Page 17 of Pucker Up
“I’ll buy you an electric one.”
He wasn’t joking. My father was a generous man, but by the time I bought my first car, I wanted it to be with my own money—money that I’d earned from doing something good in the world. “You know that I’m saving up to buy a car for when I move out of the city and the streetcar doesn’t drop me off at the end of the street.”
His lips pressed into a line, but he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the first time we’d had the car discussion. “How was work today?” He abandoned the subject.
I sighed. “It was okay. I’ve run into a few snags with my study, but I’m sure that I can get it sorted out.”
“What kind of snags?”
My father was the kind of man who liked to fix things. I guess that’s typical of most men, but when it came to my dad, he went overboard. It wasn’t admirable. I knew he was trying to make up for leaving me with Mom when I was a kid. Years of therapy had gotten me over…or rather, taught me how to deal with the feelings that came up from having a dad who couldn’t honor his marriage vows.
Shrugging, I continued walking. “Just the usual stuff.”
“That’s pretty vague.”
The therapist also said my pride and need to do things myself was a form of hyper-independence and wasn’t necessarily a healthy way to live. I disagreed. I was a grown woman and a grown woman didn’t need handouts from her rich daddy, or advice from her flaky tarot-reading mom. Even if I wanted help from Mom, I wouldn’t be able to find her to ask. She was living off the grid somewhere in the mountains, and came to the closest town to make a monthly phone call,which mostly consisted of telling me which planets were in retrogradefantasyland, or whatever. “How was practice today?” I asked, volleying the small talk back to him.
Dad let out a chuckle. The kind that told me he’d had a rough day. “Those Bailey brothers are going to be the death of me.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d talked about the brothers. Now that I knew one of them, I had a hard time picturing Ace as the pain in the ass my dad had been groaning about all season. “Why?”
With a raised eyebrow, he looked at me. “You never ask about the players.”
“Mel wants to know. She met one of them at the dicksicle dunk and—”
“Marigold Swanson.”
My cheeks burned so hot that the snowflakes landing on them could’ve sizzled. “I mean, the Polar Bear Plunge thing.”
“I like the other name better, actually.” He chuckled. “Let me guess, Mel came up with that one?”
I didn’t dare tell him that the person who coined the term was the player causing him so much grief. He’d never explicitly told me that I couldn’t date one of the players, but he didn’t have to. I made it very clear that I would never, ever get with a hockey player.
“Yeah, although the name went through a few iterations before we decided on the…dunk.”
We reached the house and the snowflakes swirled in the light above the door. Morton shoved his nose into the crack of my father’s house. The main building was his. It was the source of people food scraps. “Not tonight, Morty.” I tugged him from the stairs. He let out an audible groan and then settled next to my feet.
“Do you want to come in for dinner? I still have some leftovers.”
“I’m beat.” I made a show of stretching my arms above my head. I was going to spend the night obsessively refreshing my email, hoping that one of my last-ditch hail Mary requests to all the sports teams within a two-hundred-kilometre radius would come through. “Sorry, Dad. We completely got off track. What were you saying about the Bailey brothers?”
Dad paused with his hand on the door lever as though considering whether he wanted to burden me with his work challenges.
“Mel will ask, and I need to give her something.”
My father’s laugh was low and throaty. “Like a dog with a bone, that one.”
At the mention of the b word, Morton grumbled and shifted on his haunches.
Leaning on the doorframe, Dad crossed his arms. “They’re both good players. Actually, they’re both excellent players. But, together, those two are like oil and water. When they’re on the ice at the same time, nothing comes together and to make it even worse, all the other players are on edge. It’s like they’re competing for something, and it doesn’t matter if the rest of the team suffers. I’ve never had such bad energy on the team.”
“Energy?” It was my turn to raise my brows. He sounded like my mom.
“I have to get rid of one of them if I want to save this team.”
Ace.
My heart dropped for a moment and then I remembered that I didn’t care. The connection I’d felt with him was fleeting, and in time, he would only prove to be just like the others. The disappointment I felt was irrational, and the smart part of my mind wanted to punch the dumb part that cared. “Can you do that?” My throat felt a little tight and I hoped that there wasn’t a noticeable change in my voice.
