Page 55 of Dirty Puck

“I have to go up to Virginia.”

“Let me call my boss. I’ll try to arrange a couple of days off. Then I’ll get Benny. Claudia will watch him.”

She didn’t even hesitate to jump in and help. Elyssa never lifted a finger and yet my fake fucking girlfriend planned to drop everything to be with me.

“Shower,” she ordered me with the phone to her ear. “Mr. Radke an emergency has just come up. I need to take a couple days off.” That was the last I heard before reaching the shower room.

After the shower, as I dressed, several of my teammates stayed with me. “Anything I can do?” Bishop asked.

“Fuck if I know. Mom’s in the hospital. I know I have to move her here so I can take care of her. I need home care. Nurses for palliative care.”

“You and Bree get to your mom. Jaycee and I will start gathering lists of in-home nurses for you. Budget?”

“Fuck a budget. This is my mom.”

“Got it.”

“You need anything else, let me know,” Jones offered and Bonner nodded in agreement.

“Thanks. I got to get to Bree’s place.”

When I pulled into her complex, I didn’t see her car, so I decided to have Claudia buzz me in. But then I saw Bree turninto the lot. She parked next to my truck, pulled Benny out, and jogged up to me with one arm out ready to hug me and I sank into her touch.

“Let’s go in,” she said, opening the door for us. I followed her inside. We stopped at Claudia’s place first. She was surprised to see us both this early when she answered the door.

“Everything okay?” Claudia asked.

I shook my head. “Ma’s in the hospital.”

“Give me Benny,” she said. Bree kissed Benny’s head and I’d swear he knew I was sad and opened his arms to offer a hug for me. I took it.

“Momma loves you,” Bree said to him. “Thank you,” she said to Claudia. Once Claudia shut the door, we stepped across the hall to her apartment so she could change. I used her laptop to secure tickets home.

It was a whirlwind from her apartment to the airport, then being ushered onto the plane. I hardly felt like I could catch my breath until we taxied down the runway.

“Thank you,” I said. “For being here. It means more than you know.”

She smiled this sad smile. “We’re a team. It’s what we do.”

A team.

Me and Bree. Shit if I didn’t love hearing that.

“Why do you look sad?” I asked. My gut said it was something more than my mom.

“It’s nothing. Let’s get your mom taken care of.”

“You’re holding something back. Swear to God, I don’t have it in me today. What’s wrong?”

She let out a long, slow breath. “My boss said that he couldn’t spare me and if I didn’t show up tomorrow, then I needed to look for another job. So now I have to go job hunting or get my job at Slits back.”

“You left your job for me?”

“Reece, it wasn’t even a choice. You needed me. What kind of place doesn’t care if family needs help?”

“You said she was family?”

“My mother-in-law. But he reads the papers and knows we aren’t married. That we haven’t been together long.”

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