I couldn’t care less. Having them live with me isn’t half as bad as I thought it would be. I’m relaxed. Deep-down relaxed. Even Johnny’s high-pitched voice doesn’t bother me anymore.
The sex with his mom is freaking fantastic. All I needed was to get laid on a regular basis again, and I’m… alive again.
Once I thought I needed my old life back for that, but I actually don’t miss the parties anymore. It was good to have them back then, but the thought of having so many people in the house again makes me want to recheck the gate is closed. My party-hosting days are over. For good.
Hockey is another thing. I had hoped that saying goodbye in the Ice Tigers’ arena would make things… easier. But I still don’t know how to handle anything hockey related. Johnny sure as hell fell head over heels in love with the sport that day. I don’t know exactly what Emilia and the rest of the team showed him. But he keeps pestering his mom about watching hockey on TV.
Ellie doesn’t let him as far as I know. I think it’s out of respect for me. I still haven’t watched a game. I don’t want to right now. But I hate that I’m keeping the joy of watching hockey from Johnny. I was like the little boy once.
Growing up, I watched as much hockey on TV as my parents would allow me. How many nights did I persuade them to watch Hockey Night in Canada with me? Watching all those late-night games in my pj’s made me fall in love with the game. Mom would cook a treat, and Dad would sit in his armchair while I stayed glued to the TV and watched the players fly over the ice. I wanted to be like them. And I succeeded. I was one of them. For a limited time.
When I called Dr. Winter a few days ago and told her about my visit to the arena, she said I should be grateful that I got to live my dream. Most people never get to live theirs. She said the chances of playing in the NHL are around one in four thousand and that I should be proud of myself.
Easier said than done.
The small percentage of little boys who get to live their dream doesn’t make a difference to me. I don’t think she truly understands what it’s like to be ripped from the very thing that was the center of your being. Hockey was on my mind from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep. Hockey dictated my schedule. Hockey provided my biggest goal in life. Nothing will ever be able to replace that. Not a single thing.
I sigh. I don’t want to linger in the past. What’s the point? I don’t want to become one of these retired players who are unable to let go. I never wanted to be the guy dumping my outdated hockey knowledge to every platform half-heartedly interested in interviewing me. But I thought I had time to figure out my life after hockey. I thought it would be my decision when to close the chapter.
Maybe it’s better for Johnny to never get too attached to hockey. That way he can’t get hurt.
He won’t be forced to move forward and learn new things. It’s hard. I’m fucking lost. But I’m giving my best right now. What else is there for me to do? Dr. Winter said to try new things, and that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to find myself again. I’m trying to find out who I want to be.
Ellie’s life hasn’t been sunshine and roses either, but she’s preserved her positive outlook on life. I wish it was as easy for me as it seems to be for her. For his and my sake I hope I’ll never cross paths with that Steven guy. I sure as hell would have a couple of things to say to him. But Ellie is right, it isn’t my business.
For now, it’s enough that I’m learning new things with and from her. In bed. With the kid, though I’m still not over the fact that I had to open his diaper and wipe his butt for him.
At least we’re on speaking terms again after he dropped the second glass. Johnny’s even asked me to help him with one of his dinosaur puzzles. To say my chest inflated to twice its size isn’t even a joke. I’m glad he isn’t afraid of me anymore. He’s done nothing wrong and certainly doesn’t understand what’s happened to me. He shouldn’t. All he needs to do is live as carefree as possible and grow into a big man. Looking at how much food he stuffs in his mouth throughout the day, he’ll be bigger than me one day.
I’m still not over the fact that he ate three whole pancakes yesterday—pancakes that were supposed to be mine.
Sergei taught me how to make normal and protein pancakes over the past few days. And yesterday I tried to make the regular ones on my own. A success. Johnny dug into his with as much enthusiasm as he digs into his porridge, so they must have been good. Who would have thought that? I can fucking cook.
