by G. K. Brady
“Could be,” her mother sang like a high soprano, “but right now I need to scoot. I just wanted to check on you. Now that I know you’re with Gage, I won’t worry.”
So pod people hadn’t snatched her mother’s body and taken control, turning out a kinder, gentler version of Nola Nelson. No, but love might have. Sarah nearly laughed out loud at the incongruity. Her mother, the Queen of Anti-Romance, who’d always warned her against giving her heart to a man, sounded like a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl tripping along cloud nine.
After the call ended, Sarah—still in a state of bemusement—went back inside with Archer. “Gage, did you—”
Her brother was leaning against the kitchen counter quietly talking to Lily as she scrubbed the kitchen sink. His gaze lifted to Sarah when she walked in, and a look a look of concern flickered in his blue eyes.
“What’s the word, Bro?”
He blew out a breath. “The NHL decided on an indefinite pause”—he air-quoted the last word—“and Lily and I have been talking about what to do.”
She kept her tone casual. “What do you mean, what do to?”
“Lots of guys are heading to their homes outside the U.S. to hunker down.”
“Where would you go if you left town? And what about your new house?”
“I talked to Paige,” Lily said. “Our closing is on hold, and she has no idea when we can move in.”
Gage added, “So no place to go, and we’re not sure what’ll happen with Daisy’s school. For now, I guess we stay put.”
In that moment, reality slammed into Sarah full force and rocked her hard. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we? This shit’s getting real.”
Gage’s eyes slid to Lily, and Sarah’s followed. Lily made an attempt to smile at them, but her wobbly mouth gave her away. The look tugged at something inside Sarah, and she pulled her almost-sister-in-law in for a tight hug, needing it as much for herself as to offer Lily comfort.
Chapter 7
Corona’s Served with Lime, Right?
Fuck me.
Those two words had been on a constant loop in Quinn’s head since the league’s announcement yesterday that play was paused indefinitely. Suspended. Stopped. Just when playoffs were about to start. Just when the Blizzard was having one of their best seasons and stood on the brink of winning it all.
He stood at his stall in disbelief as he cleaned out his shit. Who knew how long this would last? Would they get paid? How would they stay in game shape? And over what? A few seniors dying of the flu. He shook his head in disgust.
Utter bullshit. And it wasn’t just the league that was panicking. The whole fucking globe was panicking. He picked up three rolls of tape, tossed them in the air for a few spins, then let them fall into his bag.
“Hey, Hads.”
Quinn looked up, meeting Hunter’s gaze. The guy had a smirk on his face that Quinn itched to knock off, so he turned back to packing his bag. “’Sup, Hunts?”
“What do you say you and me hire a dozen girls from the Sapphire Club to shelter in place with? Gotta do our part to keep the economy going. Between us, we can keep them in bank for at least a month. Maybe by then this thing’ll have blown over. Otherwise, those poor girls are outta work, man.”
Quinn raised his head again, noting Hunter’s waggling eyebrows above his leer. Yeah, this had absolutely nothing to do with benevolence and everything to do with Hunter’s dick. “No, thanks.”
Only a few guys knew that Quinn was taking care of his mom, and even if he hadn’t been, the thought of being cooped up with Hunter—even with twelve strippers between them—held zero appeal. Strippers were fun to watch every blue moon, but room with twelve of them? For that matter, he couldn’t think of twelve women he’d done that he’d want to hang with. Over the years, he’d been disappointed with the conversations, and pillow talk was downright awkward. Which was why he didn’t engage in it. Fuck and go, that was his motto.
The conversation in his mind was suddenly thrust into a bright glare, as if someone had turned on a searchlight inside his head. Floored by his train of thought, he brought it to a screeching halt. When did I turn into such a dick? When did I turn into Ronan?
As he stood, blinking at Hunter like an idiot, another disturbing thought speared him square in the chest like the butt end of a stick. He’d always thought himself better than Hunter—maybe because his charm quotient was higher—but now he wasn’t so sure. The cocktail waitress’s voice echoed in his head. Charmers are smarmers.
