Page 12 of Coast to Coast

Damon: She’s back with me. Things went well this off-season.

Me: It always does. It’s the rest of the time she can’t handle.

I hoped he and Kayleigh could make it work, but the drama last season had caused more distraction than necessary. Kayleigh had questioned all the WAGs about Damon’s behavior on the road and could not accept that he was faithful.

It didn’t help when her photo was passed around on social media, and her looks were torn apart. Women could be horrible to other women, and while Kayleigh was stunning, she hadn’t had the confidence to ignore the haters. What was it about the vipers where they always knew precisely what weakness to attack?

Damon: So…the nanny?

Me: She’s good with Crew.

Damon: And?

Me: She’s hotter than any nanny should be allowed to be.

Damon: Fuck, man. Good luck with that...

Yeah, fuck is right.

I thought, tossing my phone onto the bed before aimlessly picking it back up, scrolling the dating app WooLink, and checking for messages. I’d been careful with my profile picturesnot to give away the fact that I played professional hockey, but I’d yet to find anyone interesting enough to risk meeting.

You would think players wouldn’t be able to use online dating apps, but many of us did. It helped because we could learn more about each other before the women were influenced by their image of dating a hockey player. And while some guys liked the easy access of the puck bunnies, I never felt like any of them would look at me twice if I didn’t play hockey.

I closed out the app and moved on to Instagram. Usually, it was my second-to-last stop in every doom scroll session. I tried to save TikTok for right before bed since it had a way of stealing hours of my life. The never-ending FYP seemed to know exactly what my brain needed to zone out.

I typed Calliope Douglas into the search only to find that her profile was private. While it was reassuring that my son’s nanny was locked down on social media, I’d hoped to be able to snoop a little without sending smoke signals. I hovered over the follow button, unsure if following your kid’s nanny’s socials was appropriate.

Fuck it. Done.

A text message notification instantly showed up on my screen. My heart rate increased until I realized it had nothing to do with the Instagram request I had just sent.

Kelsey: Hey, are you free? Crew wants to say goodnight.

Me: Always.

Well, I wouldn’t always be free, but if I were, I’d never say no to putting my son to bed at night if it was remotely possible. Another reason dating wasn’t in the cards is that not many women my age would be okay with their needs being last with their boyfriends.

My phone trilled with the sound of an incoming video chat.

“Hey, buddy,” I said as his face appeared on the screen.

“Dadda, goodnight?” He stared expectantly into the phone, something we had been doing since he was a baby. At first, the phone was more of a curiosity; now, he seemed to understand that it was a way to connect with the people he loved.

“Do you want me to read you your book before you go to sleep?”

“Yes, Peeze.”

Kelsey and I have been working to teach him please and thank you, and I loved how he said the words. Thank you sounded a bit like “Dang you.” We took as many videos of these little bloopers as possible to cement the moments into memory.

I read him the book we’d been reading before bed, fully aware that he had a different book he’d be reading with Kelsey once we hung up the phone. Toddlers had a way of using their cuteness for incredible feats of manipulation. When we finished, I told him I loved him, and he followed it by telling me he “Yoved” me, too. My heart squeezed painfully, as it always did when we were apart.

After hanging up, I found myself on Instagram again, where Calliope had accepted my follow request and followed my profile in return. She wouldn’t see much on my profile, only hockey photos managed strictly by the team’s social media coordinator. She kept our profiles clean and did her best to un-tag us from anything that would reflect poorly on the team.

Calliope had hundreds of posts, a ton with her family and several with Monica. The biggest surprise was the videos of her playing the guitar and singing. Damn, she had some talent. Careful not to like the video she had posted over a year ago; I got sucked into watching her sing.

From her resume, she’d only graduated this past year, so I estimated that she was about twenty-two or twenty-three yearsold at most. Monica would be about two to three years older than Calliope, which led me to wonder how they had become such good friends. About an hour later, I’d gone down the rabbit hole, unable to stop creeping her social media.

“Grrr,” I growled and tossed the phone across the room.

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