It’s Mother-Pucking Christmas!

6. Ryder

6

RYDER

T he doors slammed behind Dakota.

I shouldn’t have said those things to her. Even if she hated the team, it was rude. Something about her, though, was like an itchy tag in a jersey. I just couldn’t ignore her and move on with my life.

“What the hell are you doing?” Coach raced into the lobby with a hoodie, followed by the rest of the team.

“You can’t go outside like that. You’ll freeze to death.”

“I’m not,” I complained as he stuffed me in the hoodie. “I’m hot. In Sweden hockey players do an ice plunge after practice.”

“This guy.” Coach grabbed the back of my neck. “Sweden? Get the fuck outta here. Wait, are you sick? Is he sick? Zack, call a doctor.”

My teammates and the assistant coaches mobbed me.

“Aww, is poor widdle Ryder sick?” Erik teased.

“He better not be, or I’m blaming you. I know you took him out celebrating last night,” Coach threatened. “We don’t want to break our winning streak.”

Erik held up his hands. “Relax, Coach, I’m just joking. Utah, tell him.”

“We know what’s wrong with Ryder.” Rick smirked.

“I’m fine.” I rubbed my forehead.

“What’s wrong with him?” Coach was about to pop a vein.

“Maybe the grilled chicken I ate last night was bad,” I said quickly.

“No! No bad food. I don’t trust you with your own meals anymore. Not before a game with the Frosthawks. You have to come to my house for dinner.”

“Coach, you eat microwave diet meals.” Mike’s mouth twitched.

“At least they’re cooked through!” Coach screamed.

“Ryder didn’t eat bad chicken. We ate the same chicken.” Pete snorted. “He likes a girl.”

“And she doesn’t like him back,” Erik added.

“I don’t. I’m fine, Coach.”

“If you want to date that girl, implying she’s a slut isn’t how you do it, eh,” Erik said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

So they were eavesdropping

“Fucking Canadians. American girls,” Rick enunciated, “do not want nice guys. Especially not nice hockey players. If she’s going to be the girlfriend of a hockey player, she wants him to be a certain way in bed. Dirty talk. Rough sex.”

“I’m not trying to get a girlfriend,” I declared. “I want a wife, not a girlfriend.”

“So go down to the wife store or order one on Amazon.” Pete zipped up his coat.

“I prefer my wives locally grown.” Rick snickered.

“Look, College Boy.” Mike clapped his hands on my shoulders. “You have to date and do a test drive before you can propose marriage.”

“Yeah, the type of girl who’ll marry you the day she meets you is like a big fucking red flag,” Pete added.

“Fucking tell me about it,” Coach muttered.

“You might as well dump all your money in the parking lot, set it on fire, and punch yourself repeatedly in the nuts,” Erik joked.

“If you live streamed it, you’d actually probably make a profit,” Pete mused.

“Would be less humiliating than the marriage.”

“I want something real,” I said firmly.

“You need to do matchmaking,” Mike offered.

“Scam.” Coach coughed.

“I can’t be thinking about this right now,” I told the guys. “We have the big game coming up.”

“Amen!” Coach threw his hat.

“Okay, how about in January? New Year’s resolution.” Mike threw an arm around my shoulders.

“Fine.”

“Better yet, after the hockey season,” Coach yelled over his shoulder as he left with the assistant coaches.

“But Dakota isn’t that type of girl. I want a nice girl, from a big loving family like I never had.”

My friends looked at each other.

Rick sighed. “Hard truths oncoming, man. The type of girl you’re describing? From a big loving family with married parents and wonderful siblings and loyal extended family that decorates the house for Christmas and eats breakfast together like you see on TV? Those girls want guys from nice families, families like their own. Not foster kids who don’t even have their dad’s last name.”

“And who none of his foster families wanted. Yeah, I got it.” I scowled.

Mike put me in a loose headlock. “He’s not trying to be mean, but you can’t live in Christmas fairy-tale land. You gotta work with what you have.”

I shoved off my teammates.

“Don’t be mad,” they shouted after me.

“Nice going, Utah.”

“I’m not mad. I’m just late,” I called.

As I drove over to the animal shelter, I tried not to let it get to me.

But the guys weren’t wrong.

I knew that.

Had lived it.

Part of why I’d insisted on going to college, not trying for the NHL brass ring, was because I wanted it—I wanted that dream girl. I wanted to be welcomed into a loving family embrace for once in my life. But the girls I dated in college? They always found some reason to dump me and choose the guy who had somewhere to go home to for Christmas, who didn’t just hole up in the college dorms and practice hockey by himself over winter break like a weirdo.

It was like they all spoke a secret language, like I was making some major faux pas, and the girls would lose interest quickly. Didn’t want anything serious.

After the fourth time it happened, I had to admit that there was just something wrong with me.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You have a job, you have savings. You have a place to sleep.” I always found focusing on other people really put your own small problems in perspective.

And if they were helping shelter animals find homes for the holidays? Even better.

People were already in line for the shelter event.

“There’s the goods!” The director laughed when I pulled my T-shirt off over my head and ran my fingers through my hair.

“We are going to clean out the shelter with these.” The older woman squeezed my bicep.

I relaxed as the event got underway, posing for photos and listening to children coo over the animals. Puppies and kittens were always happy to see you. It didn’t matter where you came from.

She wasn’t though.

A pair of angry brown eyes glared at me from the other side of the stack of donated dog kennels.