Finn pulls me away and Jake swears and rushes to Ronan, toppling to the ice beside him in his heavy goalie gear.
“Worth it,” I confirm to Finn before I skate off the ice.
18
ABBOTT
I expect her harsh words.I expect her to literally tear a strip off me while ripping me a new asshole. But she does something far worse. Aspen just stands there, staring at me with tears streaming down her face. Aspen never cries. Never.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t let him get away with it,” I tell her and hobble towards her on my skates. I’ve been sitting with my head in my hands on the bench in the locker room for the last fifteen minutes. I was expecting the coach or Pennie to be the first person I had to apologize to, but it’s Aspen.
“Get away with what? He called me an idiot? A whore? Called Andie a bastard? What?” Aspen asks. The tone in her voice isn’t anger or frustration. It’s not rage. She’s genuinely and all-consumingly sad. Because of me. She wipes at her tears in quick swipes with her fingers. “Because I’ve heard it all from him before. In drunken texts and phone calls ever since he figured out his part in Andie’s paternity. I’ve never clocked him. Why do you think you get to?”
“Because someone has to!”
“Why? What did that accomplish?” Her voice is emphatic but still not loud. “He’s not going to suddenly turn into a willing dad and, remember, we don’t want him to anyway.”
“Aspen. I—"
She shakes her head. “Shut up, okay? I knew this would happen if I told you the truth. This is why I didn’t want you to know.”
I try to pull her into a hug but she shoves me back and covers her face with her hands. When she speaks next, I swear I don’t hear her right. It’s so muffled, it must be a mistake. There is no way she just said ‘Mom and Dad are here.’
“Wh… what?” I ask.
She lifts her head from her hands. “I said, Mom and Dad are here.”
“Why? How? They don’t even live here anymore!”
“It’s a public event, Abbott. They don’t need your permission,” Aspen replies and wipes away more tears. “They saw me. And Andie. They saw her and you should have seen the look on Mom’s face.”
I can only imagine the long list of inappropriate expressions my mother could make at the sight of her only grandchild. “Was she angry? Shocked? Horrified.”
“She… she smiled. And it wasn’t her usual bitter, bitchy smile either,” Aspen explains, and she looks like she’s just walked through an explicitly scary haunted house or something. “And then she started to tear up. It was after your little macho bullshit and I guess she heard me yell your name because I didn’t even know she was there but then I heard her call my name. I turned and there she was. Up in the back, standing next to your Riptide publicity manager. She said my name but her eyes were locked on Andie, who was on Javi’s hip. So I grabbed her and Javi and we left. Javi took Andie back to his place in my car, and I came down here to talk to you.”
“Aspen, she already knew Andie existed, I’m sure. They may have moved to Connecticut but I’m sure Mom still reads Mrs. Green’s blog,” I tell her, but it still makes me panic that they appeared out of nowhere after years of ignoring us completely.
“Yeah, I figured that too. And it isn’t that I think she was shocked to see her,” Aspen sniffs and runs her hands over her curls. “She looked… happy to see her. Not like… like she was ashamed. She… She was going to talk to me.”
“Okay well, she didn’t. And Andie is gone. She’s safe.” I pull her into a hug and this time she lets me. “I fucked this thing up with Ronan, I admit it. I’m sorry. I won’t fuck up things with Mom and Dad. They won’t get to her or you. I swear.”
“Abbott!” Pennie’s voice echoes down the hall. Aspen pulls out of the hug as the clicking of heels gets closer and closer. “Abbott! You just hit a firefighter at a charity event!”
“Yeah. I know,” I reply as Aspen steps away and leaves the room with one last sniffle. “Why are my parents here?”
“A firefighter! A first responder! You. Hit. Him.” Pennie replies, her voice trembling with horror and probably panic because this is her mess to clean up. “Coach Maxwell is… I don’t even think there’s a word that can describe his level of anger.”
“Is Ronan alright?”
“Yes. One of the paramedics on his team looked him over and he’s fine,” Pennie replies.
“Which paramedic because one of them isn’t a paramedic.”
“What? Abbott, can you focus? Do you understand what you did?” Pennie replies. “How much media is here? This was a simple, positive, feel-good piece for the Riptide and now it’s…”
She sighs and swears under her breath. When she looks at me she seems much calmer. “This is going to make you look like a mistake. Like the Riptide made a mistake. The coach might very well get what he wants and trade you away before you even set foot on the home ice. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I do. And I will explain everything to the coach. Everything,” I say and my brain instantly starts spinning with what parts of ‘everything’ I can actually tell him. The less people who know about Andie’s paternity the better. “Now please answer me. Why are my parents here.”
