SARIAH: I will. And give those pups of yours some love from me.
ROB: They are the most spoiled dogs on the planet. If I give them any more love, they’ll probably overdose on it.
SARIAH: Do it anyway!
ROB: Aye aye! Take care.
SARIAH: You too.
I put the phone down and stared up at the ceiling.
This thing with us wasn’t real, but it was a nice distraction. It was also nice to have someone to talk to at the end of a long day.
Chapter Four
Nash
* * *
“What am I doing, guys?” I asked my dogs.
Predictably, there was no response. I set my phone on the kitchen counter and walked over to the fridge, checking my inventory of beer.
Solid. Plus I had more in the garage if I needed it. I was hosting poker night for some of the guys from my team tonight.
I’d gotten distracted from my poker night plans by googling Sariah and looking for locals with that name on Facebook. It was fucking dumb for many reasons. Like me, she may not have even told me her real name. Maybe she was smart enough to stay off social media.
Why did I even care? If I wanted a no-strings night in bed, there were plenty of women I could call. Sariah could easily be a sixty-year-old Nigerian dude with a solid grasp on the English language, biding his time so he could try to scam me.
In just over an hour, the guys would start showing up at my house and I had beer and water, but I still needed to order pizza and wings. I liked to keep things simple. When Wes hosted poker night, Hadley cleaned the house from top to bottom and put out a massive spread of food.
When I hosted, I relied on my robo-vacuum and Giovanna’s Italian Bistro.
I was on my way upstairs to change clothes when my phone started ringing. I jogged back to the kitchen and picked it up off the counter, my jaw tightening with aggravation when I saw that my dad was calling.
“Hey, Dad,” I answered stiffly. “What’s up?”
“Nash, how are you?”
“I’m fine.” I leaned a hip against the counter.
“Nice game the other night. You’re on a hot streak.”
I stared out at the backyard through the kitchen windows, wishing I’d made it upstairs before I heard my phone ring. So much for my good mood.
“Did you need something?” I asked.
There was a pause before he continued. “Are you going to make it to the anniversary party for your mother and me?”
I looked up at the ceiling and pushed away from the counter. “No, I can’t make it.”
“Come on, surely you can get away for one evening. Your mother purposely scheduled it on a night you won’t have a game, unless you make it to the championship.”
“I can’t.”
A few seconds of awkward silence passed between us before my dad sighed deeply and said, “Nash, your mom misses you.”
“I miss her, too. Tell her she should come see me. Anytime.”
“But I’m not invited?”
He knew damn well he wasn’t invited. My father hadn’t been welcome in my life for more than two years. He seemed to think he could just talk his way into a father-son relationship, though. Everything was about appearances to him. After I’d gotten drafted, he’d asked me to secure VIP seating for him and his wealthy investment banking clients for hockey games at my home arena and several others, too. The first couple of years, I’d often join him and his clients for dinner when they were in town, or when I was playing in Chicago.
New York was his favorite, for reasons I hadn’t understood when I’d started getting him tickets to those games. Now, he knew better than to even ask.
“I have to go, Dad,” I said crisply. “I’m having people over and I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Look, I’m not asking you to come for me. It’s for your mother. It would mean the world to her to have all her children at the party.”
Nothing was easier for me than saying no to my father. I enjoyed it immensely. But saying no to my mother was a different story. She’d driven me to thousands of hockey practices when I was a kid, and she’d been in the stands cheering me on at every single game I’d ever played. She rarely asked me to do anything, which made it that much harder to disappoint her.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “But I have to go.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to you soon.”
I ended the call, scowling at my phone. Whenever I talked to my father next, it would be too soon for me.
A few hours and a few beers later, I was raking in my first poker pot of the night.
“You got lucky,” my teammate Boone said, tossing his cards on the table in disgust.
“Bullshit.” I grinned as I stacked up my chips. “I’m like a lion in the tall grass, just waiting for my moment to go in for the kill.”