School and Rock (Raptors Book 5)

by RJ Scott

  I didn’t like his dictatorial attitude and bristled a little. Madeline cut loose with a wickedly loud panty puff that made me smile. She just might have been mine after all…

  “We have playoffs,” Coach reminded his partner.

  Mark gave him a scalding look. “I’m well aware of our post-season commitments, Rowen. I’m on the phone with legal now. They’re telling me that we have to call Child Services and hand the baby over to them until—”

  “No! Fuck that noise!” I shouted. Madeline jerked and whined. I shushed her but continued to glower at Mark around her soft little head. “No. She is not going into the system. No. I forbid it. I know what happens to kids when they serve time in foster care.”

  “Colorado,” Mark said, his voice growing softer as he neared me. I clutched my—the baby—closer, hiking her up until my scruffy cheek rested on her dark hair. “You have no legal rights here yet.”

  “She’s mine. The note said so.” I thought about the purple ink on that note. Was it still in the yard? Or had it blown away like my previous life had just done?

  “We don’t know that she’s yours,” Coach reminded me.

  I took a couple of steps back, my foot hitting an empty Jager bottle. What did he know? He’d just told the guy at the airport that we’d be late due to an “unfavorable team situation that had to be resolved” before we could take off. I disliked the idea of my kid—alleged kid—being called a situation. It wasn’t her fault some irresponsible chick had dumped her on my doorstep like an unwanted barn cat.

  “Rowen’s right,” Mark said, lowering his phone. “You’ll need to prove paternity before you can petition the court for some sort of termination of parent-child relationship for the mother or something along those lines.”

  “I don’t know who the mother is!” I snapped, making Madeline whine again. I bounced her gently while easing out of the room. “It was like a year ago. I tend to spread myself around. It could be—”

  “One of a thousand,” Vlad picked that moment to speak up.

  I threw a glare at him. “Who asked you, Ivan Drago?”

  He arched a sleek eyebrow.

  “Colorado, this has to be handled correctly,” Coach stated. My gaze flew back to him as he slid between me and Mark, his voice calm and cool but strong as steel. “We can see that you’re attached to the child already, and while that’s admirable, she may not be yours. This might be some kind of ruse or blackmail scheme. We just don’t know, and to be brutally honest, this house and your lifestyle is not conducive to raising a baby.”

  I opened my mouth to argue then my drummer staggered in via the open front door. Madeline was growing fussier and fussier and I had no idea why.

  “Dude, oh my God, is that a baby?” Buick shouted as he stumbled into the foyer, wearing nothing but a sombrero and a few dozen love bites. I nodded at my drummer. He grinned that lovely grin of his then hurried over to tickle Madeline’s chin. “She’s cute. Why is she stressing?”

  “Probably because you reek.”

  That made my drummer snort. “I fell asleep in a bush.”

  “Dude, the gardener’s like just composted the flower beds, or something. Don’t touch her face with shit fingers.”

  Buick, who was actually Tom Marks from Fort Wayne, Indiana, gave me a lopsided grin.

  “I said I fell asleep in a bush. I never said what kind of bush.” He sniggered as bits of bark and dirt fell from him to the Italian marble.

  “Is there a reason this man has no clothes on?” Coach snapped, and I shrugged.

  “I have a hat,” Buick pointed out then dusted off his long brown hair and scruffy beard. “Why is the little one upset?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, bouncing, and patting her tiny back.

  “Colorado, we must call Child Services. None of us are capable childcare providers and the baby has to be checked out by a doctor,” Mark said, his gaze locked on the bright pink sombrero atop Buick’s head as he spoke.

  I shook my head. Why I was so fiercely fighting this was a mystery. I’d never even thought of kids aside from they were righteously funny, and maybe someday, when I was a grown-up, I’d want a few. There was some sort of connection to the mewling baby in my arms, though. Something intangible but vibrant. Yet, looking around my home and the men gathered in it, I knew deep down that Westman-Reid was right. This tiny person did need to be with someone with experience with babies. That could be me. Right?

  “I want her back. If the blood tests says I’m her father, I want her back.”

