“It’s okay. It’s fine. We can do this.”
Scott sounded desperate to his own ears, which fit, because he was desperate. Desperate to get these lights affixed to the roof before he froze to death. It was only November, not even officially winter yet, but there was a chill in the air that numbed his fingers. He wanted to go inside, thaw, and have a large cup of hot chocolate heaped with mini marshmallows.
Of course, with his luck, he’d probably clip his thumb to the roof before he got a chance to have that hot chocolate.
He certainly didn’t need another injury. He already had a bump on the head from when he’d crawled beneath the basement stairs for the Christmas décor. And that had come after he’d given himself a cardboard cut—which was a thousand times worse than a paper cut—on the skin between his thumb and forefinger when he’d opened a box of what he’d thought were tree ornaments. Turned out it was a box of plastic picnic dishware he hadn’t known he’d owned.
Fucking Christmas. He was not in the mood for it this year. Not that he had anything against the holiday, but it was still five weeks to Christmas and he was already tired.
If it wasn’t for the twelve-year-old holding the ladder steady, he would’ve skipped the holiday altogether. Flown to the Caribbean to sip piña coladas on the beach.
Not that he could afford a flight to the Caribbean. Hell, he could barely afford a piña colada from the local bar. Not after getting fired for setting the office’s kitchen on fire, which had absolutely not been his fault.
The AC had been on the fritz during one of the hottest days of the summer, so he’d zipped across the street to the hardware store and purchased a floor fan. He’d been setting it up in the kitchen since the sun came through the windows in the afternoon, turning it into an oven, just as some of the staff had gathered to celebrate a colleague’s birthday. How was he supposed to know that he’d flicked the machine on just as Gregory was lighting a match? How was he supposed to know that instead of extinguishing the flame, the fan would cause it to practically leap off the match and onto the curtains?
Honestly, there’d barely been any damage. By the time he’d realized what had happened and grabbed the fire extinguisher, the fire had only been halfway up the curtain.
Still. It was the final straw for the partners, of which the most recent was a woman Scott had never gotten along with. It was him or her, and considering he wasn’t a partner . . .
He leaned sideways on the ladder, stretching the lights as far as they would go, cursing under his breath when he lost one of the light clips.
“Dad,” said Teddy from below him. He briefly let go of the ladder to pick up the clip. “Why are you swearing?”
“I’m not swearing. I don’t swear. Parents never swear.”
“Uh-huh,” Teddy said, full of preteen attitude. “Can we finish this tomorrow? It’s cold.”
“It’s not going to be any less cold tomorrow, kiddo.”
“Winter’s stupid.”
Scott choked on a laugh. “Says the hockey player.”
“It doesn’t need to be cold to play hockey.”
“Well . . . I suppose you have a point there.”
“Mrs. Gilmore’s watching from her window.”
Carefully, Scott turned sideways to look across the street. He could just make out the shadow of Mrs. Gilmore where she stood behind a life-sized statue of Jack Skellington that was displayed in her bay window. She also had The Nightmare Before Christmas décor in her front yard, but Jack was in the window year-round. When Scott and Teddy had moved in this past spring, Jack had been holding an Easter egg basket. Today, he wore a witch hat, as he had since Halloween, even though that particular holiday was almost three weeks past.
Scott didn’t know Mrs. Gilmore very well—she was eighty years old; they didn’t exactly run in the same circles despite the fact she was the grandmother of Teddy’s private hockey coach—but they were friendly. He waved, and she toasted him with her mug.
Scott imagined it held hot chocolate and was immediately jealous. “Do you think Jack will be holding a fruitcake soon?”
“Probably,” Teddy muttered, his knit hat askew on his head. “What else do people do with fruitcakes? They certainly don’t eat them.”
“Why are they so popular at the holidays then?”
Teddy’s shrug was very insouciant. “I don’t know. It’s probably the novelty.”
“How do you know that word?” Scott asked as he accepted the light clip back from him.
“I’m twelve,” Teddy said, dialing the attitude up a notch.
