Beckett’s whole body felt like one big cooked noodle by the time he filed into the locker room along with his teammates. Their spirited comments over the game mixed with heavy breathing and the clack, clack, clack of equipment.
At his space on the bench, he dropped his butt to the wood, uncapped a bottle of cold water, and downed it without pausing. Once everyone was settled, Coach Tremblay gave a short talk, congratulating the team and pointing out their strengths during the game.
The floor then transitioned to Rafe Savage, the player named MVP during the previous win. Rafe pulled the ceremonial Revolution-era tricorne hat, a symbol chosen to represent the team’s name, from his locker. The brown leather was worn, the gold trim frayed from the hat’s many travels with the team.
Savage stood and worked the leather back into shape as he spoke. “Passing this on tonight is easy. For single-handedly cultivating college funds to support the children of the Blackhawks’ team dentist, I hand this over to Beckett Croft.” Group laughter erupted around the room, peppered by hoots and hollers. Savage handed the hat to Beckett with a grin and a “Way to clean house, bud.”
Beckett felt every one of those hits tonight. But he stood as if he were twenty-two with no scars, and firmly positioned the prize on his head, then posed for a few photos. And since the love of his life was currently ensconced in a Disney-movie marathon with her cousins at her grandmother’s house, he said, “I guess drinks are on me.”
After showering and changing back into the clothes he’d worn to the stadium, Beckett wandered toward Top Shelf with the other guys, lingering behind to call his mom. Before he could tap into FaceTime and connect, his attorney’s name lit up his screen.
He groaned but then purposely twisted his thoughts in a positive direction before he answered. “Hey, Fred. Tell me you’ve got good news.”
“I’ve got good news and not so good news.”
“Hold on a sec.” As they approached the bar, Beckett lowered the phone. “Hey, guys, I’ll be right in. Open a tab.”
When his teammates disappeared inside, Beckett leaned his back against a light post, grateful the icy wind wasn’t blowing tonight. “Okay, what have you got?”
“The good news,” Fred said, “is that Toby located Kim’s aunt at a nursing home in Sarasota, Florida.”
“That’s great.”
“Hold on,” Fred cautioned, pulling Beckett’s hopes down a little. “While she does corroborate your story about Kim dumping Lily on her and leaving without ever looking back, her health has deteriorated considerably over the last year. If her state of mind is challenged, I can’t guarantee her affidavit will be all that beneficial.”
Beckett winced.
“Also,” Fred went on, “inside sources say Kim and Henderson are a little on the rocky side. A lot of ups and downs over the last month or two.”
Beckett squeezed his eyes closed. “Fuck.”
“Hey,” Fred said, serious and steadfast, “I’m going to keep a titanium bubble around you and Lily, Beck. I’m giving you the big picture, but worrying, planning, and counterattack are my job. Your job is to focus on the ice. Securing that next contract is as important to keeping you and Lily together as holding Kim at arm’s length. You’ve trusted me for years. You’ve got to trust me now. You know it would kill me to see that bitch get Lily back.”
“I know.” Beckett exhaled, his jaw muscles pulsing as his teeth clenched and released. “Listen, I’ll feel better if we go all the way with this. Don’t stop with her aunt. Get all Lily’s medical records, get statements from Kim’s neighbors, friends, coworkers, talk to her ex-boyfriends, anyone who took care of Lily during that time. I want documentation on not only how Kim abandoned her that one time, but showing it was a pattern of behavior. Because we both know it was a pattern, the same way her calls to me for money are a pattern. And if her patterns hold true, that means her relationship with Henderson is going to fall through. Hopefully that will happen after a judge awards me full custody of Lily, but I want all the ammunition I can possibly get in case that relationship goes south before.”
“Beck, you know that’s going to take an enormous amount of manpower—”
“I don’t care what it costs. If you have to put Toby on it full time, three guys on it, five guys on it, whatever you’ve got to do, Fred, just do it.”
“Okay, okay.” He used his soothing tone. “I’ll do whatever you want, and I’ll get it done as fast as possible, but Kim hasn’t made any aggressive moves, so I think it’s best to play this cool. As if we’re confident. As if we’ll keep giving her money as long as she wants it. The less flack she gets as we approach the hearing, the less apt she’ll be to launch her own offensive maneuvers. You have to remember, she’s had a whole year to stash Henderson’s cash. There’s no telling what kind of resources she’s got now. And there’s a lot of talk about you being the hottest free ticket coming on the market in July.”
Beckett dropped his hand and stared blankly at the pedestrians passing on the sidewalk. God, the pressure felt like a vise. Holding on to Lily, staying close to his family, securing another contract. It seemed to build and build, with hockey being his only consistent outlet.
“I hear you,” he said.
Fred promised to keep him posted, and Beckett disconnected, then used FaceTime to call his parents’ house, searching for some good to offset the bad.
His mother answered, her familiar smile filling the screen. She was in the kitchen of his parents’ home in the hills of Arlington. “That had to be one of your best games to date, son. At thirty-one, you keep getting better.”
“Thanks.” His mother had sung Beckett’s praises since he first stepped on the ice, but it still made him smile. “It was a tough game.”
“That’s an understatement. Keep playing like that, and you won’t have to worry about where your next contract is coming from.”
He pulled up a smile for his mom. “That’s the plan.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t be there.”
“Me too, but after decades, you’ve seen enough of my hockey games. You’ve got something more important to do now.”
