nine-year-old son along. They were, as usual, spending the flight doing his homework, and I quietly watched as Jameson patiently walked Liam through a spelling assignment.
It was kind of funny, the difference between Jameson the hockey player and Jameson the dad. On the ice, he had a hot temper—there was a fading bruise on the side of his face from a fistfight last week—and he was the first to get on a teammate’s case for fucking up. If he passed someone the puck for an easy shot on goal, and the other player blew the opportunity, they’d have words in the locker room, if not right there on the ice. It was annoying, and Coach had been on his case about it more than once, but we’d all kind of learned to live with it.
With Liam, Jameson was soft-spoken and never let any annoyance show through at all.
“It’s okay, buddy.” He gave his son a gentle shoulder squeeze. “Those words are tricky. Here.” He turned the paper over. “Try them again. Don’t worry—you’ll get them.”
Across the aisle, Maddox had his earbuds in and his eyes closed. Sometimes he brought one of his four kids with him, and they’d done homework on flights too. Just like Jameson, he was endlessly calm and patient, which was almost comical compared to the hothead he too was on the ice.
I pulled my gaze away from my teammates and checked on Kuznetsov. He was still tense, but holding steady, and he was only about a third of the way through his drink. As long as the flight stayed smooth, he’d probably be all right.
I glanced at Maddox and Jameson, then took out my phone and thumbed through some of the messages Devin and I had been exchanging the last couple of days. There was definitely something going on between us, and I wasn’t going to lie—it scared the hell out of me. I hadn’t been with a man before. It was so easy in the moment, but when I was by myself and started thinking about it, my pulse started pumping, but not the same way it did when Devin’s lips brushed mine.
And it wasn’t just because Devin was a man.
I glanced at Jameson and Liam, who were taking a break from homework and playing a game on an iPad. They were super cute together, but watching them right now made my stomach tight.
I’d never dated anyone with kids. It hadn’t been deliberate—just, none of the women I’d ever dated had kids.
Now here was Devin. A single dad.
I didn’t dislike kids. In fact, I loved kids. One of my favorite events every year was when local youth hockey teams came to the arena to skate with us and pick up a few tips from the pros. I’d taught both of my ex-girlfriend’s nieces how to skate, and whenever my teammates brought their kids to practice, I always played with them. I’d only interacted with Dallas the night she’d come to watch us play, and I already adored her.
But there was a big difference between entertaining kids on the ice or teaching them how to skate and being a parent. Or a stepparent. Or a parent’s boyfriend.
How do I explain to Devin that I want to date him, but I’m not stepparent material because I can barely take care of myself?
Because seriously, I sucked at pretty much everything that wasn’t hockey. I was beyond fortunate I didn’t have to worry about money, but that didn’t stop me from worrying about it. I agonized over spending anything because I was afraid of losing that financial security. In an effort to push myself past that fear and to drive home the fact that I didn’t have a double-digit bank balance like I had through most of college, I’d splurged on a three hundred thousand dollar car. I’d paid cash for it, and still had plenty of money left over and more coming in…and damn if I didn’t lose sleep for ages afterward, wondering if I’d just made a colossal mistake.
I’d had the car for three years and could still nauseate myself over that purchase. Plus I’d suddenly discovered that owning a car with a six-figure price tag meant parking that car in places where I’d been nervous parking my old Toyota. That was why I’d gone and—after a bit more hyperventilating about spending money—bought a used Prius that I could at least leave in a parking lot without giving myself a coronary.