“I’m twelve,” Scott repeated in a mocking voice, earning himself both an eye roll and a snort from Teddy. “Okay, I’m done with this section. Let’s move the ladder that way.” He gave a chin nod toward his left.
“We have to leave for practice soon.”
Halfway down the ladder, Scott paused and checked his watch. “Shit. I lost track of time.”
“Ha! See? You did swear.”
“Shit’s not a swear word,” Scott said, hopping down off the bottom rung.
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“So I can say it whenever I want?”
Scott gave Teddy the stink eye. “No, you cannot.”
Teddy pouted. “Why not?”
“Because your grandma would kill me.”
Teddy’s chest puffed out. “She loves me more than you.”
“Can’t argue that.” Chuckling, Scott moved the ladder to the left, thinking about how his parents had doted on Teddy from the minute he’d brought him home. Without their support, he would’ve had to drop out of law school, a move he’d been more than willing to make so he could be there for Teddy. But his mom had stepped in as nanny while he’d attended school, insisting that getting his law degree would help him ensure a better future for his adopted son.
She hadn’t been wrong. His salary as a family lawyer had been higher than he ever could’ve expected, even in his first year practicing. Scott had paid off his student loans within a few years, and just this past spring, he’d bought his first house in his hometown of Christmas Falls, Illinois, moving him and Teddy out of the rental they’d lived in at the edge of town.
He’d been in the workforce for almost a decade, so he had savings, but getting fired at thirty-five years old hadn’t been part of his plans. He had a mortgage now, bills and taxes to pay, and food to put on the table. Plus, Teddy was growing like a weed and needed new clothes and shoes almost monthly, not to mention new skates and hockey gear. And with the holidays right around the corner, Scott was counting every penny he spent.
“The order,” Teddy said with a teasing grin as Scott climbed back up the ladder, “is me, Fallon, and then you.”
Scott eyed their blue merle Shetland sheepdog, who was sniffing around the yard like there was treasure to be found. There probably was, and it was called bunny poop. Swear to god, it was a freaking delicacy among dogs.
“Surely I rank above Fallon,” he said to Teddy, getting the last of the lights into place.
“I don’t know, Dad,” Teddy teased. “Grandma really loves her.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go grab your gear and we’ll head to the rink.”
Scott stowed the ladder away while Teddy grabbed his stuff, then stood on the front lawn to admire his handiwork. He still had to connect the lights to a power source, but at least they were up. His neighbors had decorated their homes right after Halloween, but then again, in a town called Christmas Falls, one couldn’t exactly get away from the holiday. Scott had grown up here—he knew that more than most. He also had two festive planters in tall iron vases standing like bodyguards on either side of his front door, and that was as far as he was going with the outdoor decorations. He’d had a plan for their first real home that involved inflatables, perhaps some spotlights, and maybe garlands for around the windows. He’d certainly planned to string lights around the porch railing and columns, as well as on the second level of the house, but he and Teddy had discussed it, and like any twelve-year-old, Teddy would rather save that money for Christmas presents rather than Christmas décor.
Still, Scott couldn’t help but feel like he was letting his son down. He’d wanted to go overboard, make this year special, but going overboard meant spending money. Scott was five months out of a job and struggling to find employment that didn’t require relocation, so he was being conservative with his savings until he had income coming in.
Of course, he wasn’t doing much to find a new job. After a decade of handling most of the divorce cases at the firm, practicing law had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth at the end of every workday. He’d been contemplating a career change before he’d gotten fired, but he didn’t know what that career change was, which left him in a sort of limbo he didn’t much care for.
And of course, changing careers made him feel guilty as hell for putting his son and his mom through three years of grueling law school, which could’ve otherwise been avoided had he realized years earlier that dealing with divorces on a daily basis would make his soul wither and die.
So that was fun. About as fun as those three years of law school, where sometimes he went several days in a row without seeing much of his kid.
He’d felt like a failure then and he felt like a failure now. But since he wouldn’t find any answers to life’s dilemmas while standing in his front yard on a chilly November afternoon, he whistled for Fallon as Teddy came barreling out of the house with his gear.
