Blindsided: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Victoria Denault

  I’m so sorry. I didn’t do it but I’d do anything to fix it. To fix us. I’m sorry.

  I leave campus and jump in my truck because I promised my family I would head straight to them with the news of my fate. The whole drive there I think about telling Maggie. I craft forty different text messages in my head but none of them sound right. She should know I didn’t lose my scholarship or spot on the team. But there’s so much more to say, and I don’t know how to say it.

  I pull up and park next to the barn and pull my phone out again and start to respond to her last message.

  Dean took pity on me. Still have my scholarship. We should probably talk…in person.

  I stare at the screen waiting for a response but then I hear a voice I’m not expecting at the farm—my mom’s. “Tate! You’re back. What happened?” She turns and calls into the house through the screen door. “Tate’s back!”

  I look up and see her on the porch, wrapped in a cardigan and holding a coffee mug. It takes me back. She used to wave goodbye to us like that as we made our way down the drive to catch the school bus. Only her face wasn’t creased with worry back then like it is now.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. She hasn’t been to the farm, that I know of, since the divorce unless it was to drop us off after weekend visits, but she never got out of the car.

  “Your dad said I should come here and wait for the news,” she explains as the door behind her opens and my entire family floods out of the house. Even Raquel and Louise are there.

  “What happened?” Dad demands, his tone clipped and tense.

  “I’ve still got my scholarship.”

  Everyone blurts out various words of relief.

  “And I’m still on the team, but I am suspended one game, so I won’t be playing this weekend,” I say.

  “Shit,” Dad hisses.

  “Oh Tate, I’m sorry,” Mom says sympathetically.

  “You deserve it for screwing a Todd,” Raquel says judgmentally.

  “Shut up,” I snap.

  “Don’t tell her to shut up,” Louise barks at me. “She’s not the one embarrassing her family and screwing up her one big shot in life. A shot that could save this damn farm.”

  Before I can respond, Grandpa does. “Your aunt Louise is right, Tate. The suspension will show up on your record with the team and it might affect your draft rank. Some teams are going to see you as a problem now, and it’s all thanks to that little bitch.”

  “Do not call her a bitch,” I yell. “I warned you the other night. You do not insult Maggie in front of me, ever. I wasn’t kidding.”

  Grandpa looks completely offended. “You go near that girl again and I swear you won’t have to disown me. I will disown you.”

  “So will I.” My grandmother speaks up for the first time since this whole thing started. Even when I ended up back here drunker than a skunk with Jace the night it happened, she didn’t say a word. The next day when I told them the whole story, from taking the job to getting caught doing the job by Maggie to the blackmail to the way my feelings for her changed, Faith Adler didn’t say a word. Not one.

  “Grams…” I say softly. I didn’t think she would necessarily be an enthusiastic defender of my choices, but I thought I could count on her to be neutral at least.

  But now her eyes are teary and she shakes her head. “You leave well enough alone when it comes to that family, Tate. They…they have no place in our lives. That decision was made long before you came along, and it needs to be respected.”

  She turns abruptly and storms off into the house. Grandpa chases after her. Jace looks as bewildered and taken aback as I am right now. My mother on the other hand just looks fed up. She furrows her blonde eyebrows and lets out a sigh. “What the hell is it with this family and the Todds? I never understood it. Maybe if you all just gave it a rest you’d be happier.”

  “Tanya, with all due respect, you don’t have to deal with it anymore, so don’t get involved,” Dad tells her.

  “Hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die,” Mom tells him and points. “That’s all of you right now. And yeah, I got out, but my sons are still part of this shit show and I want Tate to be happy, even If it means dating a Todd.”

  She marches down the porch steps and kisses me on the cheek before she gets into her car and drives off. Dad just stares at me for a moment longer from the porch and then shakes his head. “I’m very happy you dodged this bullet, Tate, but I’m still disappointed you gave the Todd family the ammunition to fire the shot. And if you do it again, it won’t be forgivable.”

