Page 42 of Pucking the Single Dad
Brad's phone immediately buzzed with what I could only assume was Theo's follow-up chaos. He read it, then laughed—an actual, full laugh that transformed his whole face.
"What?"
He turned the screen toward me. Theo's text read:Patricia showed up at the rink in a dress cut down to her navel. I told her you were taken by a teacher who makes you act like a teenager with his first crush. She threw a clipboard at me. Worth it. Also, dinner Saturday is mandatory or I'm telling the entire team that you sometimes cry while watching animated films.
"He wouldn't," I gasped.
"He absolutely would. Last month Finn told Coach that I practice my 'serious hockey face' in the bathroom mirror and once got stuck making it for so long that I missed the first period of a game."
"Wait, what?"
"I was working on my intimidation look. I may have gotten... overfocused." Brad rubbed his face. "Coach brings it up every time I frown now. Asks if I'm having a 'mirror moment.'"
"That's... actually adorable."
"We don't have to go," Brad offered, but his conviction was weak.
"Maria will storm the house. She has a key."
"When did you give her—"
"I didn't. She had one made. Something about 'emergency intervention privileges.'"
"Your friend is terrifying."
"Together they might actually break reality."
From upstairs, Finn's voice drifted down: "If you guys are done, can someone help me with my homework?"
"Also," Finn continued, "Matthew says if you wait too long to tell someone you like them, they might find someone else who's not scared."
Brad and I exchanged a look that said everything.
"That kid, Matthew, has it all figured out," Brad muttered, shaking his head.
"Way ahead of his years," I agreed
Later, as I helped Finn with homework while Brad cooked dinner—we'd fallen into this routine without discussion. Finn’s explanation about the water cycle turned into a story about how Miss Serena was like rain for their house.
"So, condensation is like when the water gets cold and huddles together?" Finn asked, drawing clouds that looked suspiciously like dinosaurs.
"Exactly."
"Oh! Like how our house was all cold and spread out before you came." He kept drawing, oblivious to the grenade he'd just lobbed. "Dad was in his room, I was in mine, everything was quiet. Then you showed up and now we all huddle together. Like condensation!"
Brad's knife went still against the cutting board. A carrot rolled onto the floor, forgotten.
"We're like a water cycle family," Finn continued, adding stick figures to his dinosaur clouds. "You're the rain that made things not dead anymore."
"That's—" I started.
"True," Finn interrupted with seven-year-old certainty. "Dad laughs at your jokes even when they're not funny."
Brad made a sound like he'd been punched.
"And we have pancake traditions now! And inside jokes! And Dad doesn't just stare at the TV anymore pretending to watch when it's not even on."
"Finn, buddy, go wash up," Brad managed, his voice scraped raw.
