“Really?” I have to admit that shocks me a little.
“We have news too. Your father has gotten a call from a hockey team,” Mom announces.
“What? Really? Coaching again?”
Dad coached for a decade after he retired. First with the Barons and then with the New York City Monarchs. He was actually an assistant coach with the Barons when Conner was drafted by them. “They haven’t made an offer, but if they do… I’d consider it.”
That’s a big deal. He stopped coaching because the teams making offers were too far from New York and Mom’s charity is tied there. “Mom? Cassia? You guys on board with this? What team? Are you leaving New York? All of you? What about your foundation?”
“Whoa! Hold up. I’m not going anywhere, not forever anyway. The foundation is my baby and I will always run it. And New York is our home, full stop,” Mom tells me, and Cassia nods in agreement in the background while pouring coffee. “We’ll figure out the logistics if it happens. We can make anything work.”
I want my parents’ partnership. I’ve always wanted it. They are a great example of unconditional love and open communication. They haven’t always had it easy, and it’s not that they don’t have arguments, but they work at it. At all of it. I never had anything resembling that with Beckett, even though it’s what I wanted to have. So why did I give him years of my life? It seems so obvious looking at it now, in the rearview, that we were never going to be the unit my parents are. How did I ignore that?
“Dad, if some player has a giant contract, what are thechances they’ll be scooped up from waivers?” Okay… why did I blurt that out?
"What?" Dad sounds absolutely gobsmacked because I don't talk about hockey, ever. He blinks as he recovers enough to give me an answer. "Well, it makes it very difficult. And it's rare a player with a big contract gets put on waivers because if the team is offloading them, they can usually find a buyer. They'd make every attempt to trade them first to get something more than salary cap room out of the loss."
I chew my bottom lip as I absorb this. “Can team management be vindictive? Like would they shoot themselves in the foot for no reason other than they didn’t like a guy on the team??
“What’s with fifty questions, hockey edition?” Cassia asks and she pops into view over Dad’s left shoulder. “I thought you were like me—entirely indifferent about the sport.”
“I was. I am.” I chew my lip again. “It’s just that I’m surrounded by hockey here. Silver Bay has kind of made the sport its entire personality because half the league is from here.”
Dad snorts. “Yeah, there’s something in the water over there.”
"Anyway, never mind, I was just curious, and no better person to ask than our family expert." I smile at my dad. He grins back and gives me a wink.
“Okay well love ya sis but we gotta go open our gifts,” Cassia says. “So I can get back to sleep.”
Dad jerks his thumb in her direction. “Can you believe her? What kid wants sleep over presents?”
“Wish you were here, Mac,” Mom says and blows me a kiss.
“Do you need anything?” Dad asks.
“You guys sent me my gifts and I opened them last night before the shift.” I shake my head. “You spent too much. I told you I don’t need anything.”
They got me a subscription to a food box for gourmet meals,a pair of durable yet somehow very stylish winter boots, and a hefty gift certificate to Sephora, which is where I get my fancy bubble bath from so the timing on that is perfect. My brain is thinking of Conner again as I tell my family I love them and end the video call.
I check the time on my phone. It’s just a minute past seven. My shift is officially over. I open up the door to my office and jump. Because someone is standing in the hallway in front of the door—Conner Garrison.
Chapter 13
Mac
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“So… Surprise!” He holds up a glass container.
I stare at it, unable to make out the contents. It looks like… bread or cake or something? When I slide my gaze to his eyes he says, "I couldn't bear the thought of you without a decent meal on Christmas morning so I brought you a couple of my grams' world-famous cinnamon waffles."
“Waffles?” I repeat dumbly, and my hands move to my hair. Do I look okay? Wait, why do I care? I let my hands drop to my sides. “You brought me breakfast?”
Conner nods and I step out into the hall to join him, the door to my office closing with a soft click behind me. “Yeah. I saw the way you kinda pass out as soon as you get home from a shift. And I also saw the pathetic contents of your fridge.”
“Ouch. That’s harsh,” I mutter and he gives me a flash of a smile.