  Everyone gaped. Even Buick, and he was a hard one to stun.

  “Colorado,” Coach replied in that placating way people spoke to you when they thought you were about to make a monumentally stupid decision. “Your life…”

  “Can be changed. Will be changed. I will not have my kid in the system for a moment longer than needed. I’ll petition whoever I need to petition. Sonia Sotomayor! I’ll plead my case to her or send her papers or whatever it takes. This baby comes home to me when they prove I’m the father. Promise me that she comes back to me or I’m packing up my shit and hers and crossing the border. I’ll do it. I’ll be in Tijuana before you can work up a good spit.”

  “We can’t make that promise,” Coach replied.

  “Then I’m headed to Mexico,” I tossed out.

  Madeline’s brow dropped to my bare shoulder. Was she asleep? Oh my God, did she trust me enough to sleep in my arms?

  “Colorado, stop being a spoiled child.” Vlad broke into the standoff. “You are not father material. A father—”

  “Do not lecture me about what a father is! I know what a father is and isn’t!” I snarled, cradling a petite, sleepy girl to me as my head spun.

  “A good father does what is right for his child. He puts their needs above his own,” Vlad whispered just as my spine hit the doorway. Motherfucking Russian and his icy straightforward shit. “We will do what we can to help you keep the child if she is yours. But now you must do what is right and legal. Show the world there is more to you than it thinks.”

  I drew in a shaky breath then with great reservation, handed the sleeping baby to Mark Westman-Reid. He nodded, cradled Madeline, and padded off into the kitchen. I slid down the wall. Vlad patted my shoulder. Coach resumed talking to whoever he was connected to, airport people I guessed, and Mark could be heard giving directions to some suit from the team legal department. I’d have to hire a lawyer. Maybe my agent, the useless dreck, could find me one.

  Buick sat beside me. “Dude, I’m sorry but don’t despair. The sun always warms the coldest heart, right? You wrote that for ‘Long Night into a Rose Day,’ remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember, B.” It was one of our best songs, destined to be a number one hit according to Black Crack Records. I couldn’t seem to work up one shiny shit about the songs, the contract, or the playoffs. All I could dwell on was that I’d handed an innocent into the hands of the system. And poor Madeline didn’t have a grandmother to rescue her like I’d had. She was all alone now. But not for long. God as my fucking judge, I would get her back somehow. Even if she weren’t mine, I’d adopt her. No child should suffer the lifelong hurt of knowing their parents didn’t want them caused.

  “It’ll all turn out sunny, C-Man.” He hugged me, got up, walked to his drum set, dumped the koi to the floor, and jogged off with his dripping Pearl floor tom and a clattering cymbal stand. Vlad scooped the fish into a vase and charged out of the wide open patio door to find the pond. And there I sat, in my jeans and a pilfered kimono, until Child Services showed up to take my kid away. I had to give props to Coach and Mark. They whipped the house into shape in no time, calling my cleaning service in then paying them double for their time. My ass was still on the floor when two social workers showed up three hours after the initial call to DCS AZ had been made.

  There was all kind of talk among the grown-ups, and I listened half-heartedly, my gaze steady on Madeline as she slumbered away in her carrier-tote thing.

&n
bsp; “… a blood test as soon as we get back,” I caught Coach saying.

  I stood. Everyone looked at me. “I’ll take the blood test before we leave,” I announced then tossed my head to get my lank hair out of my face. I really needed a shower. I was coated in sweat, spilled beer, and body fluids. Last night seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Colorado, we’ve already delayed the flight by an hour,” Coach reminded me. Sternly. I pulled the sheer, too-small robe around my bare middle, to try to stop the wide-eyed stares from the two people about to take my daughter—alleged daughter—away from me. Bet they hated tats. And piercings. They probably thought my nose stud was stupid and I was unfit to even take care of an emu, which, yeah, okay, I had been but… shit. I’d lost Kricker and now my kid. Maybe I was a shit parent like my birth father Liberty after all.