  He goes inside. Louise and Raquel follow, so now it’s just Jace and me. He gives me a small smile. “Well, that went well.”

  We both let out a dry chuckle. He jumps off the porch, walks over and hugs me. I accept it without one of my usual quips or jokes. When he lets go, his face is more serious than I think I’ve ever seen it. “Tate, they aren’t kidding around. I have never seen Grams so distraught or angry.”

  “I know. Me too,” I admit. “But I just don’t get it.”

  “To be honest, at this point neither do I but I do know one thing…” Jace pauses and his expression grows sympathetic, “…you aren’t going to be able to change their minds. So are you really walking away from the family and the farm? You can’t, Tate. Please. Don’t.”

  I hug him again. “Maybe if I just gave them some time…”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Jace says but everything about his tone and expression says he doesn’t think all the time in the world will make a lick of difference.

  I get back in my truck and drive back to the hockey house. I’m exhausted emotionally and physically. My body has been carrying so much tension since this started, and I’ve barely slept but still… When I see Maggie sitting on the front steps, I feel better: lighter, stronger, happier.

  As I get out of the truck, she stands up and I walk right up to her but stop short, about a foot away. She is a sight for my sore eyes and even more so for my sore heart. She’s wrapped up in a puffy white winter coat and if she’s wearing makeup I can’t see it. She looks tired and sad but so damn beautiful. I shove my hands in the pockets of my dress coat to keep from reaching out and touching her because I don’t think that will make anything easier.

  “You look gorgeous in a suit,” she says in an appreciative whisper, like it’s taboo for her to admit that. “I didn’t mean to just blindside you here, but I was out for a walk when you texted me the news and said we needed to talk, so I just thought I’d swing by. So we can have that talk.”

  “I was just at the farm, telling my family,” I explain. The wind whips around us, cold and harsh which seems fitting.

  “They must be relieved,” she replies.

  “Yeah, their meal ticket is still intact,” I quip harshly and her face twists with pain.

  “They love you, Tate, for more than just your earning potential. Even I can see that,” Maggie says.

  “But not enough to let me date you,” blurt out. Maybe it’s too blunt. Maybe it’s too soon to just throw that reality out there, but I do. And she doesn’t even seem surprised by it.

  “I told my family everything,” she says. “Clyde went straight down to the realtor in town and listed the farm.”

  “Oh my God, what?” I stare at her waiting for her to say she’s making a really unfunny joke but her eyes fill with tears and she just nods her head. I finally pull my hands out of my pockets and grab hers with them. “Maggie, that’s insane. Just because you dated me?”

  Dated. I used the past tense and we both catch it and our eyes meet.

  She blinks and looks away. “Yes and because I also told them I wanted to merge the farms and create a partnership and that I told you about the container units.”

  She takes a ragged breath and exhales in a gust that turns the air white. “I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to tell them anything. They never had to know about any of it, but I just… I am sick of the fighting and the li
es and all of it. So I told them everything, and Clyde went off like nothing I have ever seen.”

  “Was he drunk?”

  “No, actually I think if he was it would have been less terrifying,” Maggie replies. “He hates your family on a level I have never experienced before.”

  “What are you going to do now if he really sells the farm?”

  “I don’t know what anyone in my family will do,” Maggie replies quietly. “Everyone is basically losing their shit, and I just ran back to my apartment and hid. Even Daisy disappeared today. She said she was going on a drive to clear her head and would be back by midnight.”

  “I saw her this morning. She wanted to help with my meeting with the dean,” I say, my fingers still laced with hers. “Everyone in my family is being as irrational as Clyde.”

  Maggie nods. She lifts her head again and speaks the words I don’t want to say. “I think we need to take a breather here.”

  “I don’t want to, but I think you’re right,” I reply and every word, as it tumbles from my mouth feels like it’s taking a piece of my heart with it. “Just for now. Let everything settle down a little. I can concentrate on hockey.”

