Pucked Off (Pucked 5)

Maybe it was just because it was my very first kiss. A part of me has always wanted to test that theory, and last year I almost had the chance, until I let Kristi get in the way.

When Lance made the NHL, I watched every game, because even after all that time, seeing him brought back that memory and the fleeting feelings that came with it.

But if I told him the truth, I’d also want him to know how my perfect memory was tainted when the gossip mill started churning out pictures of him with all these women. And how that night at the bar, when I saw him for the first time in over a decade, he shattered the beautiful glass jar I’d kept that first-kiss moment safe in for all these years.CHAPTER 11PUSH

LANCE

I’m sitting in the airport, and I’m bored. I’ve done the Sudoku in the paper. It took me all of fifteen minutes, and it was supposed to be one of the hard ones.

If I hadn’t come across hockey, I probably would’ve gone into some kind of career where I could work with numbers all day. I love numbers. They make sense. They’re constant, and they don’t change. A formula is a formula.

People don’t work the same way. Emotions make them unpredictable. Like right now Miller is in a shit mood. He’s been texting Sunny every three minutes and researching signs of labor and statistics on first-time pregnancies. Baby Butterson should be hanging tight for a few more weeks, but apparently he’s getting antsy.

Miller puts his phone to his ear. “Hey, Sunny Sunshine, we’re gonna board the plane soon. I wanted to check on you one last time—yeah…yeah. I know. I get that. I don’t like that I’m not there right now.”

He drops his voice to a whisper, gets out of his seat, and wanders toward the windows, watching the planes as he runs his hand through his hair, making the short blond strands stand on end.

I don’t know whether to feel sorry for him or envious. I have no idea what it’s like to need someone like that. Well, I guess maybe I do. Although, with Tash it wasn’t about need; at least not in the same way I think it is with Miller and Sunny. It was more about want.

Sometimes I wonder if I only wanted her to myself because she’d never give me that. Which is fucked up. There are things about me that aren’t right, and I know it’s because of how things went down in my house as a kid.

My dad comes from money. Lots of money. So does my mum. It’s the reason I have the house I do. My hockey salary is great, but I already had lots of cash flow before I started earning my own. The weird thing about money is that people equate it with stability, but there was nothing stable about my childhood.

I remember the way my mum used to go after my dad. Sometimes I wonder if my propensity for aggression is hereditary, or maybe she conditioned it into me. She was a small woman, always watching what she ate, always taking some kind of class or drinking something that was supposed to help keep her thin or whatever. I’m pretty sure it was just booze, now that I think about it.

On the days she was really fired up, she’d go at my dad, who I’m built like. He’d laugh and let her have at him—slapping him, punching, kicking—and the more he laughed, the angrier she’d get until he’d pick her up and take her, screaming and flailing, out of the room.

If my brother and I were there, a nanny would take us away, so we wouldn’t witness it. The next morning my dad would be at the breakfast table with a smile on his face, usually accompanied by faint bruises and the occasional scratch. He never talked about it, just went on and pretended like it hadn’t happened.

I usually wouldn’t see my mother for a good twenty-four hours after that. And when I did, she’d be back to a version of normal, but far more subdued, almost vacant. She’d be physically present, but she wasn’t really in there, just a body going through the motions. Flowers would arrive. My dad would take her away for a little trip, and then things would calm down for a while.

But as I got older, the pattern started to change. The violence became more frequent. My dad traveled more. And when my brother died, everything fell apart. Eventually, when Mum’s mourning turned to anger, it found a new target. An easier target. Me.

I thought maybe it would stop when we moved to Chicago. It didn’t. It went on long enough that it changed the way I’m wired.

“Romance?” Fingers snap close to my face, and I jolt. “Your phone’s ringing.” Ballistic points to my hand.