Page 30 of Moms of Mayhem
But the words just kept coming. “I’ll rope Ty in too. You know he’ll do it.”
Emmy let out a sharp exhale, but Tate looked like I’d handed her a miracle. “You’ve got the bench tonight. We won’t tell the kids yet, but for now—they’re yours.”
I looked at Emmy. I didn’t know what I was searching for—approval, backup, someone to stop me before I committed to more than I could handle—but I needed something.
“Emmy?”
She had the sleeve of my hoodie pulled up over her mouth, her gaze fixed on the ice like she was trying not to feel any of it. Not the rink falling apart. Notmefalling apart.
“It’s your call.”
She finally looked at me, steady and unblinking. “You disappoint him,” she said coolly, “and I’ll bury you. Got it?”
A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. God, I loved her fire.
“Crystal,” I said, not even a little afraid, just completely, utterly gone for her.
We walked side by side toward the bleachers, our arms brushing briefly as we split—she veered left, I went right. I shifted my crutch under my arm again, the cold metal biting into my side, grounding me in the chaos of it all.
The kids hadn’t noticed me yet.
So, I whistled—loud and sharp, two fingers in my mouth like I had a hundred times before—and every head turned.
I shoved open the bench door with my free hand and stepped inside. “Playtime’s over, Mayhem. Time for sprints.”
11
“Mom, Beckett Conway coached us tonight,” Jace said as he threw himself into the passenger seat of my car. “Beckett Conway.”
Even though he’d showered, his hockey bag sat in the trunk smelling like a gym sock married a wet dog whose diet consisted solely of rotten cheese and they honeymooned in a landfill. I plugged my nose, then cracked the windows before backing out of the parking lot. Who cared if it was snowing—I could not sit in this car with the stench wafting through the air.
“That’s so exciting.” I tried to keep my voice light, tamping down how nervous this whole thing made me. The last thing Jace needed was another male role model to fall flat in his life. “But it was just for tonight.”
“Still.” Jace tipped his wet hair back on the headrest, looking at me with a huge grin. “Did you see the pointers he gave me? He said I was weak on my left cuts, andhe was right.”
I chuckled, driving carefully down the winding roadback into town. A black truck tailed me home, and I looked in the rearview mirror at Beckett behind us. “So, you like being told you’re not doing something good enough? Because for the thousandth time, your clothes gointhe hamper, not on the floor in front of it.”
Jace rolled his eyes. “Mom. Stop.”
“If I had Beckett tell you to do it, would you?”
A slow smile spread over Jace’s face. “If he told me it’d help me make it to the NHL, sure.”
I reached across the center console and slapped his belly that was far harder than I remembered from my little boy. “Where’d you learn to be such a smart ass?”
Jace looked at me pointedly, and I shoved a finger in his face.
“Don’t answer that.”
“I said nothing.”
With a shake of my head, I turned off River Street and into the narrow driveway behind my little row house. Jace was out of the car before I came to a full stop, rushing toward Beckett’s truck as it pulled in behind me. I stayed put, hands on the wheel, heart thudding like I’d just sprinted the last mile home.
I didn’t know what made me feel so pulled to him—like I was stuck in his orbit without realizing I’d started drifting. Maybe it was old familiarity, a comfort I didn’t know I’d missed. I’d known Beckett Conway since I was six years old.
But whatever this was now—it didn’t feel familiar.
It didn’t feel safe.
