by Mignon Mykel
She either needed to leave or…
Or, she needed to stay.
* * *
“Hey!”
I heard Kid Prescott’s voice over the countless chirps on the ice, the chants in the stands. Glancing around the zone, I found him, and shot the puck off in Porter’s—way open—direction before Jordan Byrd slammed me into the boards.
Byrd had been an Enforcer once.
And then he’d been an Enforcer again.
It was during that again that he mended a few bridges he’d burned the first time he came through.
But now, he played for Toronto, and he took his role—as hockey player and, hell, husband, but that was a story for another day—seriously.
“Shit, Byrd,” I mumbled as I pushed away from the boards, shaking my head so my helmet fell back into place. Jordan just gave me the finger with his gloved hand and went right back to work.
Looking over the zone, around the ice, I saw that Porter no longer had the puck, and that instead, it had made its way into the possession of Trace Travers, another new guy in the locker room. He was a veteran with nearly ten years under his belt though; I was happy to play first line alongside him.
I moved around the guard of Toronto, trying to find a place to open up for a shot. Travers moved along the ice, doing a spin move around a Toronto player, but never losing possession of the puck.
It was on the open of one of his spins, that Travers did a magic trick—a slapshot that sent the puck right into the net.
Toronto didn’t even know what hit them.
As the red light spun and the arena cheered, Toronto’s goalie was still patting his chest.
“Dude, it’s behind you,” I chirped as I went to greet my teammates in an on-ice hug, before we all headed toward the bench for the celebratory fist pounding.
Toronto called a timeout—no doubt because there were only two minutes left in a game that they were trailing by two goals—so we rounded our own bench. Caleb pulled out his white board and gave us a new play, before directing a different line out.
No bother.
I could sit for a few seconds.
Plopping down on the bench, I pulled off my glove by trapping my hand between my arm and chest, then reached in front of me for a water bottle, squeezing the lukewarm liquid into my mouth as I slid further down the bench after being nudged to do so.
“Alright, boys!” Caleb yelled over the ice as both D’Amacos and Nash lined up, with Fitz and Lindell in their spots. “Let’s head into Thanksgiving on an up note,” he said, softer that time, but with a grin on his face and a hard slap to Porter Prescott’s back. His kid brother glared over his shoulder and I couldn’t help but chuckle, turning my attention back to the ice.
I had two more shifts before the end of the game, and I’d like to say they were exhausting shifts but…
They weren’t.
Even when Toronto pulled their goalie, it wasn’t bad.
We had a fully healthy, strong, team. And with that, came a big lead in conference ranking.
Game over, we all showered and changed. I did a quick interview, but before I could head to my car, Caleb pulled me into his office.
“You’re coming to dinner Thursday, right?” Caleb asked, leaning against his desk. He looked to the clock, and I figured he was doing one of two things—timing when he’d be needed for his own post-game interview, or timing how long he had before his wife called. When we were on the road, he’d do video chats with his youngest kids, but being home, and being ten on a school night, I figured that the clock thing was the interview option. “Unless your family’s coming to town. But if they’re not, Sydney expects you and Anderson there.”
“No, no one’s coming down. Doesn’t make sense, with the break not really being a break.”
“Bring Molly.”
Now…
Generally speaking, Molly went with Anderson everywhere, and she usually was issued these invitations too, so it shouldn’t have hit me the way it did, but it did.
It hit me.
Hard.
“I’m thinking about ending that,” I said, mostly because…
Hell, if I knew.
“I mean, Anderson’s ten. I can get him to and from school, and nights that there are games, he’s usually here anyway. If he’s not here, he’s at your place. I mean, I’d have to sit down and talk it all out with Sydney, but she never seems to mind him hanging out with Brandon.”
“You finally doing something about the Molly thing?” Caleb’s grin was all-knowing. Except, no one knew about the one time I took Molly to bed. The time that I regarded as one of the best days of my life, post-Trina.
If only Molly had felt the same.
“No. There’s no Molly thing,” I denied. How the fuck…?
“You are one of the most honorable guys that I know, Mikey, but you also lie for shit.” Caleb was laughing at me. “Invite her to dinner, please. If you don’t, Sydney will. Don’t make Sydney invite her.”
“She probably already did,” I murmured under my breath, which only made Caleb laugh again.
“You are probably right about that. Get home to your boy. I’ll see you Thursday.”
* * *
If you thought a game would exhaust Fitz like exhausting a puppy, you would be wrong.
Games only energized the kid.
Didn’t matter how hard he played. Didn’t matter if he played ten minutes or twenty; the kid was wired before and after games.
After games, at least, I wasn’t necessarily looking for quiet, so he could yap all that he wanted. Some post-games, we’d head home with music blaring; sometimes we talked the game.
Tonight, was a mix of both.
But the moment he left the car, the moment I was back to solitude, the radio was off and my thoughts, back on.
Both Anderson and Molly would be asleep by the time I got home.
