6. Chapter Six

“Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Da-deeeeeeeee.”

A tiny finger jabbed my cheek. I managed to get one eye opened to see a large ladybug sitting beside me, its antenna slightly off center but otherwise delightfully adorable.

I cleared my throat. “Hey, beetle girl.”

“Daddy, I’m not a beetle. I’m a ladybug. Is it Halloween yet?”

“No, child, it’s not, and ladybugs are beetles. You asked me that last night before bed. Do you remember what I told you?” The sun was bright in the sky, telling me that I’d slept through my alarm. Not a great thing to do on opening day, but it had been a long night. “Do you still have an upset tummy?”

“No, it’s better. I pooped a lot an hour ago and my belly was all better.” She rubbed at the red-and-black costume covering her from chin to knees, the foam bent out of shape due to her sitting cross-legged, so it was more coverage of her from chin to armpits at the moment. “You said Halloween is not for two weeks. But I was sick from not pooping good last night and sleeped long so maybe we sleeped through those weeks.”

“Sorry, baby, we did not. Today is the twentieth and Halloween is the thirty-first so eleven more days.” She rolled big brown eyes and then collapsed dramatically onto my chest.

“I will die by then.” She sighed with all the flair of a Broadway actress.

“Nope, you won’t. Hey, when you pooped, did you flush and wash your hands?” I hated to ask, but sometimes you just had to. She nodded, curled up beside me, and began telling me about school and the party at her friend’s house for Halloween, and her new ladybug costume, and a few dozen other things. I lay there with her, grateful for this time together. The season kicked off today with a game against Hershey, and my time at home would be drastically reduced from here on out.

“Can we eat? I feel hungry now that I pooped.” She sat up to stare down at me.

“Sure, you go to the kitchen and feed Goldberry her treats while I get dressed,” I suggested, and she raced off, eager to find our elusive yellow cat and dispense kitty treats. Once she was out of my room, I rolled back the covers, stood up, and straightened my T-shirt and boxers. I much preferred sleeping nude, but with a kid and an older lady in the house, those days were over.

My phone was charging downstairs, so I bumbled into the bathroom that we all shared, rubbing at my eyes with the tips of my fingers. I could hear my aunt snoring as I passed her room. Kyleen had had us both up into the wee hours last night. I was glad to hear that a good pooh had eased her bellyache. The child really needed more fiber, but it was easier to give Goldberry a pill than it was to get a vegetable into that girl’s mouth.

I opened the door to the bathroom, inhaled, and gagged. The child had not flushed. She probably hadn’t washed her hands either…

Thank the gods of housekeeping for inventing Febreze.

When I had the bathroom aired out, I used the toilet, splashed some water on my face and hair, washed up, and jogged downstairs. I’d shower after morning skate. Right now, I had to locate my child and our cat, make sure all was well, and get breakfast ready. I found Kyleen and Goldberry on the floor under the table, sharing cat treats. After I told her not to eat the cat’s food even if they did taste like cheese crackers, she pounded off irate and the cat stalked off with its fluffy golden tail in the air.

Eggs sounded good, so I pulled a carton out of the fridge and started cracking. My phone pinged again, pulling my attention from the food. Easing over to the outlet beside the microwave, I pulled the charger out of my old cell and started checking notifications. Most were from the team, which was weird this early. Well, I guess eight was early since most of us had to be at the barn by nine. I texted Coach to let him know I might be late due to having a sick child last night. He hit me back, saying it was okay. He’d had six kids, all grown now, but he recalled those days well. Plus, he had had his wife to help shoulder things. All I had was a woman in her early seventies and an incredibly supportive school system.

“What the hell is this?” I asked as I whipped eggs with one hand and scrolled with the other. A dozen links sat in the team chat thread, all linking back to the Watkins Glen Gladiators. Seeing that name brought up the vision of Baskoro Huda. Not a bad mental image at all, to be sure. We’d been giving each other some real shit via text since we’d swapped olive branches a few weeks ago. Most dealing with our insane love of all things geek, a term I fully embraced.

Kyleen was singing along to a cartoon show she liked while I thumbed over one of the links and clicked it. I was taken to the Gladiators website. The video started playing, the thumping sounds of “2 Legit 2 Quit” flowing out of the crummy speaker on my phone. I stood there, bowl of eggs on the counter, whisk dripping egg on my stocking feet, amused and really impressed with this video. Also, I was damn impressed with Baskoro’s skill at rapping. Sure, Liam Polkman was there too, but my sight remained locked on the man with the long dark hair and hip-hop fashion. He was sexy as hell. Those lips and soulful eyes…

“Daddy! What is that song?!”

I glanced down at Kyleen, knelt down, and showed her the video that flashed from Liam and Baskoro working the hell out of their song while video of them in net was neatly dropped in on the downbeats. “I love it so much! Who are the goalies? They are good. Are you that good? Why don’t you make legit songs?”