“What’s gotten into you anyway?” Hunter taunted.
No fucking clue. Maybe it was this stupid coronavirus getting to him. He was on edge after getting shot down by every service he’d called to help out with his mom, and now he was facing the very real possibility it would just be him and her, which scared the crap out of him on so many levels—the most terrifying being whether he was capable of doing a good job by her.
He turned away from Hunter without answering him, and the asshat finally got the hint and focused his attention on their team captain. Big mistake. “Yo, Grims! How about you and me—”
“Fuck off, McMurphy,” Grims growled. “I don’t like hanging with you on a good day. I’m sure as hell not going to hole up with you.” Grims was no one to fuck with, especially since he’d been placed indefinitely on the IR and he and his girlfriend had broken up during training camp. Guy was like a wounded bear. Big, mean, and thoroughly pissed off. All. The. Time. Which was great when they were battling another team on the ice, but in the locker room or during social time? Not so much. Not that Grims participated in social time anymore—not since he’d been busted doping. Quinn and his teammates weren’t supposed to know. The violations hadn’t gotten back to the league, and management had kept a lid on it, but Grims’s girlfriend had blabbed to the Blizzard SOs for some damn reason, which meant everyone knew. Despite the guy’s troubles, Quinn liked and respected his captain, so he gave him a wide berth.
Quinn had turned back to his packing when Coach LeBrun ambled in. “We’re holding a press conference. I want some of your pretty faces in there to help field questions.” He looked around and pointed. “Shanstrom, Nelson.” He stopped and eyed Grims. Grims took a step forward, obviously anticipating the call to duty as team captain. But then Coach pivoted toward Quinn, gave him a chin lift, and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “And Hadley. You guys are up.”
Damn it!
Quinn gaped at Grims. Anger flared in the captain’s eyes before he hooded them and turned back to cleaning out his space. Quinn didn’t miss how Grims clenched his fists before he started shoving shit into his bag.
Picking Shanny and Nelsy made sense—they were the alternate captains. But why bone Grims? Coach had looked right at him, then dismissed him deliberately.
Someone slapped Quinn’s back, and he wheeled to face Shanny, who grinned at him. “Let’s go, lover boy.”
Quinn followed Shanny and Nelsy down the hall to the press room, which was filled with eager, annoying sports journalists who’d somehow been anointed the “experts” in a game they’d never played. Self-serving bastards. And bastardettes.
Reporters began firing questions at them as soon as they joined their coach on a platform that held a podium loaded with mics. Quinn never caught the first volley. But as they settled into the Q&A and he heard the absurdity in everything they uttered, his irritation climbed. These people actually get paid to ask these stupid ass questions? Yeah, he already knew the answer to that one.
One particularly eager beaver fired a particularly aggravating query at Quinn. “What do you make of all of this, Hads?”
Hads? This little prick didn’t get to call him “Hads.” Only his teammates did.
He could practically hear the snapping going off inside him, and he cleared his throat to hold it back. “I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on here. Obviously, people with pay grades way above mine are calling the shots, based on information the rest of us don’t have.”
; The reporter smirked. “I’m sure they don’t get paid nearly as well as you do, Hads.”
“Whatever. All I’m saying is I’m not in charge, so I’m not the one making the decisions.”
“Are you saying you don’t agree with their decisions so far?” the reporter goaded.
Quinn drilled the guy with a steely look. “I’m not gonna pretend I could do a better job. That would be ridiculous. Now do I think some people might be overreacting? Of course. But we’re in uncharted territory here, and who’s to say what’s too little and what’s overkill?”
“Maybe you oughta just stick to hockey there, sport,” the little weasel said. The room chuckled. Well, the reporters chuckled. No one connected with the team did.