I drop down on the chair in my walk-in closet. It’s my favorite place in the house. I spent weeks arranging everything to perfection when I first moved in.
On the wall to my left, my jeans are sorted by color and lay neatly folded on one shelf. In the open wardrobe next to it, the dress pants hang under their matching jackets, and my dress shirts are sorted by color and material.
On the wall to my right, my shoes are stacked behind a glass front to protect them from the dust and are, of course, sorted by color and season. But by far, the best thing is the island in the middle where everything from underwear to socks and accessories is packed away.
I used to get ready for my parties in here. Walking around the island, I would pick out my outfit and then sit down on the chair and put it on. I trail my fingertips over the dark wood and remember the excitement I felt each time I wore something new.
There aren’t many items in this room I’ve worn twice. Fashion used to be an important part of my being. I like to shop. I like to spend money on myself, but I’m no longer up to date with the latest designer releases anymore. Once the depression took hold of me, I stopped caring.
Dr. Winter said I should tidy up my head to allow new things to enter my mind. Why not start with my closet? I’m in the mood to change my wardrobe. But where to begin?
I prop up on my cane and scuffle to my shirts. Some of them still have the price tags hanging down their front. I kind of lost count of what I bought before the accident.
I pull out a black shirt and lift it to further inspect the print. I think I bought it during my last road trip. It sports an oversized leopard print in neon green on the front. I like it. It’s perfect to wear with black jeans and white sneakers. That one stays. I shove it to the side and lift the next one up for inspection. It’s light blue with big black lips on the front. Nope, don’t like it anymore. I throw it on the floor.
“Michael?” Ellie’s voice interrupts my spring-cleaning endeavor.
“I’m in the walk-in closet,” I say out loud while I look at the next shirt.
“Where’s that?” she yells.
I pause my inspection and listen for the sound of her crutches on the floor, but don’t hear anything. “Next to my bedroom.”
Half a minute later, Ellie enters the room while Johnny halts at the doorframe behind her. He might have eaten my pancakes and let me hand him the pieces of his puzzle, but he’s still wary of me.
“Holy…. are these all yours?” Ellie’s eyes roam the room.
“Cool, isn’t it?” Grinning, I motion around. This room is my pride and joy, next to my Porsche—the Porsche I can’t use anymore. The grin falls from my face.
“Cool isn’t exactly how I would describe… this.” She lifts one crutch from the floor and forms a circle. Then she takes another step in my direction.
“Not tool,” the little guy chimes in from the door.
I send a stern look in his direction. “But your dinosaur shirts are?”
He nods twice and steps from one foot to the other.
“What about this? Do you think that’s cool?” I pick the leopard print shirt and present it to him.
Johnny frowns, then giggles. “No.” He runs inside the room and back to the doorframe.
I blink. “Oh, boy. You have a lot to learn about fashion.” I present the shirt to his mom. “What do you think, Ellie?”
She tilts her head and frowns. “It’s… uh… extraordinary?”
“It’s so cool.” I trail a fingertip over the
print.
“Holy… please don’t tell me you paid three hundred dollars for that thing?” Ellie tilts her head even more to inspect the price tag.
“It’s a designer shirt.” I hang the shirt up and hide the tag from her prying eyes. “It’s quality material. Three hundred isn’t that expensive.”
“Expe’ive. Expe’ive.” The little guy runs in the room again and races around the island in the middle of the room.
“Johnny, slow down. The floor is slippery,” Ellie scolds.
“Sl’pry. Sl’pry.”
“Are you the Energizer Bunny again today?” I ask.
He slides to a stop in front of me and shakes his head.
“Or are you… a parrot?”
He frowns and tilts his head.
“A parrot is a bird that can talk,” Ellie says from behind me.
“Ta’k?” His head flies in Ellie’s direction.
I answer before she can. “Yes, some parrots can talk. They repeat everything, like you just did.” I pull out my phone and Google “parrot.” “See, that’s a parrot.” I reach for my cane and walk over to him, lowering my phone for him to inspect.