Great, so my kid thought Huda was more legit than her father. “I’ll work on a legit video,” I told her. She squealed and begged for my phone to watch the video over and over until I had to make her turn it off so we could get dressed and out the door. Since we’d missed the bus, I had to drive her to school, walk her into her class, and then run like all of Satan’s hellhounds were on my tail. I arrived at the end of morning skate, got a look from Coach that said he was not thrilled but wouldn’t ride me too hard about being late. This time.

“How’s my best beetle buddy?” Crispy asked after taking a shower, which I still had yet to do as I totally missed ice time. At least I had smeared some deodorant on so no one would smell my manliness while watching game films of Hershey for an hour.

“She’s fine. The child just needs fiber,” I confided, dropping down into a chair in the video room, the others on the team filing in with wet heads and phones in hand.

“Ah gotcha. I was the same way as a kid. Hated vegetables until I started playing hockey and my coaches all drummed it into my head that chocolate, even though it was made from a bean, was not as healthy for me as green beans.”

I snickered, then tried to stifle a yawn. “She’s fine. We spent all morning listening to MC Hammer.”

Crispy chortled. Ooni took the seat on my left, his sleepy gaze touching on me briefly. “I think that video was directed at you,” Ooni said in his lilting Finnish accent.

“You think?” I replied and got a chortle from our captain. “We need to fire back. I should head up to PR after this and talk to them. I mean, we can’t let them get the upper hand. We did beat them the last time we played.”

“I’m all for giving the Gladiators shit, but I am not rapping. The only rapping I do is Christmas presents,” Crispy announced just as Coach sauntered in carrying a cup of coffee and a Danish.

“We’ll come up with something,” I vowed and racked my brain the entire time I was supposed to be studying up on the Hershey defensive pairs.

***

I was back home, resting after lunch, when I finally had time to reach out to Baskoro about the video. Plenty of our fans had commented—most saying that the video our goaltending tandem team would release would be much better—but I’d not said a word online. While it was all good fun, and the Gladiators had not mentioned me in particular, the snippets of lyrics that had been harvested made it plain the Watkins Glen tendie team was giving the Wilkes-Barre tendie team some static. Bring it on. As soon as our PR department came up with something cooler, and I had faith that they would, this little stunt would be old news.

Still, it behooved me to lob a return salvo across Baskoro’s bow. We’d not really talked hockey much in our texts and messages, which was fine because just talking to him seemed weird. We’d spent so much time disliking each other that it was just…weird to be chatty now. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but then again, maybe we didn’t need to. The shift from enemy to friend had to be strange and awkward. So we kept it light, no work-related talk and nothing too personal. Mostly it was nerd stuff, with a small spattering of kids and baby chatter. Hockey, it seemed, was off-limits in this tender new friendship or whatever the hell it was that’s sprouting between us. Maybe friendship was too strong a word. Antagonistic rivalry with a subtle but simmering undercurrent of lust. Or was that yearning to have him pin me to the wall and do terribly dirty things to me purely on my side?

Smirking down at my phone, I typed out the opening shot.

If only you could stop pucks as well as you lip sync to 90s songs, you would have beaten us. ~ M

It was stupid how much I had started to look forward to his texts, images, and stupid ass memes. He had a dry sense of humor at times and was really witty. His meme game was on point too. I swear the man had a meme for every occasion. It took several minutes for his reply to flow in, but it was worth the wait.

Jealousy does not become you. ~ B

I roared, then checked myself as my aunt was “watching” Judge Judy in her recliner and I didn’t want to wake her up from her nap. She’d need all the energy she could muster. Despite my asking her a dozen times a week if she wanted help with Kyleen, she flatly refused. For the most part, Aunt Zada kept up, and with Kyleen in school all day, it was much easier on her. I still carried around a massive boulder of guilt in my gullet about saddling her with so much childcare. We could have afforded daycare when Kyleen was younger, but the woman flatly refused. Yes, we had made it through the preschool years, but my poor aunt had been run ragged. I often wondered how she did it. Lord knows the child wore me out and I was decades younger than Zada. But my aunt swore that keeping active was the best thing for her.

Did you forget how to make words? ~ B

The ping pulled me out of my mental meander.

No, I was just counting up the wins that we have over you so far. ~ M

It took you that long to count to one? That explains a lot. ~ B

Did you know that your team has lost three games so far? ~ M

Did you know that your team has lost four games so far? ~ B

Ah, so he was following my team just like I was now keeping tabs on his. That felt bizarre, but also sort of right. I had no clue what it meant, but I chalked it up to making sure I had ammo.

I did know that. Note that I did not play in two of those games. ~ M

Note that I also did not play in two of our preseason games. ~ B

Noted. So you only lost to me? I’m honored. ~ M

Enjoy your gloat. We’ll see what happens next Friday. ~ B

We know the outcome. You’ll be in my dojo, little frog. Big frog vs little frog. ~ M

I searched out a GIF of a big frog eating a smaller frog and then took a happy little sip of my iced tea with lemon.

