Once again, everybody answers in a monotone affirmative. Well, almost everybody. I nod my head, but I make no promises. It’s nothing personal. The fact is, Coach B’s probably the best guy I know. He’s done a hell of a lot for me and it’s no exaggeration to say that I wouldn’t be in this locker room if it weren’t for him. My hard work has kept me here, no doubt, but Coach is the one who opened the door. He’s my mentor, the older brother I never had. I’m sure as hell not trying to date his niece—hell, my body’s still buzzing from my night with Maggie.
So, I’m not being a prick. It just feels weird to me to agree to swear off some woman I’ve never even met. I know Baylor’s older than we are, but it’s not the fucking MiddleAges.
There’ll be a fucking fire in my net the day I let anybody tell me who I can or can’t date, not that it matters much anyway.
There’s only one woman I’d make space in my life for right now, and she clearly doesn’t share my feelings.
I guess that means it’s back to the one thing that’s never let me down: hockey. I was drafted right out of high school and I’m here to get the experience I need so that when the Portland Sasquatch come calling, I’m ready for them.
Even if Maggie hadn’t left me alone in a bathtub this morning, I don’t have time for anything but the game I love.
CHAPTER 10
MAGGIE
I’min my happy place.
Well, I’m in my uncle’s backyard, but for now, it’s my happy place.
I lived with my grandparents throughout my whole childhood. There were times when my mom lived with us, too, and times she talked about the two of us getting a place of our own.
That dream life never materialized. As an adult, it hurts to look back on all the times she never showed up or to remember all the excuses Gam made on her behalf.
But as a kid, I was always secretly glad when my mom bailed on a weekend visit because that gave me more time with Pop.
Hal Baylor was a quiet man. Where Gam was a chatty extrovert, a social butterfly who got her fuel from being around other people, Pop was much happier on his own, especially if that meant he could be outside in his garden. That’s where I’d always find him, and where I began to escape to, as well.
I don’t remember the first time I dug my fingers into therich earth and planted flowers with Pop; I just can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing it.
We’d sit in companionable silence for hours, working side-by-side to make the spacious yard into the garden showplace my grandmother loved to flaunt at neighborhood parties and barbeques.
The summer I was thirteen, Pop dug up a bed of calla lilies and replaced them with sunflowers because they were my favorite. Gam had a fit, but he placated her with some story about rose rot. She sulked for a few days but got over herself after we built her a small pond with a bed of pink calla lilies at the edge.
Days spent in the backyard with Pop are some of my very best memories. He passed away in the fall of my senior year of high school and Gam died of grief the following April. Their house sold that summer, just a few days before I left for California.
Back then, Uncle Hudson tried to get me to stay here with him and his wife. He’d only been coaching at BU for a year, but the way he was selling the place, they should have given him a spot in the marketing department. No sales pitch could have changed my mind back then. I was hell-bent on heading west and finding my roots, such as they were. I was fully convinced I’d find the missing pieces of myself, the answers that would finally make my life make sense.
Just over three years later, and I’m right where Uncle Hudson wanted me to be. I’m no closer to finding myself or understanding my parents or the choices they made.
I’m a little older, but no wiser.
I’m right back in the dirt.
I may not have any of the answers I was searching for but I have free rein over this backyard, a credit card I can use at the local nursery, and about a million ideas to make my Uncle’s yard even prettier than Gam’s was.
“Wow.”
As though my thoughts transported him out here, Uncle Hudson stands before me, hands on his hips, his blue eyes wide.
I smile up at him from my spot on the grass. “You’ll be repeating that one word in a few months, I swear. But you’ll need to work on your tone. Here’s a tip, more awe, less abject horror.”
He laughs, causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle. “It’s not horror, I swear. I just…is there anything left at the plant place? Did you buy them out?”
“Ha ha,” I say, rolling my eyes and taking in the scene from his perspective. I know it’s not a money thing. Uncle Hudson has more than enough in his bank account from his pro hockey days, and the salary he draws from the university has to be hefty. I’m thinking his bug-eyed expression has more to do with the fact that his patio is covered in bags of mulch and soil, and that I’m sitting here surrounded by plants and planters on all sides. I really didn’t buy too much, but to the untrained eye I guess it looks like a lot of stuff. “Believe me, there’s plenty left at the nursery. If I hadn’t left some there, what would I buy next week?”
My uncle laughs as he surveys the work I’ve already done. I’ve been out here for hours, partly because it’s kind of weird, living here. I’ve been on my own the past three years in California, so having two roommates, who happen to be married adults, is a little strange. Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful they opened their home to me. But it’s easier to express that gratitude by sprucing up their yard than it is to sit around and make idle chit chat over coffee.
“You really have Pops’s green thumb. Missed me, for sure,” he says, peering at the rows of hens and chicks I planted earlier today.
