Page 16 of Hot Damn
“Since Natalie called me with her demands.”
“She told you what happened?”
“Of course she did. It made her demands more acceptable.”
“Why?”
“Because he chose to attack my girls.”
“He didn’t attack us.”
“He went after Higgison. You own Higgison. Therefore, he went after you.”
“Dad.”
“Baby girl, I will do anything and everything to make sure you’re taken care of.”
“But—”
Dad holds up a hand. “I couldn’t protect you for eight years.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“No, it wasn’t, but it’s a father’s privilege to take care of his daughter.”
“I want to argue I’m a grown up, but I know it must be hard for you, even after all this time, to accept you weren’t there for me.”
“It guts me every day to think she left you without food, in dirty clothes.” He shakes his head. “And don’t get me started on Muskin. I can’t make that go away, can’t erase the trauma you went through, but I can damn well try to make up for it no matter how old you are.”
“I was born to love you.”
Dad’s frown instantly turns to a grin. “And you were born for me to love.”
Beckett
Awhistle blows and every one of my teammates stops whatever drill they’re on and turns toward the bench.
“All right, that’s enough for today.” Coach Alcott waves us in. When we’re all close, he says, “I need a couple of volunteers to head up to the owner’s suite in the arena after you get cleaned up.”
“Don’t panic, no one is in trouble,” Assistant Coach Watts adds. “The team is doing a series of interviews with each player. If you haven’t seen the one with your captain that went live last night, I suggest you search for it and watch it.”
“We all have to do it?” Mikel Vinter asks, his accent heavy.
“Yes. Eventually.” Alcott turns to me. “If you’ve got a minute, Cami wants to see you too.”
“What? Why? I did my interview.”
“I have no idea, but she specifically asked if you could spare her a few minutes after morning skate. Seeing how you know the way to the suite, you can show the others where they need to go.” He leans in closer, lowers his voice. “Maybe give them a few tips, some reassurance that this isn’t a witch hunt, more of a sit-down chat with Cami on camera.”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“We’ve got Mikel and Noah for volunteers today,” Coach Watts says. “The rest of you get out of here.”
I wait for everyone to leave the ice before I move. There’s no point rushing if I have to head over to the arena.
“You good?” Alcott asks as he steps beside me. “Whitney okay?”
“She’s fine, handled last night’s drama better than I did.”
