Page 60 of Moms of Mayhem
My brother scratched at his jaw, then let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. It always felt like she was invincible, right? Like, after everything Dad put us through, she was just the toughest woman on the planet.”
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t need to. I felt the same way.
“I’ll come spend the off-season up here with her,” Mason said. “Summer feels like a long way off, but it’s time, I think. We’ve been running for a long time.”
“I forgot how much I love this little town.”
Mason smiled, one half of his lips tipping up in a slow, crooked grin. “Especially when the hockey moms are all tens, right?”
I shook my head, laughing as I made my way carefully to the stairs, headed up to my room.
Tomorrow, my new mattress was scheduled to arrive, the least of the changes happening around here if I was staying in town.
I had eight weeks to prove I still had what it took to make it in the NHL and get my mom set up for a healthy and happy life here at home.
Eight weeks to get the Mayhem back on the right track and pick up all the responsibilities I’d left behind so many years ago.
Eight weeks to stare at my best friend’s sister, thinking things I’d never thought before.
Even if the Yeti renewed my contract, I wasn’t an idiot—retirement was on the near horizon. And maybe, for thefirst time in my life, I had an idea of how I’d like to spend it.
Ty let out a low whistle as he helped the movers get down the basement steps, guiding a stationary bike with a screen so large it was almost comical.
“Conway,” he called over the movers’ heads, “are you training to ride in the Tour de France or build a new hip from scratch?”
“Both.” I tugged on the grab bar we’d just installed next to the front door, making sure it was secure. “Mom gets a house that she can move around safely in. I get a basement that might let me get back on the ice before playoffs. Win-win.”
Jace stood at the top of the stairs, holding a box labeledRecovery Crapin Frankie’s scribbled handwriting. “This stuff better work. It’s heavy as fu?—”
I raised a brow, and he grinned.
“Fluff. You’ll get me tickets to the Cup, right?”
“Maybe if you focused on protein and not just junk food, you could carry more,” Ty yelled up the stairs. “You’re going to need to bulk up if you want beat me on the pond this winter.”
Jace rolled his eyes, then hopped down the stairs to drop off his boxes. I followed him down at a much slower pace, taking in the new setup.
The basement had transformed in a matter of hours. New rubber flooring covered the old concrete, the once-bare cinderblocks had been painted a fresh white, and a full corner was dedicated just for rehab.
Frankie lived up to his promise to get me setup: there were adjustable dumbbells, a cable trainer, resistance bands, a muscle stim unit, and—God help me—an actual ice bathtub that hummed quietly in the corner like it was judging me.
Ty walked around it and gave me a look. “Can’t believe you bought one of these. You hated them.”
“Still do,” I muttered, stepping gingerly around the boxes yet to be unpacked. “But I hate not skating more.”
“Mom was doing this study on Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy before we moved.” Jace dipped his hands into the frigid water circulating in the tub. “Something about it speeding up recovery. You could ask her about it. Maybe you can get one of those, too.”
I cast a glance to the side at Ty. He stood with his arms crossed but bobbed his head back and forth as Rowdy appeared at his side, tongue out. “Not the worst idea. I don’t think it could hurt.”
“Did she do a lot of sports medicine in Connecticut?” I asked, watching for Jace’s reaction.
Since he’d shut down several days ago when I mentioned Emmy, I had purposefully avoided talking about her again. He knew she was helping me with my hip, and I was leaving it at that, as far as the kid was concerned.
“Yeah.” Jace moved on to testing the new bike like he couldn’t help but touch everything in the room. “She worked for Dr. Riviera, who did a lot of PT for the Sentinels.”
“Baseball, huh?”
Jace moved on to push-ups on the new rubber flooring, showing off after Ty had called him out about bulking up.
