Slap Shot (D.C. Stars, #3)

by Chelsea Curto

“Who would be down to be the one blindfolded and have their hands tied up?” I cough and reluctantly raise my hand in the air. My embarrassment lessens when Riley joins me, and the boys all cheer for us.

“I’m not supposed to, but I do. Maybe they’ll go away.” I shrug, wishing I wore a hoodie under my coat. “Maybe they won’t.”

“She’s trying to get to you right now. It’s just taking her a little while. Traffic, you know?” “Wow. That might be the deepest thing you’ve ever said, Mav.”

“I’m proud of you, Mav. Not for the not drinking part, even though that’s great. For all the other stuff. When the time comes, you’re going to be the best dad. Your kid is going to be so fucking lucky.”

“I want to. You do so much by yourself, Maddie, but I’m here when you need to tap out for a minute. I want to help. Let me help.”

“Yeah.” He gestures around the kitchen, not blinking at the catastrophe surrounding us. “You’re the brightest thing in this room. The brightest thing in every room.”

“My dad used to buy my mom flowers whenever she had a hard day. Even if there was already a bouquet in the kitchen, he’d show up with more.”

They’re parts of his mom he carries with him, and to know he’s treating me like his dad treated her makes me feel lucky. Like I’m one in seven billion.

How I missed it before, I don’t know, because it’s so stupidly obvious. I have a crush on Hudson Hayes. An alarmingly real, alarmingly serious crush, where just being around him makes everything better. I can breathe easier. I can think clearer. The night has totally turned around, and it’s all because of him.

I want him, in any way I can have him, because he’s the epitome of perfection. He’s magic and stardust and everything I’ve ever dreamed about when I let my cynical heart imagine falling for another man somewhere down the road. He makes me believe, and that’s not something I’ve done in a very long time.

She’s beautiful all the time, but seeing her and Lucy laugh through dinner makes my brain do this stupid thing where it pretends there’s a world out there where she likes me as much as I like her. And, fuck, do I like her.

“I’m not kissing you unless you tell me to, Madeline. And if I do, it’s not going to be a one-time, casual thing. It’s not going to be a two-time thing. It’s going to mean something, just like it did on New Year’s, because I’m done pretending like I haven’t thought about that night every single day that’s passed. I have. Excessively. But I don’t act on it because I don’t want you to hide from me again. I don’t want to mess this up. You mean too much to me.”

“You can touch me however you want,” I tell her. “I’ll like anything you do to me.” Ruin me, I almost say, but I keep that to myself.

I want her body and her soul, and I’d get on my knees and beg until I had them.

The way your eyes wrinkle when you smile. How your laugh sounds when you’re tired. The noises you make when you come.

“Injury report,” Piper supplies. “It’s the list of players who might be out for the night with an injury. It lists their status as day-to-day or out for an extended period of time.”

It was electric. Every touch singed my skin. Every kiss was the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. Seeing him on his knees, looking up at me with nothing but admiration and lust in his eyes, was almost too much. I felt beautiful. Wanted for the first time in forever. As if I was the most important person in the world.

“You know he’s not going to break your heart—Hudson is a one-woman man. No one else is going to have his attention.”

I’ve been waiting to see him. Waiting to see if my heart would still skip a beat when he smiles at me, and it does. My draw to him isn’t just lust and infatuation. It’s feelings, real and true, and I want to do so many things with him.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Madeline. Please be gentle when you kill me.”

That makes the string inside me pull unbelievably tight. I’ll fawn over the romance of it all and his attention to detail later. I might doodle his name in a journal and put ten hearts around it in the morning—how could I not?—but

I trace over the faded stretch marks on her hips, wondering what it’s going to feel like when I fuck her from behind and can admire them. I’m imagining the life she lived until she met me. All the incredible things her body has done and how I’m the lucky bastard who gets to be here with her.

“I want to be good for you, Maddie,” I practically beg.

“This right here—being with you? Touching you? Breathing the same air as you?—is good enough for me. Everything else is a bonus.”

Maybe she and Lucy have been the missing piece all along.

“It’s mine,” he says. “You’re wearing my number.”

His mouth stretches into a grin, and I give him one right back. “My name looks good on you, Galloway.” “You think so?” “Yeah. Better than any of the other women in the arena. You’re the only one I want wearing it.”

“I’ve got my girls in the crowd wearing my jersey, Galloway.” Hudson’s face shifts from playful to something soft. A truth he’s declaring in the middle of the sold-out arena. “I could miss every shot I take. We could lose by twenty, and it’d still be a damn good night.”