  “Then go. I’ll shower and go to whatever lab these two automatons suggest then I’ll join you in Vegas. Tell the press I had a family matter to attend to.” With that, I spun on my heel, gave Madeline’s soft cheek a gentle caress, and went upstairs to wash off my old life. It might’ve taken a power washer but hey, who needed skin?

  As it turned out, I needed skin and luck and a brain that wasn’t back in Arizona.

  Shame I didn’t have any of those things. My time in Vegas had not been filled with good graces from Lady Luck. That cold-hearted bitch had refused to blow on my dice or follow me to my crease. It didn’t seem to matter that I’d followed my warm-up routine on each of the two games in Sin City: skate out, touch the pipes, study the crease, skate around the net, arm circle left arm then arm circle right arm, shoot one puck at the net, and then make another lap in the opposite direction. I knew better than to diddle with the routine. One small thing—like improper arm circles—could result in a shitty game. So, in order to charm Lady Luck, I did what I thought she liked. Most women loved me. Obviously, she was hard to gauge because she wasn’t being really attentive.

  As a matter of fact, she seemed to be avoiding me like I had the clap. I’d done it all by the books once I’d arrived in Vegas with Vlad at my side. The big twit had refused to leave Tucson until I had. Whether he’d been told to escort my ass to the barn by Coach in case I made a mad dash to Mexico after stealing back my daughter—alleged daughter—or he just felt bad for me I didn’t know. Nor did I care.

  I’d made a righteous nuisance of myself calling the lab and Child Services on an hourly basis. The longer it took, which was fucking insulting to anyone waiting for results to sit on their thumbs for five motherfucking days, the more agitated I became. The first game against Vegas was shaky, and I’d let in two soft goals. I’d chalked that one up to my fractured state of mind. The problem was that my head was still filled with clattering shards of the pottery that’d been my life. Now everything that I’d known was like a shattered tea pot that someone—Fate, that cruel incubus—had swept up and tossed into the dryer to tumble dry.

  I’d not been worried about the backup, Andre LeMans, a sweet-faced blond kid with enormous blue eyes from Bromont, Quebec, taking over in that first game. Coach knew I’d pull it together. Now that there were only ten minutes left in game two and we were down by three goals, I wasn’t so sure my spot as the starting goalie was quite so secure. My focus was shot. I couldn’t pull my head into my zone. I was stuck back in Arizona, freaking out over where Madeline was and who had her. Was she being taken care of or abused by some sicko freak?

  “… watch him on the face-off.” I blinked at the sweat in my eyes as Ryker skated by during a TV time out.

  “Right, totally,” I replied without a clue as to who or what he was talking about.

  I hunkered down into my hybrid stance, resting on my heels, the roar of the crowd and the shouts of my teammates floating into the rafters. When I got home I’d need a nursery. And a nanny. I had two jobs after all, good jobs, with nice money. That should impress the social workers. A mansion, lots of cash, a nanny from some reputable firm… The puck hit me right in the mask, startling me from visions of white cribs and polka dot drapes. A snap popped so I shook my mask off. Tyler Parks, a forward for Vegas, had decided to take a shot even though I was mask-less and the whistles to end play were blowing up and down the ice. I threw up a shoulder to block the late shot but was instantly furious. If that had hit me in the face or throat it could have killed me. And then where would Madeline have been? She’d never have a home with a loving father.

  “Hey, you fucking walking stool sample!” I shouted, threw my paddle aside, and charged out of the crease and tackled Parks to the ice. I’d gotten a few good shots in before I was yanked off the bewildered center in red and silver. Ryker and Alex pushed me back to the net, their mouths going. Parks took a swing at Vlad, clipping him in the back of the head, and earning the asshole a roughing penalty.

  “You good?” Ryker asked, patting my shoulder as I huffed and puffed.

  Red haze filled my vision as I watched Parks skate towards the penalty box. “Yeah, I’ll be fucking great in a second.” I chucked my blocker and catching mitt aside then made a beeline to the sin bin. Parks glanced back just as he entered the box. I launched myself at him. We both went to the floor, legs and skates in the air. The poor box attendant was bowled over as well, and lay under us yelping for help as I fed Parks a knuckle sandwich.

