“Cryin‘ all night,” she whispered, and reached for the edges of her blouse, pulling them together.
With that honey-sweet accent spilling from her mouth, she reminded him of the girl he’d picked up seven years ago. He was reminded of how she’d looked wrapped up in his sheets. “I guess you like me more than a bad hair day,” he said.
She looked down and tied the bow. “I have to check on Lexie,” she said, and practically ran from the kitchen.
He watched her go. His skin felt tight, and he was hard enough to pound nails. Sexual frustration clawed at his gut and he figured he had three choices. He could hunt her down and wrestle her out of her clothes, he could take care of it himself, or he could work out his frustration in the weight room. He chose the third and healthiest option.
It took him thirty minutes on the treadmill before he’d cleared his head of her, the taste of her skin and the feel of her breasts in his palms. He did another thirty minutes on the stationary bike, then stopped to work on his strength training.
At the age of thirty-five, John figured he only had a couple more years before he retired from hockey. He wanted to make those remaining years his best, and he had to work harder than ever.
By hockey standards, he was old. He was a veteran, which meant he had to play better than he had at twenty-five or face speculation that he was too old and too slow for the game. Sportswriters and front-office management wondered about all veterans. They wondered about Gretzky, Messier, and Hull. And they wondered about Kowalsky, too. If he had a bad night, if his hits were too soft, if his shots too wide, sports-writers would openly question if he was worth his big contract. They hadn’t wondered when he’d been in his twenties, but they did now.
Perhaps some of the things they said about him were true. Maybe he was a few seconds slower, but he more than made up for it in pure physical strength. He’d understood years ago that if he wanted to survive, he would have to adapt and adjust. He still played a fairly physical game, but he played smarter now, using his other skills as well.
He’d survived last season with only minor injuries. Now, with only a few weeks before training camp, he was in the best physical condition of his life. He was healthy and fit and ready to shake out the rink rust.
He was ready for the Stanley Cup.
John worked on his legs until his muscles burned, then he did two hundred fifty stomach crunches and jumped in the shower. He changed into a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt before returning upstairs.
When he walked out onto the deck, he found Georgeanne and Lexie sitting together on the same chaise, watching the tide. Neither John nor Georgeanne spoke as he lit the grill, both obviously willing to let Lexie fill the strained silence. During dinner, Georgeanne hardly looked in his direction, and afterward, she jumped up to do the dishes. Since she seemed so eager to get away from him, he let her.
“Do you gots any games, John?” Lexie asked, holding her chin in her hands. Her hair had been braided down the back, and she wore a little purple nightgown. “Like Candy Land or somethin‘?”
“No.”
“Cards?”
“I might.”
“Do you want to play slapjack?”
Slapjack sounded like a good diversion. “Sure.” He stood and went in search of a deck of cards, but he couldn’t find any. “I guess I don’t have any cards,” he told a disappointed Lexie.
“Oh. Do you want to play Barbies then?”
He’d rather sever his left nut.
“Lexie,” Georgeanne said from the doorway of the kitchen where she stood drying her hands with a towel. “I don’t think John wants to play Barbies.”
“Please,” Lexie begged him. “I’ll let you pick out the best clothes.”
He looked into her little face with her big blue eyes and pink cheeks and he heard himself say, “Okay, but I get to be Ken.”
Lexie jumped off her chair and ran from the room. “Don’t got no Ken ‘cause his legs broke off,” she said over her shoulder.
He glanced at Georgeanne, who stood there with a pitying look in her eyes while shaking her head. At least she wasn’t avoiding him anymore.
“Are you going to play?” he asked, figuring that with Georgeanne playing, too, he could quit after a short while.
She laughed silently and walked toward the couch. “No way. You get first pick of all the good clothes.”
“You can have first pick,” he promised.
“Sorry, big boy.” She picked up a magazine and sat down. “You’re on your own.”
Lexie came back into the room loaded down with toys, and John had a bad feeling he was stuck for a while.
“You can be Jewel Hair Barbie,” Lexie said as she tossed him a naked doll, then she opened her arms and pastel plastic furnishings fell to the floor.
He moved to sit cross-legged on the floor, then he picked up the doll and quickly looked her over. As a kid, he would have given just about anything to touch a naked Barbie, but he’d never been lucky enough to get within ogling distance. Now that he was afforded a good look at her, he discovered she had a scrawny ass and her knees made weird crunching sounds.
Resigned to his fate, he sat on the floor and searched through a pile of clothes. He chose a leopard-print leotard with matching leggings. “Do I get a matching handbag?” he asked Lexie, who was busy setting up the beauty parlor.
“No, but you gots some boots.” She dug through her stuff, then handed them to him.
He looked them over. “Just what every well-dressed woman needs, a pair of hooker boots.”
“What’s hooker boots?”
“Never mind,” Georgeanne said from her position behind the magazine.
Playing with dolls was a new experience for John. He didn’t have a sister or any close female relations his age. As a kid, he’d played with action figures, but mostly he’d just played hockey. He pulled the leotard up over Barbie’s hard plastic breasts, then reached for the leggings. As he dressed the doll he realized several thing. First, getting a pair of leggings up rubber legs was a real bitch, and second, if Barbie were real, she wouldn’t be the type of woman he’d want to help dress or undress. She was skinny and hard and her feet were pointed. He realized something else, too. “Ahh, Georgeanne?”
“Hmm?”
He turned to look at her. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?”
She lowered the magazine a fraction and her big green eyes peered at him over the top. “What?”
“This,” he said, and pointed to the beauty parlor. “Something like this could seriously jeopardize my reputation as a badass. Oh, sorry,” he corrected himself before either of the two females had a chance. “Something like this could make my life hell.”
Her devious laughter filled the space between them and he couldn’t help but laugh, too. He imagined that he looked real stupid sitting there trying to shove boots on a Barbie doll. Then abruptly Georgeanne’s laughter died and she tossed the magazine on the end table. “I’m taking a shower,” she said as she stood.
“Do you want your perm now?” Lexie asked.
John watched the sway of Georgeanne’s hips as she walked from the room. “Do I have to get a perm?” he asked, turning his attention to his daughter.
“Yep.”
John hopped his hooker-booted Barbie over to the pink salon chair. He didn’t know much about beauty parlors, but he’d had a girlfriend or two who had spent their time and his money in them. “Could you do my nails while I’m here?” he asked, then ordered a bikini wax and an apricot facial.
Lexie laughed and told him he was funny, and suddenly playing Barbies wasn’t so bad.