Page 9 of The Slapshot and the Single Mom
To be fair, I’m staring at him too.
I give him a polite smile, then force myself to look away. Except my eyes keep going back to him of their own accord.
After the third or fourth time I glance his way and find him smirking at me, he slides off his stool and comes over to me, drink in hand, perching himself on the vacant stool next to me. “Decided the Salmon was a good spot, huh?”
Sipping my drink, I nod. “Yeah. It’s relaxed, and that’s what I needed tonight.”
He holds up his glass, and I clink mine against it, his gaze holding mine in a way that’s almost hypnotic as we both take another sip.
I finally force myself to look away, refocusing on the TV hanging off to one side playing a baseball recap.
“Rough day?” Bouchard asks after a few seconds.
Surprised, I glance at him. “What?”
He nods at the glass in front of me. “Working for Savage, I can understand why you’d need to drink to get over any given day.”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “I’ll admit that he’s an asshole, but he’s really a pretty ordinary turd.” I wave a hand dismissively. “You get used to it.”
A glance at Bouchard reveals his eyebrows trying to climb to his hairline as he shakes his head. “I’m not sure I’d get used to working with someone anyone refers to as an ordinary turd. And I think that’s selling him a little too short.”
Grinning, I shrug one shoulder. “Trust me, I’ve dealt with far worse for far longer.”
“Ohhh, that sounds like there’s a story there,” Bouchard says, leaning over to nudge me with his arm. His bicep is so firm. As much as Kyle likes sports, he stopped exercising sometime in college, focusing instead on growing his podcast in his free time. He was rail thin when we were in our early twenties but has gotten doughier over the last decade plus. Even at his peak, though, his arms weren’t anything like Bouchard’s.
I let out a humorless chuckle. “Oh, it’s a long and not particularly interesting story. And part of the reason I’m out tonight.” Sitting up, I level a look at him. I kinda get what’s going on, even if it is partly out of boredom on his part. He asked for my number when he came for the interview, he bought my drink when he met me here before despite the deal being that I would buy him one, and now he’s low key flirting with me since we’ve bumped into each other again. Might as well just tell him the unfiltered—though shortened—truth and let him see himself out.
Sucking in a deep breath, I let it out slowly and say, “I was married for almost fifteen years. To someone who I thought was the perfect fit. We worked together on his sports show, and I helped it grow from basically nothing to the point where he got picked up by a major network a handful of years ago. But after having a kid and dedicating my entire career to making his dream come true, he wasn’t satisfied, or maybe he was threatened by the fact that I was the one who really put him on the map.” I shrug. “Either way, he did his damnedest to make sure I knew that he didn’t see me as anything approaching an equal. I washisassistant—even though I was the social media manager, and he had someone else as his assistant. Regardless, I was there to servehim, and anytime I asked for him to help me out anywhere, whether at home or at work, he felt it was an affront and an attack on his very being. Anyway, long, sad story short, I left a couple years ago after I suspected he was having an affair with his actual assistant. I never got proof, but I figured that at that point, the trust between us had completely broken down. And you know? I actually felt relieved to have a concrete reason to divorce him. I wanted to before, but it seemed like I didn’t have a good enough reason. Him making me feel like shit all the time didn’t seem like reason enough to me then. Of course, I was so used to feeling that way, I didn’t realize how shitty I felt until I was on my own and felt like I could breathe for the first time in years.”
I glance at Bouchard and find him listening intently. Shaking my head, I sip my drink. I was supposed to be keeping this short. “Anyway. He’s a piece of shit—a bigger one than Brock Savage in my opinion, though I don’t blame you if you disagree—and barely spends time with our ten-year-old son. He actually deigned to take him tonight, and I didn’t want to sit at home by myself, or worse, spend all my free time cleaning or working.I’m not really sure what to do with myself after sinking so much of my time and life into work and motherhood.” I shrug again. “How’s that for a backstory?”
He sips his drink, looking away for a moment, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to wish me a good night and go back to his friend. He looks back at me, squinting for a second, then sits up like he’s come to a decision.
This is it. This is when he says, “Good luck with all that,” or something similar and takes off.
That’s the goal, I remind myself. There’s no way a guy like himreallywants anything to do with me, especially with all my mess and baggage.
“This calls for another drink,” he says instead. “What are you drinking? And is this really the type of place you want to spend a rare night off?”
“Hey!” the bartender interjects, and I recognize him from when I met Bouchard here last time. “This is a fantastic place for a young, gorgeous woman to spend a night off. What are you trying to say?”
Bouchard grins at him and shakes his head. “I’m just saying that this is a fine place to start a rare night off, but sitting around drinking isn’t exactly the way to grab life by the horns.” He looks back at me. “You’ve got until when, exactly?”
“Uh …” I look from side to side as though I’ll find the answers somewhere else in the bar. “I don’t know exactly. He said three or four, but knowing Kyle, it’ll probably be like nine in the morning at the latest. Something will come up. It always does.”
“You’re right,” Bouchard says. “That guy is a piece of shit. My parents got divorced when I was growing up—though I was older than your kid—and they both made sure that I always knew the schedule and what to expect. They also both came to all my important events and milestones. That’s shitty for your kid that your ex can’t manage the bare minimum.”
“Thank you!” I explode, barely stopping myself from smacking my hand on the bar. “Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying to him since he started this bullshit. He acted like he was father of the year when we were going through the divorce process, claiming he was an involved father and had to have fifty-fifty custody so he wouldn’t miss out on anything important. Now he misseseverything.He only made it to one”—I hold up one finger in illustration—“oneof Liam’s basketball games this year. I mean, he just finished fourth grade, so it’s not like the season is long, but still! I sent him the calendar. He had the info. And when he missed almost all of them, he blamed me, saying I didn’t remind him, like that’s my job.” Turning, I face him fully. “You’re a man. Tell me something. Why is it that all these men expect me to be their personal assistants? My ex-husband. My boss. Doyoudo that to the women in your life who you don’t pay to be your assistant?”
He tilts his head to one side, something like amusement playing over his face. “The only woman who’s consistently in my life is my mom, and no, I do not expect her to be my personal assistant. For one, she lives in Ontario, so that wouldn’t work very well at all. There are women who work in the front office, but I mostly just do what they tell me.” He ducks his head and scratches at the bridge of his nose. “Well, except when I ignore Molly’s explicit instructions. Like to let her handle Brock Savage. To her credit, she did, it just took longer than I wanted, and I don’t like sitting around feeling helpless.”
I grimace at his mention of Brock and Molly. I know who Molly in the Seattle Emeralds’ front office is. I’ve dealt with her a lot in recent weeks, after all, because Brock still hasn’t hired a fucking assistant, and he refuses to take his own calls. So I end up taking them because … I can’t make myself stop, I guess. And I’m worried he’ll fire me, even though I do good work at myactualjob. But asshole is as asshole does, after all.
“It’s good to know someone’s right when they say, ‘not all men,’ at least,” I mumble.
Bouchard chuckles, nodding a thanks at the bartender when he brings over the new drinks he ordered. “But alwaysaman, right?” he says, holding out his drink for a toast.
A little wary, I drain the last of my first beer, then pick up the new one. “What are we toasting now?”