Quinn wasn’t normally a hothead, but God, he hated it when people who didn’t know him talked down to him like he was a dumb jock. “You’re looking at a bunch of guys”—he waved his hand toward his teammates—“who work their asses off every night, and now they’re told they can’t play—probably won’t get paid. That includes coaches, trainers, equipment staff.” He paused a beat as another thought struck him. “And what about the other people who depend on the game for their livelihood? People who work concession stands, who clean up the arena after a game, who maintain the ice, to name just a few. How do they pay their bills?”
“Maybe the president oughta tap you for his task force, Hads. No doubt you could tell him a thing or two.”
Quinn tried to rein in his mad. He really did. “Look, I don’t know who the hell you are or why you’re sitting in this room, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question if the kneejerk reaction of shutting everything down might be worse than the damn virus. All these measures have a cascading effect with far-reaching consequences, and I’m not convinced those consequences have been given enough due consideration.” He dragged a hand through his hair.
The buzzing room grew very, very quiet.
“Who says it’s a kneejerk reaction?” Weasel Prick challenged. “I mean, c’mon, man. You’re no scientist, though you might pass yourself off as an economist.”
A wave of nervous laughter swept through the room.
What possessed Quinn, he had no idea—maybe his inner surly teenager—but he reached out and smacked every mic on the podium. Wide eyes fastened on him as he stepped off the platform and, with the advantage of surprise, grabbed the iPad the pencil-neck reporter had been using to record the Q&A. Quinn breathed on it and shoved it back into the tweeze’s hands. “I might have it.”
People stood frozen, stunned into a stupor, and he repeated the action with a few other reporters. “Now we all have it,” he announced. The entire room seemed to shuffle.
Behind him, Coach hissed, “Hadley! Get back up here!”
Ignoring his coach, Quinn pointed at the audience he’d commandeered. “We’re one small group in one private room, yet we have the power to do exponential damage merely by breathing on everyone we meet. So how is shutting down sports venues going to protect us exactly? This is all bullshit. Bull. Shit!”
All hell broke loose. Reporters jumped up and players stepped off the platform, looking like two gangs squaring off. Well, one small gang of hulking athletes against a crowd of squawking dickwads. And dickwadettes.
Someone grabbed him and hauled his butt down the hallway. Shanstrom.
Shanny shoved him through the doorway into the locker room. “What in the fucking name of fuck is wrong with you?”
Quinn stumbled backward, but T.J. kept coming. “Do you know what you just did in there?”
Normally, Quinn would never contemplate messing with this motherfucker—he liked the guy, and more importantly, his survival instinct was too strong—but adrenalin was still pumping through him, and it apparently fueled his inner Stupid Man.
“No, Shanny,” he shot back. “Please enlighten me. What did I just do in there?”
Now Grims appeared, filling up the space next to Shanny, looming larger and more badass than Shanny, if that were possible. “What the fuck’s going on?”
Shanny gave Quinn’s shoulder another push. “This asshole ran his mouth off about having the virus. Then he touched every goddamn mic and grabbed the reporters’ shit and breathed all over it.”
Before Quinn could spit out a comeback, the locker room door burst open, and in stalked a fuming Coach LeBrun. Seeing Coach red-faced jarred something inside of Quinn, and his anger evaporated. He took a step back in the face of his coach’s fury.
“Hadley,” LeBrun said in a scary-low voice, “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever witnessed in my entire fucking life.” Coach was breathing so damn hard his nostrils were flaring, but somehow he kept his voice chillingly quiet. “Is this a joke to you? People are scared shitless over this, and you’re acting like a stupid little kid whose ball got taken away at recess. Now get your shit and get the hell out of here.” Coach stepped back and parked clenched fists on his hips.
Quinn’s gaze took a quick tour around the locker room. His teammates had gathered around, and while some gaped at their normally unflappable coach, a number of them fired Quinn looks that could have sliced him to slivers. In that moment, it struck him how badly he’d screwed up.
Chapter 8
Castaway, aka Social Distancing
A scant few days into shelter-in-place, and Sarah was losing her mind. Scratch that. Her mind had already walked out the door, and she couldn’t go after it because the six of them—which included Archer and Hobbes—were in fucking lockdown. In a tiny house that shrank by the second. If Sarah had to listen to her brother and Lily through these thin walls one more time … Shit, she knew waaaay more about her brother’s sex life than a sister should ever know.
