My woman is dead.
“I’m fucking sorry,” Alex murmurs as he places his hand on my shoulder. “I wasn’t thinking.”
I look at him and Garrett, both of their eyes worried and sympathetic. “It’s okay,” I assure them with a smile. “Guys’ night out sounds awesome.”
They both continue to stare at me warily, so I reach out and give each of them a tapping punch to the chest. “Lighten up, dudes. It’s fine. Quit looking at me like that.”
Their looks now turn to skepticism, and I turn away from them with an exasperated grunt. “All right, you fucking pussies…I’m hitting the shower. When you two get your tampons pulled out, come find me and we’ll go out.”
I hear Alex snicker and then Garrett lets out a bark of a laugh before saying, “Our boy is back.”
I shake my head and smile as I walk into the locker room. I’m not all the way back, but I see the door sitting wide open and I’ve stepped through. I’ve got my hockey career back on track and Ben is being cared for.
And he’s being cared for well.
It’s with reluctance that I admit that Delaney was absolutely right about Kate being perfect for the job. She’s settled into her role with amazing ease. She cares for Ben with the utmost diligence and patience, and every day this past week I’ve seen his attachment to her cementing hard. That causes me relief, but sadly, it also causes some bitterness within me. At first I thought I was angry over her stepping in and filling Gina’s shoes, and there is an element of that, no doubt. But as Ben starts gravitating toward Kate, he is equally pulling away from me.
I hadn’t realized that Ben and I had grown much closer since Gina’s death, since I was his sole caretaker and parent. He came to me for every problem. We clung on to each other in our grief. He was the only thing that made me happy, and our entire existence was only for each other.
That’s all melting away now as Ben is opening up to a new relationship and I can’t help but feel somewhat jealous over it. Ludicrous, I know, but there you have it.
As I reach my locker, I pull out my phone and quickly call Kate. She answers with that country drawl of hers: “Hey, Zack.”
“I’m going to go out with some teammates for a bit tonight. Not sure when I’ll be home…probably late.”
“Roger dodger,” she says merrily, and because my eyes don’t naturally roll at her goofiness, I realize I’m starting to get used to her dorky nature. “Want to speak to Ben?”
“Yup,” I acknowledge, and I hear her pull the phone away from her mouth and call out, “Hey, Ben…put down that stick of dynamite you’re playing with and come talk to your daddy.”
That causes me to issue a half-smile/half-grimace.
I’m torn between being amused at her humor, because there’s no doubt she’s trying to get a smile out of me, and annoyed that she references me as his “daddy.” Ben has always called me “Dad,” but Kate always says “Daddy,” because that’s apparently what all southern girls call their fathers. She doesn’t mean anything by it, I know that logically. She’s just going with her habit…a southern custom, so to speak. And now Ben has started calling me “Daddy” lately and it actually shames me that I find irritation in it rather than thinking it’s cute.
Yup…it irritates the shit out of me. But then I give myself a mental slap and make myself try to think of the positives that Kate brings. Such as that while she focuses most of her energies on Ben, she also gladly steps away from him when I’m home, seeming to sense my need to also provide a caretaker role. I grudgingly admit she goes out of her way not to step on my toes as his father, and she always defers to me in all child-rearing matters.
“Hey, Daddy,” Ben says as he takes the phone, and fuck…is that a little southern accent he’s mimicking? I grit my teeth over my new moniker.
“How’s it going, buddy?” I ask him gently, so he can’t hear the disgruntlement in my voice.
“Good,” he says simply. “Kate and I are playing with Play-Doh. She showed me how to make a snake with it and said we should hide it in your bed to scare you tonight. That would be funny, wouldn’t it?”
I hear Kate mutter in the background, “That was a secret, Ben.”
And there’s just no stopping it.
I laugh…genuinely…pleased to see how Kate still tries to involve me even when I’m absent from home. “That would have been funny for sure.”
Ben then whispers into the phone, “Maybe I should hide it in Kate’s bed.”