smirks as he tugs on his jersey. “Huddy’s got good seriously hands.”