Added to that awkwardness was a buzzing undercurrent of tension. No one was barking at anyone—yet—but Daisy’s every sneeze seemed to send the household into a panic about her coming down with the coronavirus. And man, that little girl sneezed a lot! Sarah was trying her damnedest to summon her inner mother—which, apparently, was buried as deep as the Marianas Trench—but the girl’s misery was beginning to scrape Sarah’s already frayed nerves even further.
She was tip-tapping on her keyboard in the Pepto Bismol-pink bedroom—her room for the foreseeable future—engaging in another futile search for a new place when her phone vibrated.
“Just what I need,” she grumbled, expecting to see Wolf’s number. He continued calling and texting, and though she hadn’t responded, each of his attempts jolted her like a dentist’s drill without novocaine. She snatched up her phone and was instead delighted to see a local number.
Finally! A job! A place to live! Paige Miller needs a consultation!
She slowed her racing heart and answered in her most professional voice. “Sarah Nelson speaking.”
“Well, hello, Sarah Sunshine.”
Shit! “What do you want, Sparky?” Just like that, the words flew out quick and snarky. Not at all what she’d intended. Oh well. His overinflated ego would register the slight about as much as a buffalo would notice a ladybug landing on its hide.
He chuckled, which unsettled her even more. “Ah, see, that’s what I love about talking to you. You’re so warm and fuzzy. And your repartee is priceless. You’d be an awesome date.”
“Haha. Save yourself the trouble of asking because I am not going out on a date with you.”
“Say it isn’t so! My poor heart will never recover.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive, Romeo,” she snorted.
“Look, toots, even if I could take you out—which I can’t because of social distancing and your brother’s threats to kill me slowly—you’re the last person I’d call. In fact, if we were stuck on a deserted island together, I think I’d prefer floating in the water as shark bait over rolling around in the sand with you.”
Ouch! Okay, Sparky. Game on. She put her best I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude into her voice. “Pretty sure the sharks wouldn’t want you either.”
“Were you an inqu
isitor in a former life?”
“You get funnier by the second, Hadley. As scintillating as sparring with you is, I’m in the middle of something important—”
“Oh? Sharpening your teeth?”
She made a rolling motion with her hand, even though he couldn’t see it. “Can we get around to the real reason for your call sometime today?”
A thunderous throat clear came through the line. “Yeah. About my offer the other night.”
“Offer? Um, are you confusing me with the puck bunny who blew you in your truck?”
A gargling noise came from the other end.
“Oh my heavens!” she gasped in an over-the-top voice. “Did you offer me the chance and I missed it somehow? Damn! I think I’ll fling myself into my niece’s baby pool and drown myself now. Good-bye.”
“As usual, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.” His voice grew muffled, as if he were covering his phone, but she thought she heard the words “swear jar,” and then he was back. “The caregiver job offer. Remember? It’s possible you didn’t think I was being sincere when I put it out there,” he said dryly, “but I wasn’t kidding.”
Huh? “Meaning?”
“Meaning, with what’s going on, I can’t hire anyone to come in and take care of Mom. And she likes you. And she also likes your dog. Not to mention, I have a huge-ass house with plenty of room to accommodate the four of us.”
He couldn’t be serious! Could he?
Her inability to speak gave him room to ramrod his way in. “Consider this. Gage and Lily are already crammed into their Cracker Jack-box house, and who knows how long we’ll all be sheltering in place? That’ll get real old, real quick.”
It already has. She opened her mouth to toss something back at him but stopped short, unable to muster a pithy comeback as she recalled the unending space in his big-ass house. Instead, distractions, like the thought of being cooped up in a tiny house without soundproofing for weeks—months!—were messing with her. Not to mention she was ten days into a one-month agreement with an ex-coworker in Seattle who’d been generous enough to let her cram her leftover crap in his storage unit. Those boxes had to go somewhere.