You do know that the bigger one is a toad, right? ~ B

Was it? I pulled the phone closer. How the hell did a person know the difference? Damn him and his amphibian knowledge. Wait. Was it really a toad or was he just saying that to make me feel stupid? Shit. Now I had to bob and weave so not to appear unknowledgeable about toads.

I glanced around to find something to distract him. My sight fell on the large white envelope containing Kyleen’s school picture proofs. Yep, that would do it. He loved seeing pictures of my daughter. I’d never met a man our age who was so into kids. Most guys who weren’t married and fathers didn’t really give children much thought. Kids were something that they either wanted in the future or didn’t want at any time. Baskoro was not at all like that. While he looked stony and determined on the ice, he was a big softie when it came to kids. And cats, something that I had also learned when he spied Goldberry in one of the images of our pumpkin carving fun a few days ago.

School pic proofs are in. Want to see? ~ M

Totally! ~ B

Saved once more by my daughter’s adorableness.

***

“Marcus, Schwinn Porter from the Wilkes-Barre Bugle. Can you tell us what your game plan is tonight?”

I glanced around the locker room at the crush of reporters gathered around me. I had to wonder if Baskoro was facing the same mob of hungry press who were eager for any drop of gossip about the warring goalies. That was how my team was hyping the conflict that used to be brewing between Huda and me. Things were different now, personally, and as much as I wanted to correct the news outlets, my team, and the Gladiators, were making big bank off the rivalry. So much so that the Comets had invested beaucoup cash into a video that would be released on social media in about an hour. A return volley of sorts for the now famed legit fan favorite. Well, fan fave if you cheered for Watkins Glen. Our supporters would get their swipe at the Gladiators shortly. I hoped they enjoyed it.

“The game plan is to not let the Gladiators score,” I replied and gave the guys packed in around me a sassy grin.

“Well, obviously,” Schwinn pressed, reaching up to adjust his dark horn-rimmed glasses. “But how do you plan to deal with the pressure of facing your arch nemesis down at the other end of the ice?”

Arch nemesis? Was Sauron in the other crease? Would we be facing orcs, trolls, and other dark beings on skates? Seriously, this whole thing was starting to get a little out of hand. Baskoro was a nice guy, really nice, and incredibly attractive. How had we gotten caught up in this nonsense?

“Well, I plan on not thinking about him and doing my job, which is stopping pucks.” There. That should end that.

“Of course, but Huda has already come out and said that if he ever gets the chance to clean your clock, he would.”

Schwinn studied my reaction to that pronouncement. I’d not read that comment and, to be honest, that did not sound like Baskoro at all.

“Tick tock,” I tossed out.

Chumming the waters worked. The gathering of sports reporters all chuckled, eyes gleaming, like great whites getting a whiff of fetid tuna chunks. Thankfully, after their sound bite, they rushed off to talk to other members of the team, leaving me to my own devices. Two hours to game time. I padded out of the locker room, eager to find a place where I could center myself. I found a small corner where someone had parked a rolling cart filled with clean towels. Wedging myself behind the cart, I dropped down into a crouch, then lowered my ass to the cold floor, the chill seeping slowly through my padded pants and thick socks. My sweater and skates were back in the dressing room. Knowing I had to get my head in the game and not on a stupid flippant remark about clocks, I nonetheless sent a text to Baskoro instead of searching for some guided meditation.

So clock cleaning? ~ M

I didn’t expect a reply. He was just down the hall with his team, slipping into his mindset, so when the ping from my phone filled my dark, tiny space, I jumped on it like Goldberry would a mouse.

????? ~ B

Huh. Did he really not know what I was talking about?

Did you say you would clean my clock? ~ M

Dude, what century are we in? ~ B

So you never said it? ~ M

No. Have you been hitting the smelling salts pregame again? ~ B

That made me snicker. I placed my foot on the cart and gave it a soft push, just enough to allow me to stretch out my legs.

Big time salts fan. Huge. You ready to play some hockey? ~ M

Fuck yeah. You ready to lose some hockey? ~ B

Loser buys dinner. ~ M

Why I typed that out and then sent it only the gods knew. Once it was gone, I felt a tsunami of panic wash over me, like full-blown cold sweats of fear. What had I just done? Why had I done it? What the hell was wrong with my—

Hope you brought lots of cash. I plan to order surf and turf. ~ B

My exhale was so large it was a wonder the cart didn’t blow across the hallway.

I sent him a cow and a lobster emoji simply because I had no words forming in my stunned brain.

I know a great place in Hornell. Expensive. Bring your Black Am Ex. ~ B

Unable to find any wit, I told him to bite me and then turned off my phone to spend some time analyzing why I had just asked my arch nemesis out to dinner.