“I have legit fridge envy,” Max said, sitting next to Cassidy and slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I think Spencer has the best man cave of anyone on the team.”
“It just needs a stripper pole,” Ian said. He grinned at Shay. “Shay knows how to work a pole, I bet.”
“I plead the fifth,” Shay said, pushing a hand through her gorgeous blonde hair.
“Christ, Zapper. I’m not getting a stripper pole,” Spencer said, casting a worried glance at Maggie. “My parents come to stay sometimes.”
“Okay, ladies and gents, I brought the betting pool sheets,” Dustin DeVries said, “and the game starts in a few minutes so we better fill them out.”
On the papers were a list of questions about the outcome of the game, like how many goals would be scored in the first period, how many car commercials would air, how many times the announcers would say the phrase “skilled player,” who would score the most goals, etc.
“How much is it to buy in?” Maggie asked.
“We usually do a hundred to make it interesting,” Dustin said.
That was way too steep for Maggie. She shook her head and handed the paper back to him. “No thanks.” Shay and Cassidy declined too.
“Aw, come on. It won’t be fun unless everyone plays. Tell you what, girls,” Zappala said with a magnanimous grin as he spread his arms over the back of the sofa. “You can join in if you watch the game topless.”
5
Maggie’s jaw dropped open. Ian couldn’t be serious. Watch the game topless?
There was a time in her life when Maggie would have been the first one to shed her shirt. Even though she was far under the drinking age, she would have been pretty buzzed by now and on the prowl for a sexual partner. Now, at thirty years old, she knew her value wasn’t centered between her legs, or on her chest, no matter what Ian Zappala thought.
Maggie was just about to tell Ian what she thought of his idea but Spencer beat her to it.
He clouted Zappala on the head. “Zapper, don’t be an ass.”
Zappala scowled. “What? They can keep their bras on.”
“Shay, do not take your top off,” Spencer said, pointing at Shay who was already half out of her shirt. “We’ll make it twenty buck buy-in for the ladies. A hundred for the guys. But Zapper puts in two hundred.”
“Fuck you, Corby. That’s not fair,” Ian protested.
Spencer shrugged. “My party, my rules. And watch the language. Maggie’s a grade school teacher.”
“No sh—kidding,” Dustin DeVries said. “What grade do you teach?”
“First.” Maggie didn’t understand how Spencer knew she was a teacher until she remembered handing him her card a little while ago, just before she had her breakdown. “And I don’t mind if you swear. It’s fine. People think teachers are like nuns, but we’re not.”
“So teachers have sex?” Ian asked.
Maggie’s face caught fire.
Before she could answer, Spencer had clomped Ian on the head again and Dustin DeVries said, “Of course, they do. How else would we get more teachers?”
“Jesus, that makes me think of my grade five teacher, Ms. Cota,” Zapper said, rubbing his head and moving out of range of Spencer. “She was a grouch and I always wondered why and now that I think about it, I bet she just needed to get laid.”
Shaking his head, Spencer sent an apologetic glance at Maggie.
Ian went on, “In fact, I bet if all teachers got laid on a regular basis, it would improve the morale of the students something like 500%. You know, like that saying goes, happy wife, happy life, except for teachers.”
“So, what are you proposing, Zapper?” Dustin asked. “An awareness campaign, like that thing they did for ALS? The Ice Bucket Challenge?”
“Sure. Why not? We could call it the Bang a Teacher Education Initiative. And it wouldn’t just be the women teachers. The guys should get some action too. I’m telling you, this could go somewhere.”
Shaking his head, Spencer gave a painful laugh. “Ian, it’s amazing that after being friends with you for almost seven years, I am sometimes still surprised at how far over the line you can go.”
“I’m still freaked out from him thinking about his grade five teacher having sex,” Max remarked dryly.
Maggie could only laugh. The feminist in her wanted to be angry, but in reality, he had a point. Great sex was a fantastic mood booster. Too bad she could barely remember the last time she’d had great sex.
She spent the afternoon feeling like a marginal member of the group, which had grown to about a dozen people. She kept telling herself to relax and enjoy this once in a lifetime experience, and most of the time she was successful. It helped that Kirby sat next to her on the couch, resting his head on her thigh. His presence was comforting enough so that some of the time she forgot they were NHL players, but then one of them would say something that would snap her back into reality.
“Will you look at fucking Nordy? He’s playing like a fucking god.” Max glanced at her, probably still worried about the double F-bomb.
“Why doesn’t he play like that all the time?” Shay asked.
A pregnant pause hung in the air until Max said, “Because he’s not allowed to.”
That unleashed a heated conversation during which Maggie discovered that no one seemed to like Dallas Wingate, a player with fairly impressive stats. He was probably her least favorite Dragon. Besides the fact that he had the face of a weasel, he exuded a cockiness that Maggie found repugnant. Discovering his teammates didn’t like him either confirmed her long-held suspicion that there was some friction on the team. She supposed that no matter what job you held, difficult people had to be dealt with.
The guys might have gone on in that vein, but the Central Division team scored on the rebound and someone scoffed at the announcers making a huge deal out of an easy goal.