  “I can get the winter marketing plan for the farm in order and concentrate on school,” Maggie replies. “Even if he is selling, it will take some time and I’ll be damned if I’m going to tank all my hard work with the farm in the meantime.”

  We stare at each other. God, I can’t believe that there was a time when avoiding her was as easy and normal as breathing, and now the idea of going back to that makes me feel like I’m suffocating. She pulls her hands from mine. “I’m going to go.”

  I just stand there like a chump and watch her start down the street. That lasts all of forty seconds before I break into a sprint and catch her, spinning her around and crushing my lips against hers. And she kisses me back…until she doesn’t. Pulling away and inhaling sharply.

  “That won’t be the last time I kiss you, Maggie,” I find myself promising. “It’s just the last time for now.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Tater Tot,” she says back and then keeps walking away. And this time, I let her.

  21

  Maggie

  I’m sitting on the balcony, staring at the flowers Tate secretly planted. I’ve been coming out here a lot despite the cold weather at all hours of the day and night to stare at them and imagine him planting them. Reliving the feeling I felt when I saw them and realized what he had done for me. How he must have felt about me to do it. The first serious frost will happen any day now and they’ll wither and die, and that will be the last thing about us to be taken away against my will. I hear someone walk into my room and then Daisy whisper-yells my name. I don’t bother to get up. I left the door to the balcony open so it only takes her a second to find me.

  “It’s freaking freezing out here, you lunatic,” Daisy chastises me and wraps her arms around herself. “Get inside!”

  “I’m wrapped in three wool blankets and a quilt. I’m fine,” I say flatly. “What are you doing up and dressed at barely seven in the morning on a Sunday?”

  “I’m fixing things,” Daisy says and walks over and yanks me out of my chair. She pulls me back into my room and closes the door behind us, leaning against it. “Shower. Get dressed. We’re going on a road trip.”

  “I don’t want to go on a road trip,” I reply, and instead of following her orders I flop onto my bed.

  “Magnolia,” she sighs. “I found our grandmother.”

  The words seem to take a minute to float across the room and settle in my brain. As soon as they do I sit up, which is a little hard in my blanket cocoon. “What?”

  Daisy pulls herself off the door and walks over to stand in front of me. “The genealogy site matched us. It happened the day after the whole Jumbotron nightmare so I didn’t tell you. You had so much going on and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was legit.”

  “But you think it’s legit now?”

  Daisy nods and uses both hands to tuck her hair behind her ears then laces her fingers behind her neck and stares at me with excited brown eyes. “I know it’s legit now because I met her.”

  “Oh my God, what?”

  This was not how I was expecting my Sunday to go. This will be the sixth day since Tate and I put things on indefinite hold. I was going to spend it like I’ve been spending all my days, zombie-walking through my daily chores and tasks: homework, farm work, attending class, blah, blah, blah—and then curling up in a mournful ball and thinking of nothing but him.

  “Remember that day I told you I was going for a drive to clear my head?” Daisy says. And I remember it because it was only three days ago and it was also the day Tate found out he didn’t lose his scholarship. “I drove down to Gray, Maine, where she—our grandmother Elizabeth, who goes by Betsy—lives. And we met and we talked and now I need you to meet her and talk to her.”

  “Right now? We’re driving to Maine?” I am so confused. “Daisy why did you keep this from me?”

  She frowns. “I’m telling you now. And no, we’re not driving to Maine. She is in Colebury for the weekend and we’re meeting her there. That is, if you want to meet her. She really wants to meet you.”

  “I do. I think.” I’m conflicted, to be honest. But Daisy met her and she is eager for me to do the same, so I will. I nod. “I’ll go shower.”

  I start peeling off my blanket cocoon.

  Twenty minutes later, I meet Daisy in the kitchen where she hands me a travel mug of coffee and my coat. I realize, as we walk down the stairs from our apartment and out the front door of the building that she’s holding two mugs, not just one. “You’re double fisting caffeine this morning?”

