Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 53238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 266(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 266(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
“I know you’re looking at porn,” he mumbles.
“Uh-huh.”
“Hey, before you put your hand down your pants and start jerking off, I’ve got to know--what is on the inside of boobs?”
I shake my head, not even bothering to respond.
It’s raining in Vancouver. I went back to the hotel for a pregame nap, and I got soaked when I got in and out of my Uber back to the arena. I needed the sleep, though, and I feel a lot better.
I head to the locker room to change into dry clothes, arriving just in time for a meeting with our head coach, Noel Turner.
“We’ve seen it in film--these guys come out swinging,” he says. “They’re gonna try to set the pace right out of the gate so they can dictate the game.”
I follow along as he goes over plays on his whiteboard, but my mind is on the voicemail I listened to on the Uber ride back to the area.
My family law attorney, Michelle Maroni, is widely known to be the best in the Cleveland area. When one of my teammates found out his wife was cheating on him, he hired Michelle before even telling his wife he wanted a divorce, just to be sure his wife wouldn’t hire her first. When he got traded to Boston last season, he was able to take his kids with him, thanks to Michelle’s work on his behalf.
Michelle gets right to the point, telling me to call her as soon as possible. I can’t stop worrying that something big has come up in my bid to adopt the girls. Even though Rachel left me guardianship of them in her will, Michelle recommended I adopt them. That means the girls’ deadbeat dad, Chad, had to be tracked down and agree to it.
I’m holding out hope he’ll do the right thing. He hasn’t tried to see his three daughters since he left when Hallie was nine months old. Five years without a single effort made. Needless to say, I hate that fucker.
“You got somewhere better to be, Stanton?” Coach barks when he catches me looking at the clock on the wall.
“No, Coach.”
“You sure? I don’t want to keep you from anything.”
He’s fired up for this game because we’ve lost our last four games to Vancouver. They’re one of the toughest teams to beat on their home ice.
“I’m good, Coach.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We need our first line to be dialed in.”
“We are,” Leo assures him. “We’re ready, Coach.”
Leo’s the best kind of teammate. He always tries to deflect blame from others onto himself. Especially when it’s me or Bash. If Coach is telling us we fucked up, Leo tries to shift at least some of the blame onto himself.
“Be back here in fifteen,” Coach says, capping the black marker he was writing on the whiteboard with.
The other guys head out of the meeting room to grab drinks or use the bathroom. I approach Coach Turner.
“Hey, Coach, I need to return a call from my attorney about the girls. She said it’s important. I don’t know if I’ll even catch her when I call, but I wanted to let you know in case I’m not back in time.”
“No problem. Do what you need to do.”
He’s an intense coach, but he’s always telling us family comes first. When Rachel died, he told me to take as much time as I needed. I knew he meant it, too. But every time I saw that we’d lost when I was in San Diego, I felt guilty about being gone.
That’s a thing we all experience in hockey--our team becomes family, too, and we want to be there for our families and our team families at the same time sometimes. In the wake of my sister’s unexpected death, all I wanted to do was hit opponents. I fought my way through my first two games back.
Nothing feels worse than helplessness. Seeing Olivia, Charlotte and Hallie devastated over losing their mom was so much harder for me than grieving Rachel was. Aunt Rosie told me to hug them and just let them cry, to stop trying to keep them from being so sad.
It’s damn hard, though. My nature is to hold things up as they’re breaking. To keep them from falling and shattering. But the girls had already cracked into a thousand pieces. I still feel like I’m picking them up, which I’m not great at.
I take my phone into an empty training room, flip the light switch on, and push a button on my screen to call Michelle back.
“Hey, Carter,” she says, answering her cell immediately. “Thanks for getting right back to me, I know how busy you are.”
“No problem, what’s up?”
“The response from Chad Sanderson’s attorney was filed.” I can hear the grimace in her tone. “I don’t like the looks of it. He’s living in Seward, Alaska, and he’s been employed at the same place for more than two years. He’s engaged to a woman and they’re expecting a child. And he wants full custody.”