“Dad, did you get Hank’s email? He was going to send the parents some kind of permission form for . . . um . . .” Teddy screwed his face up and dropped his bag by the car. “Something. I forget.”
Scott’s mind threatened to screech to a halt at Hank’s name. Hank the hot hockey director? Scott almost said, but if there was anything that was inappropriate to say to your twelve-year-old son, it was probably that. Besides, Teddy wouldn’t think a six-foot-something dark-haired hottie with a scruffy jaw, sharp cheekbones in an angular face, legs for days, shoulders to lean on, and the biceps of a Greek god was hot. Teddy was too busy crushing on a button-nosed blond girl in his class to notice anything else.
And Scott was too busy crushing on the hot hockey director to notice anything else. It was just that he was so tall and handsome and kind and so damn put together. He wore actual slacks to work, as though this were Manhattan and not tiny nobody’s-ever-heard-of-it Christmas Falls, Illinois. Scott didn’t see him much around town, but whenever he did, Hank was always smartly dressed and perfectly coiffed. He had an off-white double-breasted wool coat with a cowl neck that made his naturally chestnut hair and scruff stand out. Scott wanted to rub his face in that coat.
Now, there was a man who had his shit together.
Shaking off the moment he’d taken to mentally moon over Hank, he replied to Teddy. “Can’t say that I have.” He opened the front door, gestured Fallon inside, told her they’d be back in a couple of hours, and shut the door on her hangdog face. “I’ll ask him about it when we get to the rink.”
It would give him an excuse to talk to the man who made his stomach jump as though elves had decided to learn to tap dance inside it. After years mediating other people’s divorces, Scott wasn’t sure he believed in the concept of love and romance as it applied to himself . . .
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t flirt a little.
“How do we turn this into a real hockey club?” Hank Beaufort asked, drumming his fingers on his desk.
Josh Gilmore, one of his youth hockey coaches, rose from Hank’s visitor’s chair, rounded the desk, and gestured at the window that overlooked the ice rink, where the Zamboni was resurfacing the ice. “Isn’t that what we have?”
Hank rotated his chair to look at him. “I mean a real hockey club. With an accelerated hockey program, goalie clinics, elite-level coaching, and player development.” Hell, up until last year, the hockey season had only gone until the end of December for some obscure reason. That had been Hank’s first change. Now it went into March, as all youth hockey programs should.
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. “We don’t even have U15 and above programs. I mean, where do kids go if they want to keep playing once they’re fourteen?”
“Peoria, like I did.”
“My point exactly,” Hank said. “An hour away. Peoria’s not exactly next door.”
“Okay.” Josh passed a hand through his light brown hair and resumed his seat. “What you’re talking about . . . it sounds like an official hockey club. With a dedicated board of directors and VPs of . . . I don’t know. Finance or marketing or something. And with team managers who don’t also double as coaches and equipment managers.”
“Yes.” Hank nodded, thankful Josh finally got it. “That’s exactly what I mean. Surely we’re not the only ones in this situation. There have to be neighboring communities we can pool our resources with to create the Central Illinois Youth Hockey Association. How do we go about that?”
“Fuck if I know.” Josh kicked his legs out with a laugh, crossing them at the ankles. “If you asked for this meeting thinking I’d know, you’re shit out of luck.”
“But you played NHL hockey,” Hank pointed out, as if that simple fact meant that Josh knew all the things.
Perhaps it didn’t, but it certainly meant he’d gotten much further in his own career than Hank ever had. Josh hadn’t just been a hockey player—he’d been Pittsburgh’s star player until he’d retired three and a half years ago.
Hank had been the star player too once—on his division I college team in tiny Glen Hill, Vermont, and the even tinier Glen Hill College. Out in the big wide world? He’d been a very small fish in a very big pond. He’d had an unimpressive minor league career following college, putting up a measly fourteen points in his final season before retirement. Put that together with two unimpressive marriages coupled with two even more unimpressive divorces, and one could argue that his life was one big unimpressive cake.
One would be right.