He crinkles his nose, then looks straight at me. “No pa’ott.”
“No, but you repeated everything earlier, didn’t you?”
He shakes his head again and crosses his legs. My inner alarm bells ring.
“Do you need to pee?” I ask.
He pouts. Then nods. “’elp?” He stares me right in the eyes.
My eyebrows shoot up before I can control them. “You want me to help you in the bathroom?”
He nods twice and crosses his legs even more.
I reach for my cane. “Uh… sure. Let’s go.” So we’re back to… normal, I guess. From not talking to me to eating my pancakes and wanting me to wipe his butt in no time. Why not? As long as he doesn’t pee in my walk-in closet, we’re super cool.
“Tan you lead?” Johnny stops in front of the couch, his stuffed dinosaur tucked under one arm and what I assume is a beloved dinosaur card game in the other.
“Can I read?” I push myself into a sitting position.
He nods and presses his dino closer to his body, crushing the poor thing in the process.
I sit up straighter. “Sure I can. Is your mommy asleep?”
“S’e read an’ fell ’sleep.” His voice is high-pitched, and he waves his hand with the card game around while he speaks. It’s the first time he’s talked to me in that voice—a voice he only uses when he’s comfortable around people. I kept Ellie up all night. No wonder she’s tired. Who can’t keep up with whom now?
Huffing and puffing, he climbs on the couch and hands me his dinosaur card game.
I accept the box and frown. “Maybe we should start with a picture book? I haven’t read anything in a while.” Ages to be precise. I like audiobooks and sometimes listen to them as I fall asleep.
A dinosaur card game with difficult to pronounce names is out of my league. I half-listened to Ellie reading them to him the other night and didn’t understand half of the names. I don’t think I ever was as much into the died-out animals as the little guy in front of me. I collected hockey cards when I was little.
He shakes his head. “You read. I ’elp.”
“How is it that you can pronounce the most difficult dinosaur names but not whole sentences with everyday words?”
He shrugs and gives me a crooked smile.
I clear my throat. “All right. So, I have to read what’s on the cards, right?”
He nods so fast I’m afraid his head is about to fall off. Please don’t get sick on my couch. I’m not allowed to buy a new one if your mom has a say in the matter.
I take the first card in my hand and show it to the little guy sitting a few inches away from me on the couch. “I know that one—”
“T-Rex,” he screams and jumps a little in his seat.
Damn, I could have pronounced that one. “Yup. Pretty scary, isn’t he? Look at his teeth.”
He shakes his head and pouts.
“He would have eaten you.” I try to say it with a roar like I’ve heard Ellie say it but fail miserably. It’s safe to say I can remove acting from my possible future career choices.
He shakes his head and points at me.
“You think he’d have preferred me?” I rub my chin and tilt my head in the same direction as his. “I think he would have liked baby meat better.”
He shakes his head so far from left to right I can’t help but wonder again if he’ll throw up any second.
“No? Okay, you’re the expert. Let’s move on to the next card. So… that’s an an-ky—”
“Ankylosaurus.” He jumps again and crawls a little closer, bending over at his hip to get a better look at the card. It’s the closest he’s ever been to me, except for our little encounter with the broken glass. And let’s not forget the time I wiped his butt.
“Yup. That’s the one.” Thank you for not making me pronounce this name. “He’s pretty ugly, don’t you think?”
“Nooo. Not…” He puffs. “Utly.” He bends more to his side, grabs the card with both hands, and places it on his thigh once he’s sitting again. Then he reaches for his stuffed dinosaur and shows him the card, prodding the paper with the dinosaur’s nose. Am I sidelined now? Sent to the penalty box without having done anything?
I bend to my side and look at the little guy over his shoulder. Two can play this game. “Okay. What’s the thing at the end of his tail?”
“His tlub.”
“A ‘tlub’?” What the hell is that? “Are you sure that’s what it’s called?”