  I climb into the passenger seat and she gets behind the wheel, putting her travel mug in one holder and reaching back to put the other one in the holder in the back seat. “We’re picking someone up.”

  That’s when I start to panic. “You are not surprising Dad or Uncle Bobby or Ben with this are you? Because that’s just going to fracture our already splintered family tree even more.”

  She shakes her head and turns the car off our street and toward campus, which is not the way to Colebury. “I’ve told Dad and he told Bobby and Ben.”

  My jaw drops so hard I think I might have dislocated it. “When the hell did you do this?”

  “Last night,” she replies. “I didn’t want to tell them without you, but Mags, you’ve been an emotional puddle. Completely justifiable and partly my fault, so I just went ahead and decided to try and sort this all out myself.”

  Daisy looks so serious and adult right now with a stern brow and tight jaw, that I almost forget I’m the older sister here. And then, as if there weren’t enough surprises in the last half hour to last a lifetime, she pulls to a stop in front of the hockey house.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask in horror as I watch Tate emerge from the house and make his way to the car. My eyes fly to Daisy in sheer disbelief and panic.

  “I know this is hard to believe, but he needs to be there too,” Daisy replies. He slides into the backseat wordlessly. “There’s a coffee there for you. Cream, no sugar the way Hank told me you like it.”

  “Thanks,” he tells Daisy.

  My eyes collide with his in the rearview mirror.

  “Hi. I miss you,” he says simply.

  “I miss you too.” I smile softly but it hurts. A lot.

  “You two are going to be the death of me,” Daisy says as she starts to drive. “And I mean that quite literally because by the end of today, you might want to kill me.”

  “I still have no idea why I’m here,” Tate says. “Can someone fill me in? I’m already on very shaky ground with my family. If they find out I went joy riding with you two…”

  “All I know is Daisy found our grandmother and I’m going to meet her,” I say.

  As Daisy turns onto the on-ramp for the highway, she starts to tell Tate what she told me—about the ances
try site, the DNA swab, the match with a woman in Maine and her meeting with that woman.

  “She has red hair,” Daisy explains with a content smile. “Well, mostly gray now but not totally. And she looks a lot like Maggie. And she didn’t abandon my dad and his brothers. She was forced out of their lives by… Clyde and circumstances. But she swears she tried to keep in touch with letters and Christmas gifts. I haven’t confronted Clyde about it. I’m leaving that up to Dad and our uncles just like I’m leaving it up to them to contact her if they want. But I’m not leaving it up to you, Mags, because there’s other stuff I think will change things for you.”

  Daisy’s eyes shoot up to the rearview mirror to look at Tate. “Things that will change life for you, too.”

  Tate leans forward so his head is between Daisy and me. I get a whiff of his scent. It’s honestly nothing special—a blend of deodorant, shampoo and laundry detergent but mixed with the heat of his skin and pheromones, it sends my stomach into backflips and my heart aches harder than before. “I still don’t understand but as long as I’m back for the harvest festival tonight, I’m good. The farm has a booth and so does the team, so I’m double-booked.”

  “Of course. I’m not kidnaping you overnight or anything,” Daisy assures him. “Trust me.”

  “With you, Daisy, that’s not easy,” Tate says and I know it hurts Daisy, but he has every right to feel that way.

  We drive the rest of the way to Colebury in silence. Somewhere along the forty minute drive, my hand slips back and I feel his fingertips tangle with mine. We shouldn’t be giving in to temptations but we do, and I don’t care how pointless and stupid it is—it feels good.

  Daisy pulls into the parking lot of a place called the Busy Bean a little after nine in the morning and we all get out of the car. “They didn’t feel comfortable coming into Burlington just yet so we agreed on here,” Daisy explains as we walk toward the front door.

  “They?” Tate questions and Daisy pauses with her hand on the door, glances inside and turns back to me and Tate.