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I’m honored to have been the first female GM in the league. I just want to make sure I’m not the last, you know?”
“Are you always hesitant to talk about work?” Yes. “No. But you just watched me turn down dinner with my colleagues, so obviously I’m not looking for work talk.”
“Speaking of, if Colt gets it in his head that you’re his good luck charm—” “Please, don’t put that idea in his head. Seriously. We have a waitlist a mile long at Our House, and I’m already behind because I went up to Montreal with him a couple weeks ago.”
“We made an executive decision while you were gone. You’ve lived out of those boxes long enough. It’s time you were settled.”
“Do you remember what happened last time you cooked for us?” he asks, slightly cringing. I roll my eyes. “It was a tiny fire.
Despite my personal feelings about her, professionally there is not a single doubt that she deserves this award—and has deserved it for years.
I don’t know what I expected when Charlie texted me to say, “I need you in the locker room,” but it wasn’t twenty grown men singing nursery rhymes at the top of their lungs.
When I push open that door, I’m greeted by the uniformed backs of my players, who are standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle. They’re lightly bouncing up and down on their skates, and they’re all doing the hand gestures as they sing “. . . down came the rain and washed the spider out!”
Because Ronan McCabe hasn’t looked at me with this lost puppy dog look in a very long time, and the last time he did, it ruined my marriage and almost ruined his career.
“I don’t want to be that guy,” McCabe says quietly before pressing his lips to his daughter’s head while bouncing her in his arms. “What guy is that?” “The one who asks his GM, the only female in the room, to watch his kid.”
It’s what any GM should do in this situation—male or female.” “You know that no one else in your position would do this, right?” he asks, voice quiet. “Maybe not,”
I’m not sure why, but babies love me. It’s a cruel trick of nature, I guess, to give a woman who can’t have kids the ability to calm any baby she comes into contact with.
“Whose baby you steal?” Ralph asks. “McCabe’s.”
I kissed my boss. She definitely kissed me back.
Because that hasn’t been my experience. Only one woman in my life has ever seemed at all comfortable with my kid. Of course, it’s the one woman I can’t have.
Her eyes lock with mine in the mirror, and with a roll of her eyes, she says, “Same difference.”
“Just because you can’t have an internal orgasm doesn’t mean you can’t orgasm during sex,” he says. I know my face conveys my confusion because he shakes his head and adds, “My god, has no one ever taken care of you?”
But since I can’t be with him in any other way than these stolen moments, ruining me for anyone else feels like maybe I’m inviting a lifetime of sexual frustration?
“Nothing,” I whisper. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Alessandra.
How do I tell him that I’m afraid sex with him will be too good?
“When you said you were going to ruin me for all other men, forever? I’m afraid you might not have been exaggerating.”
“How could this ever work between us?” Without breaking eye contact, he presses another kiss to my temple. “How could it
“Why the fuck is your ex-husband going to be at your family’s event?” I love that he’s angry on my behalf,
“He’s the one they kept in the divorce.” McCabe takes a sharp turn onto a side street, brakes squealing as he slips into a parking spot, the quick action making my stomach flip.
“What the fuck do you mean, he’s the one they kept?”
but my parents acted like this was just a part of marriage and I needed to get over it.”
“The fuck?” I appreciate how taken aback he is, because it lets me know that I’m not crazy for refusing to give Chet a second chance.
When I threatened to sue for custody of my brother on the grounds of neglect, that was the nail in the coffin of our relationship.”
“I don’t think you’re broken. If anything . . . I’m looking at you with admiration.
Us together is a challenge. Us sneaking around and potentially getting caught is a problem.”
You’re not too old for anything. Stop that shit right now.
After my hysterectomy, the doctor warned me that vaginal dryness might be a side effect. Turns out, all I needed was a hot younger guy to solve that problem for me.
“So you're telling me, that even though you've done everything you possibly could to prevent yourself from having feelings for one of your players, McCabe still managed to sneak right past all of your defenses and make you fall for him?”
“And you're telling me,” she says, looking at me pointedly, “that you don't know if that’s worth fighting for? This person who knows you, who you've confided in, who's obsessed with you and has told you he wants more than just sex, and you don't think that's worth fighting for?”
“Yeah,” Lauren says, squeezing my hand. “People might call your ethics into question. But you know that there's nothing to question. And I know it, and Frank will know it, and every single person in this organization will know it. And isn't that what really matters?”
“Not only have you never shown me any kind of preference throughout this process, the contract negotiation thus far made it pretty clear that you don’t want me back on this team.” His words are measured, but I hear the sadness and the anger behind them, and that confuses me to no end.
It’s one thing to drive a hard bargain when trying to get your player a better contract—I’d expect nothing less. It’s entirely another to lie about what your client wants, and then to lie to your client as well.
Her whole expression softens. “You’d go to all that effort just to lace up my skates for me?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything I wouldn’t do to keep you safe,” I say, because I’m afraid that what I really want to tell her, that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, would freak her out.
Her first word is going to be AJ, and I’m as thrilled about it as if she’d just said Dada.
“This is going to be a total shitstorm. The media’s going to have a field day over this, and your teammates are going to be up in arms.”
“Yeah. Now that Colt’s turned into a respectable human being, I haven’t had any crises to deal with in a while.” “And that’s your idea of fun?”
“Oh, hello,” McCabe says from behind me, and when I turn to see what he’s talking about, Tabitha is rubbing herself up against his ankles. I’m just about to remind him that she’s evil, when he bends to pick her up. She goes willingly into his arms, snuggling against his chest and purring.
“Oh my god,” I say with a laugh. “The world’s grumpiest cat has found the world’s grumpiest man, and it’s a match made in heaven.”
“And see,” Nicole says, “that right there? The way you just looked at her like you’d devour her if we weren’t standing here, and how you’re practically eye fucking him, AJ? You guys think you’re not obvious?” She lets out an easy laugh, because apparently we’re ridiculous for trying to hide this.
“The part where we’ve been developing feelings for each other over the past few weeks and you’re already talking about marriage?”
I don’t know what AJ was talking about—that’s the most friendly, loving cat I’ve ever seen. With Abby and me, at least.
“Let’s go.” “Where?” “I’d like to meet your best friend, Lover Boy.” “Dude,” Hartmann says, “do not call me that in front of her or I’ll never live it down.”
