Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(45)

His mom spread her arms wide. “Come give your mother a hug.”

He didn’t move a muscle. “What do you want?”

“Don’t you embarrass us in front of your teammates, Zachary,” Mom said, her voice sharpening to Wounding Level Three.

If she wasn’t up to Level Six yet, then she hadn’t started drinking.

“Listen to your mother, boy.” His dad looked the part of a wealthy old guy, but there was no getting rid of the Midwest nasal accent tinged with bitterness the old man had gained growing up angry and poor so far from town that he couldn’t even see the streetlights. “Your mother and I don’t want to make a scene.”

But they would, being the implication, and after all he’d done to avoid publicity about what they’d done, he wasn’t about to let it happen now.

Zach glanced around. There was no missing the curious glances players and others were shooting their way. Cold fury washing over him, Zach put that shit on lockdown as he turned back to focus on the vipers who’d made him, both as a human and a hockey player. His mom’s smile grew even as it iced up, and she winked.

They had him, and they knew it. If he ignored them, they’d make a fuss and people would get to wondering out loud about why they weren’t his managers anymore. He’d worked too hard—and paid his parents too much hush money—to make sure no one ever found out the truth to give it all up now.

He stepped into his mom’s embrace like a man about to eat ground glass. She squeezed him tight. He did the awkward pat on the back thing and untangled himself from her as fast as possible

His dad kept his hands shoved in his pockets, so they exchanged a barely tepid chin nod. Fine with him. Better that way, really.

Zach stayed close, not because he wanted to be near them but because he didn’t want anyone to overhear. “What do you want?”

“Why, to see our darling boy,” his mom said. “It’s been too long.”

He used to believe her. Hell, part of him still wanted to. That’s what pissed him off more than the money or the potential for public humiliation hanging over his head like an anvil. Sure, he’d been stupid, naive, and trusting, but he’d fought his way free of that, and he wasn’t going back to being that guy who believed.

“I’ll only ask one more time.” He kept his voice low, even though he wanted to roar the words at them. “What do you want?”

“What do you think?” his dad asked, the words coming out like a punch.

He had to clamp his mouth shut and count to ten before he could answer. “There’s no more money.”

“Zachary, there’s always more,” his mom said, her tone as warm as her eyes were not. “Sometimes you just have to get creative.”

Yeah. That’s how they saw what they’d done to him. They’d gotten creative. He had no clue how in the hell they’d managed to go through everything they’d creatively skimmed off of him and then his shut-up-and-go money already. It made sense, though. With the Ice Knights winning and the sports talking heads no longer saying his name with an edge of what-the-fuck, his star was back on the rise, and that meant one thing to his parents. Money.

“Understand me,” he said, fighting to keep the emotion out of his voice. “There is no more money. None. It’s gone, and I still owe millions. Every dollar I earn goes to paying down the debt you created, so I can avoid bankruptcy and keep all of our names out of the news.”

His mom brushed the platinum-blond hair off her shoulder. “All publicity is good publicity, son.”

“No. It’s not.” He took a step back, willed himself not to yell out the rest of what needed to be said. “Go back to wherever it is that you’ve come from and leave me the hell alone.”

He started to turn away, to go join his teammates, but his dad’s voice stopped him.

“You don’t want to turn your back on us, son.”

Zach knew that to be the truth, but he’d had more than enough interaction with his parents for one night. Hell, he’d had enough for a lifetime. They’d given him life. They’d turned him into one of the top-rated draft picks in the league. Then they’d taken what they saw as their just reward.

“Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way, Dad,” Zach said, embedding as much disgust as possible into that last word before turning and striding to the exit, hoping like hell the snarl on his face would keep the rest of the world the fuck away from him.

…

Keeping his head down and his snarl in place, Zach was one of the first players on the plane. He walked all the way down to the last row by the bathroom, the one spot no one ever wanted, and sat down, tossing his backpack on the empty seat next to him.

“Dude,” Stuckey said, stopping in the aisle beside Zach’s row. “Move your shit.”

“Seat’s taken,” he said.

Stuckey chuckled. “By your backpack?”

“Yeah.”

Stuckey let his head fall back and let out a deep breath as if he was barely holding on to his California surfer boy patience. “Well, fuck you, too.”

Then he muttered “asshole” under his breath as he pivoted and strode back up to the front of the plane where the rest of their line was sitting. Zach watched him go, ignoring the little voice in his head confirming that he was, indeed, an asshole.