A fact that tore at me.
Molly stopped waiting up after games, after that morning. It was like one single day completely changed everything between us, and honestly, it did.
Sex did that.
For the first few years after Trina’s accident, Molly would stay up on game nights, then head back to her apartment. For about two years in there, it wasn’t her apartment she headed home to, but to a fiancé.
God, I could remember the day that fucker became her fiancé…
I woke up from my nap groggier than when I’d fallen asleep.
I didn’t know why I bothered napping; it wasn’t like I was going to play tonight.
I’d dress.
I’d go out for pre-game warm-ups.
And sometime between the start of warm-ups, and the buzzer announcing it was time to go back to the locker room, the fear of the day would grip me.
It had been six years.
Six.
Years.
And I still couldn’t play on this day.
Coach knew.
He wouldn’t even bother putting me on the game day roster.
Didn’t matter that I told him yesterday that I’d play today.
He knew me better than that.
Instead, I’d sit in the box, suit and tie on, watching as Caleb and the boys played the game we all loved.
Fuck, if Caleb could play today, I had no reason not to.
It was his first Christmas after losing his daughter to cancer, but fuck if he was letting that stop him.
Nope. That was just me, the fucking guy who was stuck in some weird limbo on this day, year after year.
I pulled myself out of bed and walked straight to the shower, needing the heat of the water to wake me up. Molly would bring Anderson home in a little bit. On game days, she always picked him up from school, then took him to some activity—trampoline park, skate park, a regular park… Somewhere she could run off his seven-year-old energy before getting him home and giving me time to nap and get ready for my game.
Molly and I worked like a well-oiled machine, when it came to the raising of my
son.
My chest ached at that, and at the reminder of the day.
It should have been Trina and me, not the nanny and me.
Somewhere over the last few weeks though, it started to get easier.
It was the sixth Christmas without my wife.
Looking at the tree that Molly put up, didn’t hurt so much this year.
Other things this year…Anderson’s sixth birthday without Trina here.
Looking at the pictures Molly took of Anderson blowing out his candles, didn’t hurt so much now.
The hurt was starting to scatter.
And I didn’t think it had anything to do with the fact I was starting to allow myself to find pleasure in other women’s bodies…
But rather, in the comfort I found in Molly.
Seven years, I knew the girl.
The first year, I thought she was great. Trina loved her. Anderson loved her more.
The next few years, I hated her.
But still, Anderson loved her.
And somewhere over the last few weeks…
I saw her.
I saw more than the woman Trina had befriended when we lived in Minnesota. I no longer saw Trina’s friend. I didn’t see Anderson’s nanny.
I saw the too-wide smile on her face, the one that caused laugh lines around her eyes—that was how hard she smiled when she was happy.
The smile that caused two long, deep dimples to appear in her cheeks; dimples that you only saw when she smiled.
I saw the amber glow in the brown depths of her eyes.
The way she twisted her ponytail around her hand when she was focusing on homework with Anderson.
The way she’d pinch his sides when he was acting sour, causing my boy to giggle like the little boy he was starting to lose.
I started to see Molly as a woman I didn’t want to employ but wanted to keep around for my own selfish purposes.
And I couldn’t very well be signing her paycheck, and then taking her to bed. That was wrong on so many levels.
The problem with letting her go and finding a new nanny, was that I trialed nannies with Anderson, and he was an absolute terror for them. It was probably wrong of me, enabling Anderson and his terrors, by allowing him to dictate who would care for him when I wasn’t around, but ultimately, I had to do what was best for my son.
Even if that meant putting my own desires on hold.
Besides, she was in a relationship; a relationship that was something like ten or so months old now.
One that, selfishly, I hoped wouldn’t last much longer.
Listen to me, I thought, pushing my head under the stream of water, Such a selfish dick.
And I was.
I didn’t bring women to the house—not usually, anyway—but I wasn’t exactly celibate.
So, I could have sex, but I didn’t want Molly having sex, was basically what it came down to.
I wanted her.
And I wanted her badly.
I no longer felt bad about that. No longer hated myself for wanting the single person I once blamed for Trina’s death.
Wrongly.
I wrongly blamed her, I knew that now.
Hell, I knew it then.
But I’d needed someone to lash out at, and Molly was there.
Yet, here she still was. Living in my house part time, caring for my son.
Loving my son.
My cock started to stir then, the blood moving south. The more I thought about Molly, the harder I got.
So hard, that I had no choice but to take my cock in hand and pump myself—because this was an ache that a cold shower wasn’t going to fix.
The only fix—and I knew from weeks of attempting otherwise—was to picture her pretty face, her small hands, her long hair…
Then, imagining the feel of her wet pussy.
I squeezed my eyes shut as I leaned forward, resting my head against my forearm as I held it to the tiled wall, pumping myself harder, faster, trying to merge in my mind, moans of women in the past with the voice of Molly. Tried imagining her voice in the throes of pleasure.
