Only One Kiss (Only One 1)

I suddenly feel out of place. “I just stopped by to pick up the bottles,” I say to Evan, who is glaring at me for some reason. “Thank you for keeping them for me,” I say to Candace, who looks taken aback that I’m leaving since we were in the middle of a conversation. I put one bottle in my left pocket, another bottle in the right one, and I carry two in my hand. “Have a great day, everyone.” I nod to them and walk out of the house, feeling like a fucking idiot. I get to my truck and buckle Ari in as she smiles at me and slaps her hands up and down. “I’m sorry, baby girl,” I say, kissing her, blinking away the tears in my eyes.

“What was that?” I hear from behind me and make the mistake of turning around and seeing Candace standing in the middle of her driveway naked. Okay, fine, she has her shorts and top on, but it’s almost as if she’s naked. I look around to see if any of her neighbors are out looking at her. The Texas heat starting to get hotter and hotter as we stand here, I spot no one out of their house because of this.

“I didn’t want to intrude on family time,” I say, looking back at Ari as she smiles at Candace.

“You were not intruding on anything,” she says. “Would you like to come back in?”

“Not really,” I say and then look at the side, trying not to kick myself when I see her face.

“Okay, then,” she says, her voice going just a touch lower than it was before. “Have a great day.” She turns and walks away from me and instead of going after her, I get into my truck and drive back to my house. When I get home, I put a sleeping Ari in her crib, then go to the kitchen and clean out the bottles. I’m about to start a load of her clothes when the phone rings, and I see it’s Nico, the owner of the team.

“Hello?” I answer after the second ring.

“Hey, Ralph,” he says. “What’s up?”

“I just put Ari down for a nap, and I was going to go and run on the treadmill until she woke up,” I say.

“Keeping in shape. I love it,” he says. He’s been the owner of the team for two years now. His father used to own the team and was tired of having to deal with it, so he handed it over to Nico. I am not going to lie, the team sucked so bad when he took it over, they hadn’t made the playoffs in four years at that point. The GM was tits on a bull and was making the dumbest trades of his life. His scouting agent was arrested for having underage sex with a girl he met while getting prospects. It was crazy. I’m sure that his father thought the team wouldn’t thrive, but instead, Nico hit the ground running. First thing he did was fire everyone, and I mean everyone, right down to the coach.

Last July was a war zone. We didn’t know who was going to stay and who was going to go. I was shocked when I got a call from my agent that Nico wanted to have a word with me. Unlike other owners who let the GM handle things, Nico was doing the bidding himself. He got me on the phone and offered me a three-year contract. He told me it would be a rocky year, but he wanted to win the Stanley Cup. I thought he was crazy, but then I saw all the kids he brought on and realized we were a brand-new team. He brought on the coach, John, that no one wanted to hire because he would call out his players if they sucked. I’m not going to lie; I was scared every time I got on the ice. I was waiting for the coach to tell me that he’s benching me, but if you did your job the way you were supposed to, he had nothing to say. Now I’m not saying that everything I did was okay—it definitely was not—and I had made my share of mistakes during the year. I couldn’t even argue or be pissed when he yelled my name because he was right each time. When Cassie passed away, Nico was the first one to come and help me, besides Becca and Miller. He took care of everything that needed to be looked after, and I know that I owe him everything. Which is why I will do whatever he needs me to do to bring the cup back to Dallas.

“I got on the ice for the first time two days ago,” I say, sitting down. “It felt so fucking good to lace up those skates again.”