“Yes, I do.” She stood and walked through the house. “Listen to this.”
She moved down the stairway to his parents’ finished basement, and a flurry of giggles floated over the line. Beckett laughed, and his stress melted. Nothing could relax him like Lily’s love and laughter. In ten short months, her happiness had become his absolute first priority.
“That is beautiful,” he told his mom.
“She’s come so far, Beckett.” His mom’s voice was soft, her expression drenched with love. “She’s a completely different little girl from the one left on your doorstep last year.”
He smiled, pleased with Lily’s transformation. “She is amazing.”
“You are an amazing father. We couldn’t be more proud.”
Father.
That reality still seemed to hit him like a fist to the gut, even three years after he’d learned of Lily’s existence. The responsibility that title laid on his shoulders stole his breath and touched everything he did. Would continue to affect every decision he made for the rest of his life. And every time he thought of Lily, he welcomed all of it.
“Well, I had an exceptional role model, didn’t I?”
She chuckled. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“Do.” He glanced at the bar. “Can I talk to Lily for a minute?”
“Yes, but don’t forget our deal.”
“Oh, Mom, really?” he complained, remembering her unrelenting requests for a sleepover with all the granddaughters, sans Beckett. With this Kim turmoil going on, he had an overwhelming urge to stay close to Lily. “What if I come get her after she falls asleep?”
“Then she’ll miss waking up with Rachel and Amy. She misses the whole morning routine of lying around in the sleeping bags, eating breakfast while they watch cartoons, getting dressed together, doing each other’s hair—”
“God. Fine.” He gave up. No one argued like his mother. And it was in Lily’s best interest. “Don’t worry about me going through withdrawals all night. Why couldn’t you schedule this during one of my away games?”
“It had to fall on a weekend night and fit with Sarah’s, Rachel’s, and Amy’s schedules too.” She grinned. “Remember, it’s not all about you anymore.”
He sighed dramatically. But he’d never believed everything was about him. His parents had drilled that into him early.
A burst of giggles erupted in the background, and a sweet ache surged inside Beckett. “Okay, okay, what about this—I’ll come over and sleep on the couch. She won’t even know I’m there until she wakes up, and I’ll let her stay and play with the girls. I promise I won’t cramp her style.”
“Oh my God, Beckett.” His mother gave him a pitying look. “You realize she has to go away to college someday, right?”
“Shit, don’t do that to me.” He dropped his head and covered his face with his free hand. “That’s cruel.”
His mother’s laughter made Beckett laugh too.
“How do you get through away games?”
He wore himself out on the ice, trained extra hard, and found an occasional hookup—because that had become the only time he could hook up without traipsing strange women in and out of Lily’s life. Which was—without question—unthinkable. And, of course, he missed Lily like crazy. But he told his mom, “I think about getting back home.”
His mom passed the phone to Lily.
Her dark eyes and button nose filled the screen. “Hi, Daddy.”
Beckett’s grin slid into his chest and lit him up from the inside out. “Hey, beautiful. How was school today?”
“Good,” she chirped. “We finger-painted. I played with Becca and Colby on the swings.”
“What did you paint?”
“You skating.” Her perfectly smooth brow pulled into a frown, and her little nose scrunched up. “But Colby used all the bright blue, so I didn’t have the right color.”
He chuckled at her diligence to get his uniform right. “I’m sure it’s great. Can’t wait to see it. Is Becca over her flu?”
All Lily’s frustration vanished. “Yeah.”
Something distracted her, and she looked away.
“Are you having fun with Rachel and Amy?”
“Yeah,” she said, her gaze still clinging to something else in the room. “We’re gonna watch Frozen.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “Give me a kiss, and I’ll let you go.”
That got her attention. Her face grew comically close to the phone, and the screen went dark as her lips pressed against it for a split second. Then she was gone, and the image jumped all over the room as she ran to hand the phone to her grandmother with a distracted “Bye, Daddy.”
When his mother’s face finally came back into view, Beckett was already feeling lonely. “How long do I have before she goes to college?”
“Thirteen years. But you’ll start losing her to friends, sports, and boys a lot sooner.”
Beckett’s heart cracked. He huffed a groan and hung his head. “Thanks, Mom. I’m going to drown my sorrows now. Enjoy my daughter enough for both of us.”
She laughed. “Oh, you never have to worry about that, son.”
Beckett disconnected with an overwhelming amount of love flowing through him. Love right alongside a restless kind of loneliness. He glanced at the doors to Top Shelf again, and his mind drifted to Eden. That was another disappointment he was going to have to push into the background. He’d sent the flowers several days ago, and he still hadn’t heard from her.
Almost two weeks had passed since she’d hauled him to the ER. Even without any hockey knowledge, that was plenty of time for her to figure out who he was, how much money he made, and every other intimate detail of his life. At least everything except Lily. He was keeping Lily extremely under the radar until he had full custody. But either Eden didn’t care enough to look him up or what she’d found hadn’t interested her enough to call, because he still hadn’t heard from her. At this point, he doubted he would.
And that was a damn shame. Especially tonight. Because she would be the perfect woman to administer sexual first aid to get him through the lonely stretch ahead.
Since that wouldn’t happen, Beckett would have to entertain one of the offers he routinely received on any given night out on the town. Lucky for him, hockey was a popular sport, and smokin’ hot puck bunnies were everywhere.
He’d let the night play out. Who knew? Maybe he’d get an offer he couldn’t refuse.