He nods his head up and down so fast I get sick just from watching him and uses his hands on the backrest to push himself in a standing position.
“Please sit down again.” God forbid he falls over the backrest under my watch. Not that Ellie asked me to watch him, but….
“He… he… smases you wit his tlub. Lite tis.” Johnny holds his stuffed dinosaur over his head and lunges an attack on me.
I flinch and cough. The problem is, he doesn’t just hit me with the stuffed animal but also with his little fist. Holy shit. The little guy has more strength in him than his mom. Her fists on my chest didn’t bother me at all. His fist in my stomach is an entirely different matter.
I cough again and suck air in my bruised ribs. Damn, that hurt.
“He’s pretty dangerous,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Yeah.” He drops down on the couch beside me again with a plop. This time his arm touches my thigh.
“Nest,” the little guy demands. And I do as instructed. God forbid he throws a temper tantrum while Ellie is asleep.
With every dinosaur card, he inches a little closer. I hold my breath when he’s practically sitting on my lap. His little body is surprisingly warm—so warm, sweat pools under my shirt where he touches me. It’s weird to have a small person this close to me. Sure, I signed autographs for kids, handed them a puck or a stick, or took a picture with them. But never have I had a child entrusted in my care.
He climbs on my good leg and drops his head on my shoulder when we’ve reached the last card in the stack. Then he falls asleep on me, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
I keep as still as possible, not wanting him to wake up again. His breathing is even, and his little fist lies over my heart as if to protect it. I put a hand on his back to keep him from sliding off my body. Who would have thought this two weeks ago? Me and the little one cuddling on the couch?
The very couch Ellie and I…. This is weird. Does he know that I… do things with his mom? Can he pick up on our changed dynamics?
As if he can hear my thoughts, his breathing accelerates for a split second and his hand opens to cover my heart. Crazy how he brings out my protective side. If someone were to give him shit right now, it would be my shit. I feel… responsible for him, and not only because I’m banging his mom. Not only because I feel an obligation toward her, but becaus
e he’s snuck in my heart.
A heart that isn’t as dead as I thought it to be. With that troublesome thought on my mind, I fall asleep, holding the little one close to me.
“Michael. Michael, wake up.” Ellie’s voice enters my mind.
I blink, disoriented. There’s something heavy on my chest. Not something. A someone. I lift my head and stare at the sleeping figure on top of me.
“What time is it?” My head plops back down.
“It’s six a.m.”
Wow. I’ve slept for ten hours without waking once. Must have been all those unpronounceable names frying my brain.
“Did he bother you?” Ellie towers over us on her crutches.
Apart from the fact that my back feels like it’s broken? “Not at all. I read the dinosaur cards to him.” And he tried to murder me with Rexi.
“Thank you. There hasn’t been an accident?” She looks at the little guy.
“Accident?” My gaze flies to her again.
“Yeah. I fell asleep before I could put on his night diaper. Did you go to the bathroom with him before he fell asleep?”
“No, I didn’t.” I check for any wetness between my body and his and consider myself the luckiest person in the world when there isn’t any.
“Johnny.” She sits down next to me and shakes his shoulder. “Johnny, it’s time to wake up.” Her voice is soft and warm when she talks to him. A real mom’s voice. A beautiful one.
The little guy wiggles on top of me and mumbles something incoherent under his breath but doesn’t stir.
“Pumpkin, you need to wake up now.” Ellie shakes his shoulder again.
“No, don’t wan’ to wate up.” His little fists dig into my shirt, expanding the material to double its size. The little man isn’t happy with his mommy right now.
I stroke his back to keep him from falling and adjust my position under him. He chooses this very moment to open his eyes and blinks twice. His little head shoots up, and he rubs his eyes furiously with one hand. Someone might have forgotten that he fell asleep on me last night.
Fighting against Gravity: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Sports Romance (An Ice Tigers Hockey Romance Book 3) Page 15
