Sure Shot (Brooklyn #4)(72)

Bess groans. “Okay, we’re never going there. I’m thinking all kinds of judgmental things about your ex right now.”

“As do I sometimes. But it wasn’t all on her. There’s a lot of cultural bullshit wrapped up in being a man. My day job is, like, the essence of masculinity. But I’d go home from the manly art of hockey to a wife who blamed my body for failing to get her pregnant. And then I made the mistake of telling a teammate that we were struggling with infertility…”

Bess grips my hand a little more tightly when I break off the sentence. And I guess I owe her the whole story.

“Palacio caught wind of it. And that man lives his life just looking for weaknesses that he can exploit.”

Bess sits up. “He was a dick about it? About that?”

“He’d be a dick about anything, Bess. It wasn’t even personal.”

“That’s why you punched him,” she whispers. “It didn’t have a thing to do with his wife or your wife.”

Slowly, I shake my head. “You’re right. He started chirping at me all the time in the locker room. Like—how could Sure Shot be my nickname if I couldn’t get my wife pregnant?”

Bess makes a low noise of rage.

“One day I’d had enough. I leveled him in front of the whole team.”

“He had it coming!” Her body is full of tension now. Like she might leap from the bed and go after him.

I slide my palm down her knee, and give her leg a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay now, baby. But you can see why I wasn’t too keen to explain why I punched the guy.”

“I get it, Tank.” She flops down on the mattress again. “I get why it happened, and why you can’t go through that hell again. And whatever we are to each other, I don’t ever want us to be like that. We can’t be all about having a child. We have to just be us and see where that leads.”

My heart gives a squeeze of pure hope. “Nothing makes me happier than coming home to you, honey. I’m happy to be on your team. But we have to take it slow, because you’re the one with a five-year plan that includes a pink nursery and a picket fence.”

“There are no picket fences in Brooklyn,” Bess says, poking me in the belly.

“What’s the Brooklyn equivalent of a picket fence?”

“Twenty-five-thousand-dollar preschool tuition,” she says.

“Twenty… Did you say twenty-five grand?” That can’t be right.

“It’s true. There’s a Manhattan preschool that gets forty. They have ten times as many applicants as they can handle.”

“What a scam.”

“Right? You’ll have a home office in your new apartment. Or a TV room. Paint that pink room another color,” Bess says. “Anything but Dallas green.”

I laugh and her hair tickles my bare chest. “Seriously, can you and Eric find me a decorator? Someone to pick out some furniture, have the place painted, and remind me to buy things like towels and a bath mat.”

“Of course.”

“I need a bed. It should be enormous. The more space to roll around with you, the better.”

“Did you see that shower in the master bedroom?” Bess asks, her smooth hand stroking my chest.

“No, I didn’t make it that far.”

“It was spectacular. There were three shower heads and a marble bench.”

“Nice. I can’t wait to try it out. You can add that to your five-year plan.”

“Oh, I will.” She settles against me. And then she falls asleep in my arms.





Twenty-Nine





What If





Tank





Life is good again. Really good.

After a brief negotiation, Eric and Wilson agree on a closing date for the apartment in the Million Dollar Dorm. In three short weeks I’ll be leaving the hotel for my new place.

Even better—Bess is back in my life full time. She attends two home games in a row—against New York and D.C. We win both of them.

The second victory was especially sweet. Castro passed to me in the third period—finding my stick after a beautiful deke that sent our opponent’s eyes in the wrong direction. All it took was an airborne shot to the upper left corner of the net. The lamp lit, and ten thousand Brooklyn fans yelled my name.

“That was beautiful,” O’Doul said afterward.

“Nice job, Sure Shot,” someone added.

It was hard to hate the nickname under the circumstances.

The following night, I take Bess out for a steak dinner at Sparks. She orders the filet mignon and the creamed spinach, just like she did all those years ago. And I indulge in a pricey bottle of red.

“Have you been back here without me?” I ask her as the candle flickers between us on the white linen table cloth.

“No,” she admits with a sultry little smile. “But even so—” She leans close to whisper in my ear. “Every time I have creamed spinach, I get really turned on.”

I laugh so loudly that people turn and stare. I order a sinful dessert that Bess picks out, and we eat it together.

When we finally emerge from the restaurant, there’s a limo waiting to pick us up. “Hop in, baby?” I ask, opening the door for her. “This time I won’t have to convince you to come back to my hotel room, right?”