Page 60 of The Rebel (Looking to Score 1)
“You can’t put your work emails away for ten minutes to visit with me before I leave for three months?”
I bite back the words I so desperately want to say. You can’t give me more than twelve hours’ notice that you’re leaving the country for the holidays? Instead, I heave out a sigh, finding my calm. I don’t have the time or energy to pick a fight with her right now.
“I wasn’t working, Mom. I was just checking the time. Is there anything besides fashion advice you needed from me?”
“Yes, actually,” she says with a huff. “I was hoping you’d watch the house and take care of Penny while I’m gone.”
She gestures to the ten-pound ball of fluff at my feet, and I crouch down, treating Penny to some much-deserved scratches behind her floppy little ears. She makes a happy snuffling sound and licks my palm with her tiny pink tongue. I love this little fur ball, but she’s barely two years old, and much more of a handful than I have time for right now.
“I can’t be driving back and forth from Boston to Brookline during the height of hockey season.”
Her frown deepens. “I don’t live that far from the arena, Eden.”
“It’s almost thirty minutes each way with traffic,” I remind her, scooping Penny up and pressing to my feet. “And half the time I’m traveling with the team to away games. I have a career now, Mom. I can’t just drop everything anytime you need me.”
“Oh, so you care more about the Titans than your own mother.” Her words are biting and overly dramatic.
“You know that’s not true. You’re being ridiculous.” My phone buzzes twice in my pocket, and I don’t have to look to know it’s a notification reminding me of my plans tonight. “I have to go, Mom.” Much to her disappointment, I place Penny in her arms. “I have a work thing.”
“You don’t have a game tonight,” she says sternly.
I’m actually surprised she even knows that. “No, it’s a social event with the team.”
She sighs, smoothing the fluffy white hair on Penny’s head. “You hear that, Pen?” she coos to her pup. “My own daughter would rather hang out at a kegger with a bunch of Neanderthals than me.”
“It’s not a kegger, and they’re not Neanderthals,” I say evenly, trying to hide the annoyance in my voice. “It’s the goalie’s son’s seventh birthday party. As for Penny, there are multiple apps for finding reliable pet sitters.”
She scoffs in disbelief. “What, so I’m just supposed to let some stranger watch my precious girl?”
I open my mouth to reply but quickly shut it, pushing back the truth. It’s too painful to admit that I’m not much more than a stranger to her anyway these days. She clearly has no knowledge of what my life is like, how all-consuming my career has become. But I’m not having that conversation with her right now. Not while I have places to be and she’s about to go AWOL for three whole months.
“I guess I’ll have to bring Penny with me, even though she hates to fly,” she mutters.
“I love you, Mom. Travel safe.”
With a quick hug, I’m back out her door and into the car, feeling even more off-kilter than when I arrived. I can’t press the ignition button fast enough, eager to put my mom’s house in the rearview.
Soon, I’ll be among friends. And it’s strange to admit, but they’re starting to feel more like family than my own family does.
• • •
Twenty minutes later, I pull up behind the line of cars parked outside of Lucian’s house in Cambridge.
I’m a smidge late, but I’ll bet the mini table-hockey game I wrapped in bright green wrapping paper will be an adequate apology. I wasn’t sure if it was too on-the-nose to get the son of a goalie a hockey game, but Holt assured me it was the perfect present.
Speak of the devil, I’ve hardly exited my car when I spot him walking my way. He’s got on a Titans shirt beneath a black bomber jacket and dark-washed jeans he fills out way too well.
Just seeing him soothes the tension left over from my visit with my mom, and I wish more than anything I could pull him in and kiss him like I did the last time we were together—hard and wild and without abandon. But there are too many people we know less than a hundred feet away, so when he reaches my side, he leans in for a quick, gentle press of his lips to my cheek, fast enough to go unnoticed by any onlookers.
“Glad you made it.”
I smile at him, all the unpleasantness of my day fading away. “I never thought I’d see the day . . . Holt Rossi wearing a Titans T-shirt?”
His lips part and he shakes his head. “Only because the owner is this really cool, really hot chick I know. And I was hoping it would win her over, if you must know.”
