Page 39 of Cross-Checked

Her tongue darts to the corner of her mouth as she scrunches her face up. “Why do you know that?”

I shrug and give her a wink before I turn to head back to the kitchen, where I can hear Abby getting fussy in her highchair.

She follows me into the hallway, walking beside me. “Just because you know my coffee order doesn’t mean youknowme, McCabe.”

“If you say so.”

I’m a quiet guy by nature, reserved in a way that has people thinking I’m grumpy or pissed off. But it’s not because I don’t like people, it’s because I’m fascinated by how much you canlearn about others when you simply shut your fucking mouth and listen.

The world is full of people who just want to talk, who aren’t comfortable with silence and want to fill every moment with conversation—usually about themselves. I prefer to observe, and to speak only when I actually have something worth saying.

One of the reasons I was first drawn to AJ is that she does the same thing. She has an ease around people that I don’t have, but she leads quietly. Unlike a lot of people in her position, she’s never been self-aggrandizing. Her predecessor here in Boston thought he walked on fucking water, which he most definitely didn’t, and he never let you forget it. AJ isn’t like that.

She puts her head down and does the work, and attributes any and all successes to the team, not to herself. That’s why people here like her. She’s the kind of GM that makes you want to put in the effort and do your damn job the best you can, just so you can earn her approval.

Despite everything that happened between us in the past, even when I hated her, I never stopped observing.

“Good,” she says, plopping down in the seat across from Abby and making faces at her before she turns toward me where I stand at the cupboard about to get her a coffee mug. “So stop trying to act like you know anything about me.”

“You always get punchy and defensive like this when you’re afraid someone might be getting close? Might actually see you as something more than a woman in charge of an entire hockey organization?”

The whoosh of breath that leaves her as her jaw falls open tells me I’ve hit a little too close to the heart of the matter.

“But no,” I say with a healthy dose of sarcasm as I pull a blue Boston Rebels mug off the shelf. “Of course, I don’t knowanythingabout you.”

She turns her attention back to Abby, covering her face with her hands and popping up from behind them, saying, “Peek-a-boo!”

Abby shrieks with delight each time, and I can’t help but smile as I listen with my back turned to them while pouring AJ a cup of coffee.

“Here you go,” I say, crossing the kitchen to hand her the mug. I’ve got it cupped in my hands, holding it from the bottom, so she can easily grab the handle with her left hand. “I’ll take over with her so you can drink your coffee.”

“Pfft.” She lets out an adorably dismissive snort. “I can drink my coffee and chat with Abby at the same time.” Then she turns back toward my daughter, and her voice completely changes. She’s practically cooing as she tells Abby, “Girls are excellent multitaskers. You’ll see. Besides, we’re going to be good friends. And when you’re older and your dad is being a grouch, you can sneak across the hall, and we’ll have juice boxes and watchBarbiemovies together.”

I know she’s just babbling to keep Abby entertained, that she doesn’t really plan on developing this relationship with my daughter. She’s probably just trying to annoy me by making me think she and Abby are going to team up against me someday.

But for reasons that don’t even make sense, that thought doesn’t annoy me at all. In fact, it has the opposite effect. It makes me think of my own parents, and how much I’ve always wanted what they had. The teasing and the laughter, but also the deep trust, respect, and affection.

That’s not something I can ever have with AJ—not only because I’m probably moving, but also because, even if I stayed, she’ll always be my boss.

And she’s made it clear that’s a line she won’t cross again.

Chapter Seventeen

AJ

“You sure you’re doing okay?” Frank asks after we wrap up our weekly check-in. Normally, I love that he’s the type of owner who’s around and available, but today, I’d really prefer he was sitting somewhere else counting his billions instead of asking me personal questions.

Sitting in McCabe’s kitchen early this morning, I thought I was doing okay, all things considered. But my body has gotten progressively more sore as the day has gone on and Frank obviously hasn’t missed how I’ve been shifting in my seat, trying to get comfortable.

“I’m fine. Just tired. I don’t even remember what time it was when we got back from the hospital last night?—”

“We?” Frank moves his bushy eyebrows up and down in a way that draws a laugh out of me. He probably thinks I’m seeing someone, and as much as I’d like an excuse to avoid all the men he tries to set me up with, I don’t want to risk stirring up any rumors.

“No, don’t get your hopes up. It’s not like that. McCabe gave me a ride home after Abby and I were cleared by the doctor.” At the beginning of our meeting, I’d given him the brief rundown of my experience with the fight and the hospital visit—which hadled into a conversation about how this is exactly why McCabe was supposed to tell the fans that the fights needed to stay on the ice in the first place.

Would things have turned out differently if he’d reacted differently at the press conference? I don’t know. But when Frank showed me footage of last night’s fight, there was no denying that the Boston fans behind us were responsible for what happened. And they were both wearing McCabe jerseys.

“Speaking of, you’ll talk to him about that again, right? I need him to make a statement or something about what happened,” Frank says.

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