Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
I leveled her with an unamused look as she shot me a wry grin. Chef Patel loved to give me shit.
I’d never tell her that I secretly liked it, too.
At the rink, I was all business. I always had a team to wrangle and a game to win. Somehow, in the last nine years, I’d gone from a decent rookie, to a promising rising star, to a fucking train wreck, and then to the best goalie in the league.
I was now a veteran player for the Tampa Bay Ospreys, and for the first time since I’d been a part of the franchise, we had a real shot at the Cup.
My sole focus rested in getting us there.
Which didn’t leave much time for friends.
My teammates were like family, though. I may not have shown it as much as I should have, or in the ways most people were used to — but they knew I loved them. They knew I was there for them. Hell, if it wasn’t for me slapping them upside the head sometimes and making them think straight, half of them would probably be sent down to the AHL, or completely wiped from any league.
I would push them. I would remind them of their priorities. I would show them how to play better, faster, stronger.
But no, I wasn’t going to party at the local puck bunny spots after a win, nor was I going to crack open a beer and shoot the shit at a barbecue in the off-season.
I didn’t want friends.
I wanted a team.
I wanted the Stanley Cup.
And I wanted my daughter to be okay.
That last part was always the most difficult of the equation. Not only was I struggling more often than not to be a good, present father with a career that demanded so much of my time and attention, but I also apparently had a massive ineptitude when it came to finding a nanny to help me balance it all.
A heavy sigh left me at the thought of Ava standing in the car line waiting for the last sorry excuse for a nanny I’d hired — the one I’d promptly fired just thirty minutes ago. Actually, I’d let Chef Patel do the honors. She was all too eager after I’d told her what happened. Chef thought of Ava like her own daughter at this point, and she never did like that nanny.
I wasn’t too proud to admit that I wasn’t exactly the easiest guy to work for, but I also wasn’t going to apologize for laying out the expectations I had for my daughter’s caretaker.
It shouldn’t have been so fucking hard to find a competent female figure for Ava to connect with and look up to, to learn from and feel safe with.
But fuck if it wasn’t the most difficult game I’d ever played.
The security system announcing that someone was at the front gate shook me from the thought. I tried not to groan out loud as I pushed the button on my phone app that granted access, but Chef Patel chuckled — which told me I didn’t succeed.
“It’s just dinner,” she said in a way a mother might scold a child for throwing a tantrum over cleaning their room. “Besides, I looked up your friend,” she added, waggling her brows. “She’s quite pretty. Don’t think you’ll have to suffer too much.”
I ignored that comment and made my way to the driveway just in time to see Miss Knott opening the back door of an old Honda Accord.
Chef was wrong.
Miss Knott wasn’t quite pretty — she was fucking gorgeous.
Even after what I could assume was a long day of herding little brats at the private school she taught at, she still had a glow about her. I’d been annoyed that I’d even noticed her shapely body when she’d come to the rink earlier. Now, with practice over and nothing else calling my attention, it was all I could do not to stare too hard at those curves as she bent down to help Ava out of her booster seat, the swell of her ass framed perfectly by that damned polka dot skirt.
Fucking Christ.
She handed Ava her backpack as I straightened my shoulders and brought my eyes away from her backside. My daughter slipped the straps over her shoulders with a blank stare, dragging her feet a little on her way over to me.
“Hey, Pumpkin,” I said in greeting, ruffling her hair when she made it to me. “Have fun?”
“Yeah,” she said — in the way someone might sound if they were telling you about a root canal. “I painted a butterfly.”
“A butterfly? That sounds pretty. Can I see it?”
“Nacho threw up on it,” she said, and then she was heading inside without further explanation or waiting for me to follow. “Guess you were right. Cats are assholes.”