Pucked Under (Pucked #4.5)

by Helena Hunting

  “That would’ve been a lot of turmoil.”

  “Yeah. It was, even though in the end we didn’t have to move. Then I had that accident, and that was it. My dad moved out. He got traded to another farm team on the West Coast, and we barely ever saw him anymore. It was the hardest on my sister, and, well, obviously my mom. He paid child support and stayed on the farm team for a while, and we all kind of moved on without him. Now he drops back into my life once or twice a year and fucks things up.”

  “Because he brings back all those memories?”

  “And because we’re essentially the same person. Sometimes I wonder how my mom can even stand to look at me.”

  My heart breaks for him. I hate that he carries this burden based solely on what he looks like and his skill set. “You’re not the same person, though, Randy.”

  “In a lot of ways we are.”

  “I get that it’s difficult to separate yourself from him, especially when he shows up and craps all over your life, but you’re an incredible man. You’re loyal and honest and wonderful. Your personality is nothing like his, and your mom loves you like crazy.”

  Randy tucks me into his side and rests his chin on top of my head. “I’m worried about the start of the season, Lily. I’m worried about being on the road all the time and you not being with me.”

  “People choose for themselves whether or not they want to exercise self-control,” I remind him.

  He presses his lips to my temple. “I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

  I’ve been waiting for this conversation. It’s inevitable. Randy’s wanted more and more alone time with me over the past month as off-season wound down and he started gearing up for training. I’ve realized his anxiety and neediness lately are because of the change that’s coming. Soon his schedule will fill up with training sessions and practice. Not long after that, he’ll be off on his first series of away games.

  I stroke his cheek, amazed that this man can allow himself to be vulnerable with me after everything he’s been through. “I don’t think you would ever intentionally seek to hurt me, Randy.”

  “Me neither, but I keep thinking about that time you couldn’t make the game last season, and how that bunny wouldn’t leave me alone at the bar. I know nothing happened, but if it had, it would’ve fucked everything up.”

  “We were still casual then, Randy. Neither one of us had acknowledged how we felt about each other.” I know this has weighed on him since the beginning, and his dad being here, along with the changes we’re about to face, has stirred it up again.

  He sighs. “That’s because I was being stupid. I was already all about you, and I still considered it.”

  “I think you need to let that go. We can’t live in a world of what ifs. We weren’t ready to face feelings at that point. Denial was safer emotionally for both of us at the time. We’re in a different place now; we love each other, and that changes how we manage those kinds of situations.”

  “My dad loved my mom, and he still managed to fuck that up, though. I don’t understand why you’d make that kind of commitment to someone and shit all over it. It’s fucked up, isn’t it? It’s hard to see the way he is now and know at one point he was actually a decent person.”

  Randy’s conflict over this makes me sad for him. It’s clear he wants to make sense of it without having all the pieces of the puzzle. He’ll only ever had the glossed over and hazy childhood version of events. I guess in a lot of ways not having a father uncomplicates things for me. “I don’t know who your dad was when you were younger. I don’t know the dynamics of your relationship with him, or how his relationship was with your mom, or what happened exactly to change that, but I do know that you’ve spent a lot of time afraid of becoming him when really you should focus on being you.”

  “I just see so much of myself in him; it’s hard not to feel like his path is going to be mine.”

  “You’ve already made better choices, though, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You need to give yourself more credit, Randy. We’ve broken the cycles we were following by default before we found each other. Now we’ve realized there’s another way.”

  He cracks a smile. This time it’s real. “Loving you is the best choice I ever made.”

  “I feel exactly the same way about loving you.”

  He wraps me up in his warm embrace. I smooth my hands down Randy’s back, and it seems at least some of the tension he’s been storing there has dissipated. I’m not under some false notion that we’ve solved this problem with one conversation, but I know talking is progress. As long as we’re communicating, I think we can survive his dad’s latest ambush—and maybe eventually get to actual healing.

  10

  GROW SOME BALLS

  RANDY

  I drop Lily off at the arena twenty minutes before her first lesson. Instead of going home, I stand at the entrance to the rink and watch her skate for a good half hour. Right now she’s teaching three year olds how to stay upright. She’s great with kids. Later she’ll be dealing with twelve-year-old boys who need to develop ice skills. Their dads always hang out during the lessons. If I didn’t have to deal with my own father, so would I.

  I’m not happy with the current situation in my house. Our house. Though it’s never fun, most of the time I can deal with my dad—his drinking and the asshole comments—but not when they’re directed at Lily. I won’t risk my relationship with her so he has a place to crash and someone to mooch off. Besides, watching his continued downward spiral is fucking depressing. I’m already anxious about the start of the season. I don’t need his presence making it worse. And that’s what he does. He makes things worse. He’s all the things I don’t ever want to become magnified.

  I want to believe what Lily said—that I’m better than he is, and that I’ll make better decisions than he did. But it’s hard when I think about how he was when I was a kid and what he’s become now. I don’t understand what caused that change, so I don’t know how to guard against it in myself. And while I’m committed to remaining faithful on the road, I have no idea how Lily’s going to handle my being away. I’ve watched more than one of my teammates’ relationships implode over the years. I don’t want the same thing to happen to us.

