Page 6 of The Nanny Goal

Discomfort squeezes my chest like a fist. “How many do you need?”

He shakes his head. “Our regular seats are fine.”

Someone from the team helped arrange four season tickets for my family. Sometimes it’s just my parents who come to the games, sometimes they invite Russian speakers they have met through local community groups. Last week it was a Ukrainian professor from the university and his daughter.

Tonight, it will be Emery’s parents. Two people only, to fill the two empty seats. But nobody else in their extended family.

The discomfort fades to something that feels like irrational frustration.

I like the Grangers. They stayed in Calgary when I discovered I was a new dad, and they helped me through the initial shell shock, taking me shopping for a baby car seat and then a house.

Emery didn’t stay, of course. I didn’t see her again after that night. She went back to her college team in Boston. Her parents, though, became de facto grandparents until my own parents could get visas and plane tickets. And once the Artyomovs landed, the Granger-Artyomov Hockey Parent Bond was officially forged. Despite the language barrier, our families have stayed fast friends ever since.

A friendship Emery Granger has pointedly kept herself removed from.

I deserve that.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking hurt, but I did that to myself when I followed her to her hotel room and took something that wasn’t mine to take.

CHAPTER2

ALEXEI

two years earlier

Alexei

Leaving for the restaurant now

Forrest

Why are you always so fucking early?

Alexei

I don’t like to be late

Forrest

Not the Granger way, bud… Have a drink in the bar and we’ll be there ASAP

Normally I wouldn’t leap at the opportunity to have dinner with a teammate’s family, because my conversational English isn’t great and loud restaurants make my listening comprehension even weaker.

And we don’t get very many nights off during the hockey season.

It is the depth of Canadian winter, and the last time I got laid it was the end of summer in the South of France.

That is the longest dry spell of my entire adult life.

But my New Year’s Resolution this year was to make smarter choices when it comes to women.

The smartest choice of all would be to take a break from them, because they are more trouble than they are worth.

On the other hand…I like trouble.

I especially like trouble with a wet, eager mouth.

So, I’m probably not going to keep my dick from getting intosometrouble, but at a minimum, I can promise myself there will be no more high-maintenance supermodels.

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