After I was spent, I cleaned up the shower walls and finished my shower, the entire time berating myself. Molly was off-limits.
And she always would be.
Something that was further made clear when I walked into the kitchen, dressed for pre-game.
Anderson was sitting at the counter, working on homework and Molly was damn near bouncing around the room as she cooked dinner for the two of them.
“Did you take all of Anderson’s energy?” I tried joking, moving past her so I could grab a premade protein shake from the fridge. Before she could answer, I walked over to Anderson and ruffled his hair, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He dipped away, but I saw the smile on his face.
“Whatcha got, boy-o?” I asked, looking over his shoulder. “Math?”
He nodded but kept working. I ruffled his hair again, and looked back to Molly, who was still smiling as she cooked pasta for her and Anderson.
“You got plans for Christmas?” I tried. “Heading home?” She never went back to Minnesota. She also hadn’t done Christmas with Anderson and me since the accident.
I honestly couldn’t tell you what she did during the four-day break.
“Just hanging out with Curtis and his family,” she answered, not turning around.
But, at the mention of her boyfriend’s name, her smile widened.
I could see her dimples and fuck Curtis for putting them there.
Look at me.
All jealous and shit.
I shook my head of that, cracking open the top of my shake. I chugged it down in two breaths—needed to, because sometimes this shit was nasty.
“Just tell him already,” Anderson groaned, not looking up from his homework.
So, whatever had Molly dancing, Anderson knew.
“Tell me what?” I tossed my now empty bottle into the Simple Human garbage can, on the recycling side. “I’ve gotta go; speak now or hold your peace.”
“Hold your pee,” Anderson giggled behind me. “Get it. You gotta go?” Then, he giggled again.
Molly whipped around quickly, her hair a fan swirling from her front, over her shoulder, to her back, as she fixed her pretty smile on me.
“Curtis asked me to marry him!”
And then she was shoving her hand under my face, like I gave a damn.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t give a good goddamn, because it was a fucking kick in the gut.
And it was yet another reason to fucking hate this day.
I pushed the memory back as I pulled into the drive. All the lights were off, as I expected them to be—even if part of me still selfishly wished Molly would stay up.
I wanted someone to talk to.
What was the point of having someone living in your house, if you couldn’t find companionship in them?
I walked into the house, locking it up tight. I glanced to my left, to the hallway I knew both Anderson and Molly were. It wasn’t the first time that I battled waking her up.
For nothing more than that talk I wanted so badly.
No, not the talk about ending her employment, but just to talk.
Talk about the day.
Talk about Anderson’s day.
Talk about the appointment I had her take him to.
I could use that as an excuse, I thought. I could wake her up and ask her…
But if it had been something important, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d have called or texted me. She’d have let me know if something was fractured.
And because she didn’t, Anderson must be fine.
So, instead of going to her room and waking her to talk, I made myself turn my back on their hall, and head to my own bedroom. It would be enough, the distance.
It would have to be.
Chapter Four
Molly
Usually on mornings after games, I was up by six—enough time to get breakfast and lunch toge
ther for Anderson for the school day, and still allow me to slip out before the boys woke up.
It was simply part of the schedule Mikey and I made.
It was also an evasion tactic on my part.
I wasn’t going to be able to ignore Mikey this morning, though, and even though Anderson wasn’t going to school, I was still up and moving around the kitchen, my regular routine in place.
I’d even already packed my overnight bag; I was ready to head out whenever Mikey got back home from the school.
As much as I wanted to hang out with Anderson, I really didn’t want to hang out with Mikey, so the sooner he got up, moving, to the school and back, the better for my psyche.
I was sitting at the counter, mindlessly eating a toasted bagel with peanut butter, when Mikey finally came out of his room.
Finally. I mentally laughed at the sarcasm. As if six-thirty was incredibly late in the day.
I looked over my shoulder at him and offered him a smile—tight because of the peanut butter, not the lingering fears and wants.
“You got another one of those?” he asked, scratching his chest over the worn blue t-shirt he wore.
I swallowed what was in my mouth. “Bagel?”
He nodded as he walked to the coffee maker, pouring into one of the white mugs he had hanging above it.
“There’s another in the fridge. Another bag in the freezer.” I took another bite of my breakfast, hoping to stop the conversation.
The small talk.
Mikey and I hadn’t done true small talk in so long, I didn’t really know how to go about it anymore.
He turned then, his butt resting against the counter and his legs crossed in front of him. He wore loose pajama bottoms and for the briefest of moments, I wondered if he wore anything underneath…
I could feel my blush to my toes, so I looked down at what remained of my peanut butter bagel and stuffed it into my mouth.
“Anderson can sleep in,” Mikey said after a few moments, putting his coffee mug beside him on the counter after no doubt, drinking at least half.
How did I figure?
He got chatty.
That could only mean that he had caffeine in his system.
“Before he wakes up and before I head to the school—”
“I put his project in your car. You can drop it off when you head in.”