Page 1 of Pucking Daddy

1

ZARA

A New Boldness

The neon sign above Mickey's Bar flickers twice before settling into its usual warm glow, casting amber light across the rain-slicked sidewalk.

I push through the heavy wooden door and let the wall of noise hit me—laughter, clinking glasses, some country song I half-recognize bleeding from the jukebox in the corner.

It’s my last night in town. Tomorrow, everything changes.

I shoulder past a group of guys in flannel shirts arguing about something sports-related and slip onto one of the empty stools at the bar.

The leather is cracked, sticky in places I don't want to think about, and absolutely perfect. This place has been my refuge for three years—cheap beer, cheaper therapy from whoever sits next to me, and a bartender named Dolly who never asks questions but always listens.

"The usual?" Dolly appears with a knowing smile, already reaching for the tap.

"Make it two. I'm celebrating."

"Or mourning?"

"Both." I pull out my phone and check my email for the fourteenth time today. Still there. Still real.

Confirmation: Nanny placement effective Monday. Client name will be disclosed upon arrival.

The agency's confidentiality policies border on paranoid, but they pay triple the going rate for high-profile families.

Whatever billionaire's kid I'll be wrangling, I can handle it.

I survived the Hendersons’ five-year-old terror twins. I outlasted the Palmers’ mother-in-law who criticized my every breath. I’ve taken every well-paying job without complaint, and this new one is just another step toward my goal.

My fingers find my necklace—a small silver heart my little brother Danny gave me when I left home at eighteen.

Ten years ago. A decade of being the responsible one, the steady one. The one who shows up.

Dolly slides my beer across the bar.

I lift it in a silent toast to the television mounted in the corner, where men in jerseys are slamming each other into walls on ice.

Hockey. The sport makes no sense to me—why would anyone voluntarily strap knives to their feet and chase a rubber disc?

But the Metro Raptors logo in the corner of the screen catches my attention. That is where I am headed. Same city, anyway.

"That seat taken?"

The voice comes from my left—low, rough around the edges, like he's been yelling all day or hasn't slept enough. I turn.

Oh.

Oh.

He’s tall. That’s my first coherent thought, though “tall” doesn’t quite cover it.

Built like someone designed him to make bar stools look small, and a few years older than me. Brown hair pushed back from a face that belongs on a magazine cover—if the magazine is about brooding intensity and jawlines sharp enough to cut glass.

His eyes find mine, and something in my chest stutters.

"It's all yours," I manage.