  Things sort of deteriorated after that exhibition. I’d been assessed an assload of penalties which someone else had to serve. Then because Coach was not a man who liked to be jerked around by his short hairs, he pulled me from the crease and sent Andre in to finish the game. How I didn’t end up with a major misconduct was anyone’s guess. It would have been less painful to have been ejected than to sit there, steaming, Raptors hat riding low on my brow, and watch my team take another loss. And not a kind loss either, Vegas fisted us sans lube. The final score 6-1 made my asshole clench. As did the upcoming dress-down I was sure to get from Coach in about five seconds.

  “Penn!” Coach roared as we slunk back to the away locker room, heads down, shoulders up by our ears, the smell of defeat as thick as the stink of unwashed man. I waited for him beside the glove dryer, my teammates filing into the locker room with sideways glances for me.

  “Coach, I can explain…”

  He stalked up to me, his chest flush to mine, his nose an inch away from my nose. “After all I have fucking done for you this is the way you repay me? By not showing up when we need you the most? That stunt out there was below amateur!” I thought to say something. He shut me down fast. “No.” He stuck a finger in my face. “Do not try to make up some sort of airy excuses. You’re on the bench for the rest of this series. While you’re riding pine you need to get your head on straight. What is it exactly you want out of life, boy? Hockey? Music? That baby? Whatever it is, you best get your fucking head out of your ass or you’re going to lose it. I’m not seeing one damn thing right now that would make me hand over a fucking goldfish to you let alone a child, and I highly doubt Child Services are either.”

  I nodded. What could I say? He was right. All of it. Right down to me acting like a hot-headed fuck just like Liberty always had. The door to the locker room swung shut behind Coach. I could hear him yelling something at the Raptors, something that sounded quite unlike a pep talk. Guess his spleen hadn’t quite been vented fully yet.

  And yeah, it had been a righteous venting. Coach was right. I had to stop being a hotheaded fuck-up. There was more riding on me than just me now. My daughter—screw the alleged shit she had to be mine I could feel the link in my marrow—was banking on me to be the kind of father she would need. I needed to get my shit together on the ice and off or I’d end up just like Liberty. All alone with only the open road, an old six-string, and an empty bottle of Johnny Walker for company.

  Four

  Joseph

  My cell woke me from where I’d face-planted on a paragraph about Sir William Herschel, and blearily I reached for it, seeing it was five a.m. and hoping to hell that it was the planetarium, with Drewin t
elling me it was okay to come back. Or even as a worst-case scenario, the agency with a nannying gig. I hadn’t heard from either of them in a few days and I’d begun to lose hope that I could ever stop my current emergency off-the-books gig stacking shelves. The messages I’d left on voicemail for both potential employers were a mix of heartfelt and honest without pleading, but I’d parked my pride and added a whole lot of apology to the Planetarium. Whatever Natalie had said about not paying rent, we both knew I had to keep things ticking over for her and myself. I was lucky to have the roof over my head, but sitting on my ass wasn’t going to get things done.

  It was the North Nanny Agency calling, but I still scrambled to sit up, even though this was probably just a check-in for my availability or them telling me, yet again, that they had nothing for me. Not much ever came of me sharing my free dates, because the middle-of-the-night times I worked at the planetarium weren’t conducive to overnight stays at clients houses to watch their kids. The last nanny job I had that was properly that, had been a year ago, an entire week looking after twins in this huge place out of town. I’d done a good job, even put up with the dad cornering me in the garage when I left, to tell me that he’d love to have me back.

  Given the way he’d been pressing me against a wall sporting a stiff prick that he thought would impress me, it seemed that he’d have loved to have me back for more than nannying. I’d politely declined, he’d not-so-politely ejected me from the premises, and the review I’d received for my work had been mediocre.

  “We have a temporary and urgent job, and you’re literally the only one available,” Lucy-May North announced in her no-nonsense tone. She was one of those ruthlessly efficient managers, all brisk communication, and no niceties, but her nanny agency was thriving so she was doing it right.

  “Okay?”

  “And you’re still available right now?”