When the game was over, the Metropolitan Division team emerged victorious. Acting as if she didn’t care if she won the pot or not, she casually stood over Spencer’s shoulder as he marked the papers, one at a time.
“All right, so far, we’ve got Zapper with a correct score of five out of ten.”
“Yes!” Zappala pumped a fist.
“And Ian is dethroned by yours truly with six out of ten.”
“Shay got five right as well.”
Maggie nudged him in the shoulder. “No offense, but you could do this faster, you know.”
“Really, Teach? How’s that? I already memorized the answers.”
“That’s a good strategy, too, but if sixty percent is the current high mark, then any paper with five wrong answers is automatically rejected. You don’t have to look at the rest of the paper once it has five wrong answers. Then obviously you adjust when you get someone with a higher score.”
He turned and looked up at her. “That is really smart. You’re a wise woman.”
She grinned and said, “Hey, it’s what they pay me for.”
Inside, she was basking in the fact that Spencer Corbett just called her really smart. She could tell he was being sincere and it made her feel really good. She’d admired him for so long for his skill on the ice, his humility and willingness to contribute to the community, so it was thrilling to have that returned, even if it was only because she’d pointed out a short-cut for calculating who won the pot. She wasn’t sure the day could have gotten any better, but then he announced that she’d won the money.
“What?” she said with a gasp.
“You only missed three answers. You’re the big winner,” Spencer said, handing her the paper to prove it.
“Congratulations, Teach!” Max clapped her on the shoulder.
“I never win anything,” she exclaimed.
“Well, you did today. And here’s your take,” Spencer said, handing over a stack of twenties. A total of nine hundred and twenty dollars.
“I can’t believe this. Thank you.” Elated, she decided not to mention she’d totally guessed at half her answ
ers.
After that, everyone took off, conveniently leaving Spencer with the mess. Maggie lingered, wanting to delay saying goodbye to Kirby.
“Here, I’ll help you clean up,” Maggie said, picking up some empty beer bottles.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“I want to. You wouldn’t want to deprive me of a little more time with my pooch, would you?”
Spencer’s eyebrow rose. “Oh, you’re playing the pooch card?”
“I’m absolutely playing the pooch card.”
He laughed. “You’re not only wise, you’re wily.”
They gathered up all the empties and other garbage and put away the leftover food and it didn’t take more than fifteen minutes. When it was finally time for her to go—and she admitted to herself she’d dragged it out on purpose—Spencer said, “You can visit anytime. And I mean that. In fact…” He opened one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a key. “Here. I want you to take this.”
“Spencer, no. That’s ridiculous.” But he was pressing it into her hand already and her breath caught as he touched her. She felt a momentary stab of Pete-guilt and then pushed it away. This was completely innocent. Plus, Spencer Corbett was on her very short list of celebrities she had a hall pass for. Pete would understand. Same as she would understand if he got the chance to shoot the breeze with, well, any Victoria’s Secret model.
“Maggie, please. I’m on the road a lot and if you have a key, you can visit him whether I’m in town or not.”
“You don’t bring them to a kennel?”
“No, my neighbor Stacy takes care of things while I’m gone. I’ll give you her contact information and let her know that you might be coming by once in a while. All I ask is that if the team’s in town, you give me a buzz before you come over.”
“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t dream of dropping in on you unannounced.”
She went to Kirby and knelt. “Okay, you. I’m going home and you’re staying here with your friend, Lulu.” She had to pause a moment and Spencer put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Fighting back tears she went on. “But this isn’t goodbye. I’ll come visit you. I promise. I’m proud of you, Kirb. I’ll see you soon.”
Thank God she managed to make it to her car before the tears came again. Embarrassing enough she’d broken down in front of Spencer once already. Twice was unthinkable. As she pressed a Starbucks napkin to her eyes, she wondered why she was being so emotional.
She should be thrilled that she’d just spent the afternoon with players from her favorite hockey team. The Dragons organization advertised fan experiences all the time—but usually these were photo or autograph opportunities that lasted no more than a few minutes. Maggie had been in Spencer Corbett’s home. She’d dipped tortilla chips in the same guacamole as Ian Zappala and Max Stone. And she was going home almost a thousand dollars richer.
Her upset could be because she’d finally found Kirby only to be parted from him again, but the emotion felt too intense for that.
Then a peal of girlish laughter reached her ears. She looked across the street to see two girls dip a circular wand into a shallow pan of liquid and wave it around to make a giant bubble. The bubble quivered as it rose into the air and when it popped, they squealed in delighted surprise.
As a sudden surge of emotion stole her breath, Maggie realized exactly why she was such an overwrought mess. The girls’ laughter brought everything into focus.
When she was fifteen years old, Maggie had been a wild girl, desperate for attention. She had discovered that she could get attention galore from boys if she had sex with them. It wasn’t long before this reckless behavior caught up with her and she ended up pregnant with no idea who the father was.
Her mother, busy living her own life with little time or motivation to help her daughter, told Maggie to “have it taken care of” in the same tone she might have used when advising Maggie to throw out some leftovers that had sat in the fridge too long.
“If you don’t get rid of it,” Rita had said, “you’ll end up wishing you had. Believe me.”