  I get a message from Lance asking if I want to hit the gym. I fire one back to let him know I’m busy, but I’ll catch up with him soon. We have a team meeting in a couple of days since we’re gearing up for season training. The long off-season has been good for the team in a lot of ways, even though it sucked to get shut down early in the playoffs. It’s also meant more time with Lily and more time hanging out with friends like we did this weekend.

  While I’m stoked for the new season, I’m not excited for the travel like I used to be. I now understand my mom’s anxiety every time my dad prepared for a series of away games. Her tears when he walked out the door never lasted long; she always pulled herself back together, and we carried on like we always did. But she was different when he was away, and for a long time I didn’t get why. Now I do. The why is in my home, probably drinking my booze, even though it’s barely noon.

  It’s in this mood that I arrive back at my house. I don’t want to go inside. I don’t want to face this issue that looks like me and talks like me. I don’t want to deal with the worst-case scenario of my future. But there aren’t any other options.

  My dad’s kicking back on the couch with his wrapped foot propped on a towel on the armrest. Fresh blood has seeped through the bandage on his heel.

  “We gotta go to the hospital. You need stitches.”

  “It’s fine. Get your girlfriend off to work okay?”

  “It’s not fine. You’re bleeding all over the place. Come on; we’re going.”

  He sets his beer next to two empties. “You’re in a shit mood.”

  “I wonder why that would be.”

  “Look, I had no idea you were playing house with some ch—some girl. It’s not like you call me.�
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  “I really don’t feel like doing this.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Talking. Let’s take a trip to the hospital and get your foot fixed up.”

  For once he doesn’t push it, possibly because I almost punched him out earlier today when he made a dickhead comment about Lily.

  We spend nearly three hours in the ER before they even get to us. It would’ve been a lot longer if I didn’t have connections.

  Lily messages me while we’re waiting—in a different room now, but aside from a quick nurse’s assessment, still waiting. She’s hoping to get together for a quick dinner before her session with Finlay the fucker tonight. The guy probably isn’t that bad, but my stress level doesn’t allow for much generosity right now. I’m barely handling the basics. Unfortunately I’m stuck at the hospital at least until they take X-rays of my dad’s foot, so I can’t go anywhere. I probably won’t see her until after he’s been humping all over my girl. That makes me pissy. Pissier than I already am.

  The X-ray shows that there’s still glass in my dad’s foot. So they shuttle us back to a room to deal with that before he gets the stitches everyone but him knew he needed. I almost want to tell them not to bother with anesthetic before they go digging around in there. Once he’s clear of foreign objects, the doctor stitches him up and gives him a set of crutches. He’s supposed to use them for the next few days, otherwise he’s liable to break the stitches open. The doctor also wants to see him again in forty-eight hours to check on the healing because the wound was still bleeding pretty good when they were working on him. I assume it has something to do with the blood-thinning properties of all the booze my dad consumes.

  The whole thing will probably run several grand since my dad doesn’t have health insurance anymore. And he doesn’t pretend like he’s going to pay me back. Over the past few years, he’s probably cost me about thirty grand between the money he borrows and what I dish out for various reasons—hotel bills, hospital visits, other messes to clean up—when he drops by for a visit. I should probably stop helping him out, but if I do, I worry he’ll go to my mom, maybe get her to ask me indirectly, since he seems to have no moral compass. The last couple of times he’s asked for money he hasn’t bothered calling it a loan. I don’t question him about his personal financial situation, and I’m certain he knows what mine is; my annual salary is public knowledge.

  My dad’s looped on painkillers when we leave the hospital, so as much as I want him out of my house, I’d feel like too much of a dick taking him to a hotel for tonight. And yes, it’s tonight. The entire afternoon evaporated while we waited in there. Besides, if I do drop him someplace, there’s a good chance he’s going to ignore the doctor’s orders and go walking around without his crutches, which will end up costing me more money, and probably more time.

  “Sorry about this.” My dad gestures to his foot, his head resting against the window. He sounds anything but sincere.

  “Once you’re off the crutches, you need to go to a hotel.”

  “C’mon, kid, this was an accident. You can’t be pissed at me ’cause I fell.”

  I grip the steering wheel. “You can’t show up, create all this chaos, and expect me to be okay with it.”

  “I tried to call; you didn’t answer. I just wanted to visit with my son. Where’s the crime in that?”

  This conversation is pointless. Aside from being on a bunch of medication, my dad’s not one to own his mistakes, or be honest. But I’m angry, so instead of keeping my mouth shut, I go ahead and say things I shouldn’t—even though all it’s going to do is rattle the cage.

  “You know, I could deal with it when it was just me in the house, but Lily lives there now, too, so you can’t camp out on my couch for three weeks until you pull your shit back together anymore.”

  “You embarrassed of me? Is that the problem?”

  “Yeah, I’m fucking embarrassed. I get home last night from a weekend away, and you’re wasted as shit. It wasn’t really a great introduction.” I hit the brakes when the light turns yellow and piss off the guy behind me because I don’t run it.

  “I’ll apologize to her later. Will that make you feel better?”

