The Hockey Star's Forgotten Baby Mama novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Number 27
On the first day of camp the Glaciers' new star asks Leighton if they've met and she says no; her father turns out to be the team's new owner and orders her to quit, and she refuses in front of the staff, only to find the star at the daycare holding her daughter's crayon letter to Number 27.
"Have we met before?"
Johnny Castelli was sitting on the edge of my exam table with his shirt off and a blood pressure cuff on his arm.
He was frowning at me.
"No," I said. "We haven't."
I pumped the cuff until he winced.
The last time I'd seen him without a shirt, I was twenty-three and he was asleep in a hotel bed in Chicago.
I'd lain awake beside him until the sun came up, memorizing the scar through his eyebrow.
By nine that morning he'd walked out without a word.
He never even asked my name.
Now he was the Portland Glaciers' new center, eight years and eighty-eight million dollars.
And I was the team nutritionist with his intake form on a clipboard.
"One twenty-two over seventy-eight," I said. "Body fat nine percent. You're dehydrated."
"I'm always dehydrated. It's my brand."
He said it to the ceiling, bored.
I handed him his meal plan.
He skimmed it and handed it back.
"I don't do salmon at six a.m. My old team let me eat what I wanted."
"Your old team let you play the playoffs with an iron deficiency," I said. "You faded in every third period. I watched the tape."
He looked at me properly for the first time.
Not at my face. At my badge.
"Leighton," he read. "Okay, Leighton. I've been doing this nine years."
"And I've been doing this three. Here. Salmon at six."
I put the plan in his hand and folded his fingers over it.
He stared at me.
For one second I thought he'd see it. The girl on the fire escape. Long red hair, a borrowed red dress.
He'd called me Lee.
Then the door banged open and Stevie stuck her head in, whistle swinging.
"Press thing in ten. The new owner's here. Everyone in the atrium, even the nerds."
Johnny pulled his shirt on and left without saying goodbye.
Some things don't change.
The atrium was full of staff in navy fleeces and cameras on tripods.
A banner over the stairs said A NEW ERA OF GLACIERS HOCKEY.
I stood at the back with Stevie, eating an almond.
"Did you know the new guy before?" Stevie whispered. "You went white as a towel in there."
"Everybody knows him. He's on cereal boxes."
The general manager tapped the mic.
"Please welcome our new majority owner, Bradford Vanderhoff."
A tall man in a charcoal suit walked up to the podium.
Silver hair. Pale gray eyes. No tie, because ties were for people who needed to impress someone.
The almond turned to dust in my mouth.
My father.
I hadn't seen him in five years.
The last time, he was sitting behind his desk in Seattle, telling me to name the man or get out.
I'd gotten out.
Behind him came my half-sister, Kinsley, in a white blazer, with her arm hooked through Johnny Castelli's.
They smiled for the cameras.
My father talked about legacy and community and family values.
Stevie leaned in. "Vanderhoff. Isn't that your name?"
"It's a common name."
"It is not a common name, Leighton."
My father's eyes moved across the room as he spoke.
They stopped on me.
He didn't miss a word.
After the speech, he came straight down the hallway where the staff were filing back to work.
He stopped in front of me.
People slowed down to look.
"So this is where you went," he said.
"Hello, Dad."
Kinsley giggled behind her hand.
"You'll hand in your resignation by Friday," my father said, quiet and pleasant. "No statement. No scene. I'll pay out your contract."
"No."
He blinked.
"I'm under contract through June," I said, loud enough for the hallway. "I'm good at my job. If you want me gone, fire me in front of the cameras and explain why."
The equipment manager stopped pushing his cart.
Two assistant coaches stopped talking.
My father smiled.
"You always did like an audience."
"I learned from you."
I turned and walked away with my heart going.
Stevie caught up with me at the stairs and grabbed my elbow.
"Your DAD? Your dad bought the team? Are you a secret billionaire?"
"I was. He fired me from that too."
She laughed so hard she had to lean on the rail.
Then she stopped.
"Wait. Does this mean Lulu's a secret billionaire?"
"Lulu is a secret goalie," I said. "That's all she cares about."
At five o'clock I went up to the Ice Box to get my daughter.
The staff daycare smelled like crayons and apple juice.
Lulu was sitting at the little table with her tongue between her teeth, drawing.
And crouched next to her chair, in his team hoodie, was Johnny Castelli.
He was holding one of her drawings.
A stick man in a jersey with a giant 27 on it. A smaller stick girl in goalie pads.
Across the top, in the daycare teacher's careful letters, Lulu had dictated, "Dear Number 27, I am still waiting for you to come."
Johnny looked up at me.
His face had gone very strange.
"She's been sending me these for a year," he said. "Every month. I write back to every single one."
Lulu beamed at me. "Mommy, it's HIM. He came!"
Johnny stood slowly, the drawing in his big hand.
"So I need to know something," he said. "Who has been mailing me letters from your daughter?"
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