Of course, Rita was insinuating she wished she had Maggie aborted, but she would never come right out and say it. She didn’t have to. Their entire mother-daughter relationship was a testament to that fact.
The moment her mother had said that, Maggie resolved to see the pregnancy through and have the baby. Not only that, but she would give it up for adoption so that her child would grow up with two mature parents who would dote on her and give her everything Maggie wouldn’t be able to and never really had herself.
Nine months later, that’s just what she did. After fourteen hours of labor that Maggie almost didn’t survive, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, whom she named Maya. She was able to spend some time with Maya. She’d breastfed and held her as much as she could, marveling at how delicate and tiny and perfect her daughter was. She inhaled the sweet baby scent of Maya’s head and stroked her velvety cheek with her thumb, whispering words of love into her delicate ear she hoped would register somewhere in her memory.
But after only a few hours, Tess and Theodore Martin, the couple Maggie had chosen to be her baby’s adoptive parents, arrived at the hospital and took Maya back to their home to cherish as their own, and even though she knew she’d made the right choice, Maggie was left with a raw and open wound in her heart that would never heal.
Tonight it felt as if someone had poured lemon juice into that wound. Leaving Kirby with Spencer stirred up all the emotions of that day fifteen years ago. Kirby was her baby now and, like before, she had no choice but leave him behind. Yes, she knew Spencer would take good care of him, just like she knew that somewhere, her daughter’s adoptive parents were loving her like their own, but that didn’t make the pain any less intense.
As she snatched more Starbucks napkins out of her glove compartment to blow her nose, she told herself that this was different. She would get Kirby back eventually. They would be reunited after he made sure Lulu’s last days were happy ones. But it still hurt and it was a long while before the tears subsided enough so that she could see well enough to drive.
6
The next day at the morning skate, Spencer was distracted by thoughts of Maggie. He loved her wild hair and voluptuous figure, and she had these heart-melting chocolate brown eyes that expressed her emotions in a way that affected him surprisingly deeply. He’d already seen them glistening with tears and sparkling with wry amusement. He’d love to see them smoldering with passion. And her laugh…the huskiness of it revved up a libido that had been sluggish for months. Several times that afternoon he’d wished he had her to himself and that he’d never scheduled the watch party.
But his interest in her went far beyond the physical. She could easily have gotten offended by the teachers-need-to-get-laid conversation, but she hadn’t and he appreciated that. He’d been with women who got upset over trivial things and expected him to beg forgiveness. That kind of power game got old fast. She also had a heart the size of a hockey rink. To allow him to keep Kirby for the sake of a dog she didn’t even know was the kind of sacrifice he wasn’t sure he himself would have made if he’d been in her shoes.
He wondered how he would ever repay her. When he watched Lulu pad toward her food bowl to get some much-needed sustenance, he felt awash with gratitude. When this was all over, he vowed to give Maggie something to show how thankful he was. He knew instinctively it wouldn’t be money. The betting pool was one thing. She’d never accept cash for lending him Kirby, but he’d figure out—wait a second.
She was a Dragons fan. That much had been obvious. She’d been adorably wide-eyed the whole afternoon. With that realization, he knew exactly what to do.
After the skate, his workout, and a chicken and pasta lunch, he called the team services coordinator, Marilyn. Mama Marilyn was like the players’ fairy godmother. If they wanted something, all they had to do was ask her and somehow she made it happen. One time, a player had forgotten his wedding anniversary.
They’d been in the middle of a long losing streak on the road and no one’s mind was on anything personal, but while some things could be put off or ignored, a wedding anniversary shared with a woman who had borne your child wasn’t one of them.
Given that the guy hadn’t remembered until the dead of night on the East Coast, Marilyn had still managed to get flowers delivered along with a bracelet engraved with their wedding date. The wife had been thrilled and the disaster had been averted.
“Hey, Spencer,” Marilyn said. “What can I do you for?”
“I need some tickets for the rest of the season.”
“What section?”
“The best you can manage.”
“How many?”
“Oh, I guess two. She can bring a friend.”
“Oh,” Marilyn said knowingly. “It’s a woman.”
There was a pause. He pictured Marilyn smiling as her mental wheels turned. She was fifty-two years old, happily married with a grandchild on the way and wanting to see everyone else in a similar situation.
“Yes. She’s just a friend.”
“Friends to lovers, buddy—you see it all the time in the movies.”
He let that go. “So, yeah. If you could look into it and I’d appreciate it.”
Before he even got home, she’d gotten him two premiere level seats, center ice, for the rest of the season. He had to pay for them, of course, and they weren’t cheap, but he believed in that saying “What goes around comes around.” Usually, he thought of that when something shitty had happened, but in this case, he could make sure that a good deed would not go unrewarded.
“I need a mailing address for her,” Marilyn said.
“Well, I only have a work address and I’d rather give them to her in person anyway. Can you get them to the arena for me? I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
“Spencer, how are you going to woo this woman if you don’t know where she lives?”
“I’m not wooing her. I told you it’s not like that. And who even woos anymore anyway?”
Animal Attraction (San Francisco Dragons Book 2) Page 3