Page 71 of The Big Puck

“I’m keeping an extra eye on him. Kap has experience working with goalies. I’ll ask him to take a closer look and maybe give him some extra attention.”

She nods. I’m struck again by how much she knows.

She drew a deep breath. “Time for me to clean up. You going to watch some clips tonight?”

I nod, an invitation for her to join me on the tip of my tongue, but she turns away with the dishes gathered in her hands and brings them to the sink. I feel my resolve softening to keep her at arm’s length, but I remind myself that I can’t afford her. I don’t have that magic talent to make my baggage disappear like she has. I don’t have her boundless hopeful spirit.

Aunt Hildie is down to one crutch and surprises me when she helps clean the table.

I excuse myself to the living room, which is now fully furnished and decorated within an inch of its life. Not that I mind because I don’t. It’s comfortable. I take my chair, click on the TV, then download the clips the tech team sent me of our next opponent.

One crutch. In another six weeks, Aunt Hildie will be crutch-free and able-bodied. Despite Lainey’s promise to stay until the end of the season, no matter what, there would be nothing to stop her from leaving sooner. No contract. My chest tightens like it’s in the grips of a boa constrictor. Panic. Fuck. It shouldn’t matter whether she stays or goes because there’s nothing between us, not really. But the tightening in my chest can’t be ignored.

What about when she leaves at the end of the season? What then?

Desolation overwhelms me. What the fuck? I don’t need her to live, can’t depend on her—or anyone else for my happiness.

And yet, I do. Logic turns on me, reminding me that I depend on Krissy mightily for happiness or at least solace and calm. I depend on Aunt Hildie to be there with her solid support.

I depend on my team, each and every player, every single day to play, to be loyal, and to work hard.

I depend on people for my existence every minute of every day of my fucking life. How can I draw a bright line around Lainey and say I shouldn’t depend on her, that I can’t allow myself to depend on her?

I already do. Why else would I nearly have a heart attack when I think about her leaving? I tried like fuck not to let her under my skin, but there she is, deeply embedded like a syringe filled with the most addictive drug ever invented.

And hope? Can I afford that? What about the team?

The team is successful, and I can’t deny that I hope we’ll win the division.

You insisted on that pie-in-the-sky clause, didn’t you? You have hope whether you can afford it or not.

Forcing myself to turn to the TV screen, I watch and finally return my focus to hockey, where it should be. A few minutes later, Lainey announces she’s going upstairs to bathe Krissy.

Aunt Hildie crutches into the room with the nimbleness of purpose and sits on the couch. “We need to talk.”

“Everything okay?” I ask, but she looks content, so I’m not concerned that it’s anything serious. “How’s the Airbnb deal going with your house?” The realtor said it was the best way to maximize money for Aunt Hildie’s prime property in downtown Portsmouth. She didn’t want to sell it.

“Fine. I’m glad I didn’t sell it. I may need to move out someday when you find yourself a wife, you know.” She raises her brows and gives me a pointed stare, and my brain freezes around the mention of a wife. I stay mute, so she continues. “I have no intentions of turning our arrangement into an Andy of Mayberry scenario. I always thought Andy should’ve remarried, but Aunt Bee was stopping him.”

It takes me a second to catch up with her sixties TV sitcom reference, and I shake my head. “No worries, Aunt Hildie. You stay as long as you’re comfortable.” I have no intentions of discussing my marriage plans—or lack thereof for the foreseeable future. A wave of melancholy washes through me, but more on Krissy’s behalf than mine.

Someday, she’ll need a woman’s touch, someone she can talk to about all those things I know nothing about. But I shut that line of thought down. I grew up essentially fatherless, and I turned out—

I stop short. Okay? Did I turn out okay? My step-brother Neil shared my essentially fatherless upbringing, and look what happened to him.

But I’m smarter than Neil, and I know better than to hope for the impossible. I pay attention to what I can control—like hockey and my career. There’s no way to control a woman, especially the kind who lets her emotions drive her. A woman like Lainey.

Aunt Hildie nods. “I will stay for a while, dear Spencer.” She squints her eyes at me. “I hope you realize that I’m just as stubborn as you are, young man. You got that from my precious baby sister, your mother’s side of the family. You got nothing but your good looks from your father, thank the Lord.”

I bark a snort-laugh at that. She nods in approval and stands with the help of her crutch.

“I’m off to bed now.” She waves her crutch at me to shoo me away when I rise to help her. “I’ve got this.”

She’s right. She is a stubborn old girl. I’m not sure what that has to do with me and marriage, but I have a very unsettled feeling that there is a connection of some kind. That we’re engaged in some kind of competition. I’d been hoping it was my imagination. But then, I know better than to hope.

Fuck.

Chapter 26