It’s not a line I’m giving to placate her. I’m stressed out. I never thought I’d be emotionally invested in a sports team, but here I am, biting my thumbnail then clasping my hands together.

I nod and pull away. I watch him go, painfully aware of how empty I already feel without him by my side.

“You’re my best friend. You’re not going to come to Georgia and not see your mom,” he says. “I figured you’d want an early start because of the skate we have scheduled at noon. I have a car downstairs, coffee in the cup holders, and some flowers I grabbed from a gas station.”

wonder if there will come a time when I accidentally miss the anniversary of her passing. I wonder if soon it’ll be fifteen, twenty years since she left, and I’ll start to lose the things I can’t see in photographs.

“I love you, Mama. To the stars, the heavens, and beyond.”

I’m too busy grinning up at my dad, and I swear I can hear my mom cheering for me from the stands.

They can look at her all they want, but she’s coming home with me.

“Father Lord, I repent for my sins.” Grant closes his eyes and clasps his palms together. “I vow to never make a joke like that again if you can take away the pain.” “Guess the saying is true: anything they can do, we can do better.” Emmy gives us a sharp smirk in the mirror. “Maybe if you all smiled more you’d have more fun.”

“You have some strong legs,” I point out. “Maybe I can put them around your head when we get home,” she tosses back nonchalantly, and I blush.

“This way I get to see the parts of yourself you say you don’t love. The cellulite, the stretch marks. You don’t have to like them, Maddie, but I’m fucking obsessed with them. I’ll worship them for both of us.”

“I’m not finished, Hayes. The teacher is still talking,” he says sharply, and I blink. “So there’s no ring and no wedding. Big fucking deal. You can spend decades together and be just as happy as any other couple who did get married. If she’s what you want, the other stuff doesn’t matter. Love is what you make it, dipshit.”

“Of course I mean it. I’d go to war for your daughter. For you, too.”

Because I’m fucking falling in love with you, and I’d let you break my heart if that’s what you wanted. “Because y’all are mine.” I tuck a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “And I protect what’s mine.”

Being at team dinner gives a new meaning to the word family.

“Maybe he is, but if that’s the case, we can have two soulmates. Because Emmy is most definitely his, too.”

“I’ll be whatever role you both want me to be. And nothing has to change. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable. I don’t want you to have any uncomfortable conversations, so I’m not going to make out with you in the kitchen. Maybe, just, I don’t know. We tell her we care about each other?”

“You could hand Lucy a rock and she’d think it’s the greatest thing in the world. Whatever surprise you have for her—for me—is going to be really fucking cool. I can’t wait to see what it is.”

“At least you tried,” she said with a smile. “Imagine how much less exciting your life would’ve been if you hadn’t. You might have failed the class, but you’re better off than the people who didn’t even show up.” At least I tried, I remind myself. At least I showed up for them. I’m always going to show up for them, and that’s enough to propel me forward.

“I’ve been practicing my signing. I’ve loved having you and your mom here. And I hope you’ll stick around for a while. You are one of my favorite people in the world, Lucy girl, and I’m so excited we can talk to each other. I might not be very good at it, but I’m going to keep learning for you, okay?” Lucy’s bottom lip trembles. Hi, Hudson, she answers, and it’s not lost on me that she’s signing slower than she does when she talks with her mom. My name is Lucy. I’m so glad we’re friends. I love your doggies. And you. You make me happy. You make Mommy happy too. How old are you? I’m six. “Thirty-one,” I say and sign back, and Madeline lets out a choked sob. I jerk my neck up to look at her, and she covers her mouth. She shakes her head and sniffs. “I think I made your mom sad,” I tell her.

“I was afraid it was too much,” I admit. “I know I’m… some guy y’all are living with. But I wanted to show you that there are people out there who are willing to show up for you girls. That you should never have to settle for someone who can’t do the bare minimum.” “Nothing you do is too much, and you’re not some guy we’re living with. You’re my best friend in the entire world,” she whispers, and I drop a kiss to her forehead. “I think you’re everything to me.” “You’re my best friend too, Maddie. And I was serious when I said I want y’all to stick around.”

He makes me think I’ll never have my heart broken again. He makes me realize there’s so much good that comes with giving yourself to someone, and maybe one day, after I’ve been with him for a year or two, I’ll never be afraid of the pain that could come from things going wrong. He makes me believe. In love, in healing, in relationships that don’t end. He makes me want to take off my cynic-colored glasses and give in to a romance full of respect and communication, without the fear of being abandoned. Again.

“I want you all day, every day, Mads.”