  “It might if it actually meant something, but you were already into the beers again this morning. You’ve got a problem, and you need to deal with it.”

  “Everyone’s got problems. That’s not a reason to send me to a hotel.”

  I look at my dad, at the mess he’s made of his life. “That’s not why you can’t stay with us. I don’t trust you with her.”

  “I’m not gonna touch your chippy.”

  “She’s not my fucking chippy, and that’s not what I mean. I mean I don’t trust you not to be an asshole, or to say something to make her question my loyalty to her. But since you mentioned it, if you lay a fucking finger on her, for any reason, I will kick the motherfucking shit out of you.”

  He raises his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Whoa, whoa, settle down. I’m not here to mess with you, or this girl you’re so hung up on. Just watch your back, kid. They’re always after something.”

  “You mean like Mom? She had such unrealistic expectations and all, what with wanting you to keep your damn dick in your pants and out of the bunnies. Pretty fucking unreasonable, yeah?” I pull up in front of the house. “You need to get out. I gotta get Lily from work.”

  He doesn’t move for a few seconds, just stares at me. “Randy—”

  “Lily’s waiting on me, and I don’t have time to listen to your bullshit.”

  He fumbles around with his crutches and opens the door. It takes him a bit to get out, and I don’t offer to help.

  I roll down the window when he’s on the sidewalk. “Try not to get sauced before I get home. It’d be nice if you could keep a handle on your mouth in front of Lily.”

  I feel a vague sense of vindication at the look of remorse on his face as I take off, but I doubt it will last long. It never does.

  It’s after seven thirty by the time I arrive at the arena, and Lily’s on the ice with Finlay. I knew I wouldn’t make it before they got started, so I stopped at a coffee shop, and I even picked up something for him, because I’m trying to be nice. I want to take Lily out after this since I couldn’t meet her earlier—and partly to avoid spending any more time with my dad. I also have to break it to her that he’s staying a couple more nights with us, and I don’t know how she’s going to feel about that.

  I stay close to the door instead of taking a seat in the stands, so as not to appear like the jealous boyfriend I am. She’s so graceful out there. Sometimes I still can’t believe she was robbed of her opportunity to be in the Olympics. Whenever I mention it, she reminds me that if she’d gone, we probably never would have met. I don’t think I’m better than the Olympics, but Lily always tries to find the positive, and I’m glad I get to be her silver lining.

  I wait until the last five minutes of their ice time before I approach the boards. They seem to be mostly done, so I’m not at risk of interrupting. Lily raises her hand in a wave and holds up a finger. I lean against the boards and pretend to look at my phone while I wait.

  I have messages from Lance, seeing how I’m dealing with my dad being around. Lance’s family relationships are strained, too. Much of his family’s still in Scotland, though, so he only sees them once or twice a year. He’s aware that things with my dad aren’t good, so when Randall, Sr., comes to town, Lance and Miller have a tendency to check on me.

  “Hey, you.” Lily’s skates send up a spray of ice as she stops in front of me.

  I look up from my phone. “Hi. I brought you tea, and a coffee for Finlay, if he wants it.”

  “That’s sweet of you. He’s already gone to change.”

  I look around the rink to find it empty.

  She leans in with a knowing smile and kisses my cheek. “I saw you skulking by the doors.”

  “I wasn’t skulking. I didn’t want to make Finlay nervous. Or seem like a jealous boy
friend.”

  She arches a brow. “Are you jealous?”

  “Mostly I wanted to see you on the ice.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Yeah, mostly. Ninety percent is me wanting to watch you skate; the other ten percent is me being jealous.”

  She presses a quick kiss to my lips. “I can deal with ten-percent jealousy.”

  The heavy feeling in my stomach eases up a little. “I was thinking maybe we could go for dinner once you’re changed, unless you’ve eaten.”

  “I had a snack, but that sounds fantastic. I’m starving.”

  “Great. I’ll meet you in the lobby?”

  “Perfect. I’ll be quick.” Lily skates away, taking her tea with her and leaving Finlay’s coffee with me.

  I call and make a reservation at Lily’s favorite restaurant. It’s last-minute, but we go there a lot, so they’re able to get me a table.

  Finlay comes out of the men’s locker room before Lily comes out of the women’s. He looks uncertain when he sees me, but I put on my best, least-menacing smile.

  “Hey, man, how’s it going?” I ask.

  “Good. We finished up a while ago. I’m sure Lily will be out soon.” He adjusts the strap on his bag.

  “Yeah. I saw her already. This is for you.” I hold out the coffee.

  He looks at it like it’s a grenade.

  “It’s not poisoned or anything. I know I was a dick the last time, so this is, like, a peace offering.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks.”

  “Yeah, no problem. You know, just keep it professional out there on the ice, and we’re good.”

  Based on his expression, that may not have come out the way I meant it.

  “I’m kidding. I mean, not really, but I’m not going to show up with a crowbar and take out your knees or anything.” I close my eyes and expel a breath. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell Lily I said that.”

  “Tell her what?”

  I give him a thumbs up.

  “Does it help if I tell you I have a girlfriend?”