Like Hank’s older brothers often said, Hank’s life was a little like expecting a lushly decorated three-tiered chocolate cake with buttercream icing, only to receive a fruitcake instead.
Hank loved his brothers, but he could also readily admit that they could be callous when they ganged up to tease him.
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” Josh said, answering Hank’s quip about him playing NHL hockey. “I played in the youth hockey association in Peoria, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about how it’s run. And where did this desire to create a club come from, anyway? You’ve been the hockey director here for a year and a half and this is the first time you’ve brought it up.”
“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Hank admitted. He ran a hand over his jaw, the bristles sharp against his palm. “Some of the parents have expressed their displeasure at having to take their older kids elsewhere if they want to continue with hockey. Frankly, I can’t blame them. I can’t figure out why we don’t offer those programs.”
Josh grimaced. “Small-town community center. Could be a money thing. As in, we don’t have any with which to launch those programs.”
The center was managed by a volunteer board of management, and even though they’d hired Hank, whenever he brought up the budget or expanding their programs, they suddenly found somewhere else to be or something else to do. Hank was starting to think he’d have to sit down with the mayor to get his questions answered.
“I might have some connections I can pull on who might have some tips on how to get started,” Josh offered. “Let me make some calls. See what I see.”
“I’ve got connections as well.” Hank had former teammates and coaches who might know someone who knew someone who could help him get started. “I could start with my brothers.”
“The Beaufort Brothers.” Josh went a little starry-eyed. “Can I sit in on that call?”
Hank schooled his expression, forcing himself not to grimace.
The Beaufort Brothers was what his brothers had been called by sportscasters and on hockey blogs. Yet everyone forgot there was a fourth Beaufort brother—Hank—until it was convenient to mention him. Because Hank had never played at the NHL level like his brothers, he wasn’t technically part of the pack. His brothers were retired now, but they’d been somewhat legends when they’d played. And even though Josh had also been a superstar player in his own NHL days, he tended to fanboy at the mention of Hank’s brothers.
“We’ll see,” Hank said. “I’ll start with Pete—I figure he’s my best bet—but he’s a busy guy and getting him to call me back sometimes takes a week.”
Josh shook his head. “Four boys, man. My parents had two, and I’m pretty sure they wanted to murder us in our sleep some days.”
Hank chuckled. “Pretty sure mine did too. Anyway. Thanks for staying after your team’s practice.”
“Happy to. Especially for a good cause.” Josh rose and grabbed his winter coat, draped over the back of his chair. “Are you heading out for the night or sticking around for the next couple of practices?”
“Heading home. I’ve got to let the dogs out.”
Josh cocked his head. “You have dogs?”
Hank did wince this time. He’d accepted the position of hockey director and moved to the small town of Christmas Falls after he’d retired from hockey as a way to put down roots somewhere that was his. Somewhere he could be himself, figure out what was next, and contribute to the community.
But he’d spent the past eighteen months mostly keeping to himself. It was difficult to put himself out there when he’d spent his entire life being told that he’d always be the runt of the litter and that he’d never amount to anything. His brothers had meant it teasingly, but when one heard something enough times, one started to believe it.
Besides—what if they were right and his life in Christmas Falls turned out to be just as unimpressive as the rest of his life?
“I’ve got three,” he replied, grabbing his own winter coat from the hook on the back of his office door.
“Three? Jesus. Mer and I have talked about getting a puppy one day, but it’s chaotic enough with two kids under three in the house.”
“Don’t get a puppy.” Hank opened the door and gestured Josh through before he closed and locked it behind him. “They’re the literal worst. Get an older dog who’s already trained.”
“The literal worst, huh?” Josh’s brown eyes lit with amusement. “As someone with a three-year-old and a one-year-old, I’d like to challenge that statement.”
Hank let out a bark of a laugh as he and Josh descended the stairs to the first floor of the community center, but the laughter died in his throat when he caught the gaze of the hot single dad he’d been eyeing since last year.
Scott Jersey was tall and built, though he’d lost weight in the past few months. His jeans bunched around his admittedly very nice ass, and his winter coat looked a couple of sizes too big. Still, he had rugged features and a sharp nose, dark blond hair that was shaggy-chic, curling around his ears and at his neck, and green-gray eyes that looked a little too small for his face, yet somehow fit with the rest of him. He was roughly Hank’s height of just over six feet, and considering Hank was usually attracted to people who were smaller than him, his attraction to Scott had come as a surprise. But he hadn’t been able to deny the frisson of awareness that had wriggled up his spine when they’d first met, and he couldn’t deny it now either.
“Hey, Scott,” Hank greeted, stepping off the stairs and onto the ground floor. “Hey, Teddy.” The younger Jersey didn’t look much like his dad, sporting a mop of equally shaggy hair so blond it was almost white and dark brown eyes. He carried his equipment bag over one shoulder while his dad held his hockey stick.
“Hey, hunk. I mean, uh . . .” Scott’s cheeks reddened beautifully. “Hank. Hey. Hank.”
Hank tried not to smile because he didn’t want Scott to think he was laughing at him, but he couldn’t help it. Scott thought he was a hunk!
Next to Hank, Josh let out an aborted snort-laugh, and Teddy was looking at his dad with amusement, disbelief, and if Hank wasn’t mistaken, a little bit of awe.
“Hey.” Hank waved and told his feelings to cut it out. Scott thought he was hot. So what? The ink was barely a year dry on his second divorce. He didn’t need to get involved with someone new so soon. The whole point of his being here was so he could make something of his life. He didn’t need another divorce to add to the pile.
“Hey, man.” Josh held a hand out to Teddy for a fist bump. “Your team’s doing great this season.”
“Thanks. Coach Cooley isn’t as cool as you or your brother or Coach Snow, but he’s a good coach.”
Josh choked on a laugh. “Don’t let Coach Cooley hear you say that.”
Josh had been Teddy’s coach last season until he’d had to take leave to support his family during his wife’s rough pregnancy. His brother and his best friend, also former pro hockey players, had taken over coaching his team.
Teddy grinned. “He already knows. On the first day of practice, he said,” Teddy lowered his voice, “‘Listen, I know I’m not as cool as Coach Snow or the Gilmore brothers, but we’ll still have fun this season, won’t we?’” Teddy shrugged. “I like him. Anyway, I gotta get ready for practice.”
“Go ahead,” Scott told him, handing him his stick. “I’ll catch up.”
Josh gave Teddy another fist bump as the kid swept past him, then clapped Scott on the shoulder. For a second, Hank envied him the casual affection but quickly shook it off.
“See you, Scott,” Josh said, and he headed out a moment later.
“Uh . . .” Scratching the back of his head, Scott smiled sheepishly at Hank and it was all kinds of adorable. “Teddy mentioned you were going to email some kind of permission form?”
Hank frowned. “For what?”
“He couldn’t remember, but whatever it’s for, I didn’t get the email.”
“Because I never sent one. I don’t need parents to sign permission forms for anything at the moment.” Hank thought back to the last time he’d addressed the kids and laughed. “I did say I was going to send an email invitation to the end-of-season holiday party, but that’s not at all the same thing as a permission form.” He paused, then, “Do kids ever listen?”
Throwing his head back, Scott laughed, and the sound settled into Hank like an old friend. “If you don’t know the answer to that, I’m guessing you don’t have any of your own.”
“Just the four-legged kind.”
Scott’s eyes brightened. “You have pets? Dog? Cat? Something else?”
“Dogs. Three of them,” Hank found himself saying for the second time today. “And they’re probably sitting in the kitchen right now wondering where the heck their dinner is.”
Scott nodded, and was it Hank’s imagination, or did he seem a little disappointed?
“I won’t keep you then.” Scott edged past him in the direction Teddy had taken. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” Hank muttered to Scott’s retreating back, watching until Scott made a left past the double doors, toward the stands where the parents usually watched practice.
Shaking off the odd sense that he’d squandered an opportunity, Hank zipped his coat, waved goodbye to the high schooler at the information desk, and went home.
Ellie Thomas
