Miguel's Secret Cub Read online

  I had to laugh at that. He was right. Dylan wasn’t any better about talking about stuff than I was. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. The truth was, Luca knew the most about my past and he didn’t know everything. All Charlie and Dylan knew was that I came from a rough place. I had that in common with Dylan but we hadn’t talked about it much.

  I watched my breath steam in the air and trudged past Dylan over to the log where I’d left my boots. I changed out of my skates and Dylan sat next to me.

  “Did I ever tell you I ran away from home when I was sixteen?” My voice sounded husky when I spoke. I sounded young.

  “I figured it was something like that,” Dylan said. “I know you met Luca when you were what, seventeen? Eighteen?”

  “I’d just turned eighteen. Few days before.”

  I stuttered and stumbled but the gist of my story came out of me talking to Dylan. I told him about my father who had always wanted to be an alpha and took all his anger out on me. I told him about meeting Daisy when we were both young cubs. How we’d had each other’s backs and I’d go see her after bad fights with my dad. Her parents had been nothing to write home about either. For several years, her friendship was all I had. That and hockey, I guess.

  “Then I ran away,” I said, staring down at my hands. “I left her there, alone. I took off and I didn’t even say goodbye. Couldn’t stand to. Scraped by for a bit. Then I met Haldo.”

  This part was harder. Dylan didn’t speak as I told him my story and I didn’t look at him.

  “I have a son,” I finally said. “Daisy found me yesterday. She told me she got pregnant that one night we were together. I’ve had a son all this time and I didn’t even know it. When she told me, I didn’t react...great. Kinda flipped out and acted like a dick. She bolted. So once again...I’ve fucked up”

  “Wow.” Dylan nodded and didn’t look at me. I followed his gaze as if he might be looking at something important instead but he was only staring into the trees. He licked his lips. I knew he could be shy about talking and needed a minute to find his words. He was fierce on the ice and brutal in a fight but Dylan was the shyest person I’d ever met. “I don’t think you fucked up.”

  I snorted at that and Dylan shrugged. “Okay, well maybe. But it’s fixable.”

  “I don’t even know how I’d fix it,” I mumbled.

  “How do you feel about it?” He said. “About having a son?”

  Scared as hell.

  “Like...I shouldn’t have one,” I admitted.

  “Because you don’t want a kid-”

  “No,” I said quickly. “It’s not like that. It’s not about not wanting the responsibility or…” Actually, when I thought about the apparent reality that there was a child who was half Daisy and half me running around it made my heart feel overly large in my chest. I ached to meet him. Sitting there on the log with Dylan, it hit me all at once that I’d missed the first five years of the kids life and I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t taken off on Daisy. I would never get those years back. I would never hold my son in my arms as a baby. I couldn’t talk for a second, I had such a lump in my throat, and I rubbed my eyes. “I’d be a shitty father,” I said, my voice cracking. “I know, I would. I’m too angry, I’ve done too many shitty things. I’ve-”

  “Bullshit!” Dylan shout was so loud a sparrow took flight from a tree, startled by the echo of his voice in the muted quiet of the snow. “Complete fuckin’ bullshit, dude.”

  I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d just pantsed me. Actually, he’d pantsed me before in the locker room. This was exponentially more shocking. I just blinked at him. The thing was, Dylan so rarely raised his voice unless it was during a game.

  “I remember what you were like when I met you,” Dylan said, scratching his neck. “Luca introduced you. You were like nineteen. Good player, little green. And pissed as hell. Just a ball of rage all the time.” He laughed and shook his head. “Charlie and I didn’t even know how to talk to you. You’d blow up over nothing. Luca was the one who knew how to handle you. We called him the Miguel Whisperer.”

  “You did?” I said dumbly.

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “Only time I understood you was when we were playing hockey or going on a run or a hunt. Rest of the time...I just tried to stay out of your way.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered. “Didn’t know I was that much of a problem child.”

  “You were,” Dylan said brightly. “You were. But you’re not now. You’re not that angry like you were, except when you’re on the ice and you’re being a hothead. At worst, you’re grumpy. But it’s nothing crazy. You’ve changed a lot, dude. You’ve been there for the rest of us too. Always backed us up. I think you’d be a good dad. Might take some learning. Maybe, I don’t know...take a class? Are there classes for that?”

  “Huh.” I laughed at that. “I guess. I don’t know.”

  “You’ll make mistakes,” Dylan said. “But I think you should give this a chance if you can. I think..it’d be great. You’re a good guy, Miguel. You could be a good dad.”

  The thing about my fellow alphas was, I knew they would never bullshit me. They didn’t have it in them. Dylan might be completely off but if he was telling me he thought I would be a good dad, it was because he truly thought so.

  “I don’t know where she is,” I said. What if it was fixable? Sometimes I still wasn’t used to the idea that I could fix things I’d broken. I still wasn’t sure that was possible with Daisy.

  “She didn’t tell you where she’s living or anything?” Dylan said. “I mean maybe she’ll come back though. To a game or something.”

  I chewed on my lip and thought of everything she’d told me. “She told me she’s working at a diner in...Middlesmark, I think,” I said. I’d totally forgotten that until Dylan had prodded me. “That’s all I know.”

  “Oh!” Dylan grinned, wagging his eyebrows. “Well, that’s not far at all and it’s as small a town as St. Dom. They probably only have one diner.”

  “Yeah...that’s true…”

  “Go eat crow,” Dylan said, punching my shoulder. “Apologize. Give this thing a shot. Sounds like this girl means a lot to you.”

  “She does,” I said softly. I’d missed Daisy everyday and figured I would spend the rest of my life missing her. It was hard to believe I could possibly get yet another chance at that kind of happiness.

  Middlesmark wasn’t more than an hour from St. Dominic but given what a homebody I’d become, it felt farther. We went to other towns for games but other than that, my career as a drifter who roamed far and wide whenever he felt like it had long since ended. That day, I had practice with the team and I buckled down and focused like I usually did. I guess I do project aggression out on the ice but that’s more hockey bringing it out of me than life. I’ve always been able to block the life shit out when I play, even if I can’t the rest of the time. Still, I kept an eye out for Daisy, just in case she decided to stop by after I’d been such a dick. But I didn’t think she would, and she didn’t.

  I went home with the guys and I kept getting expectant looks from Dylan. I was nervous about going, but I knew I really had to.

  “Alright,” I finally said, nudging him before he could actually say something. “I’ll borrow Luca’s car. Be back later.”

  Dylan gave me a wink and I went off to ask for the keys. Luca knew something was going on but I could tell he was letting me come to him if I needed to. I caught him cuddling his baby son in his lap on the couch and watching a nature documentary, Chloe curled up next to him with our cat, Wayne, in her lap. I patted Jack gently on the head and when I asked to borrow the car to go to Middlesmark, he handed the keys over without so much as a question.

  Moves like that are why I trust him with my life.

  Dylan was right. I drove around Middlesmark for about five minutes before I spotted a diner and because I didn’t see another diner anywhere else, I parked.

  For a while, I just sat in the car. I wished there was a battle
to fight that could fix things instead of this. A battle would be so much easier than talking. A hockey game against a tough opponent, a challenge by some other badass alpha… Anything but this complicated talking stuff. I’d never known how to navigate it. The only dude I knew who could even manage it was Luca and maybe Charlie, but I hadn’t exactly grown up with good examples of sensitive dudes.

  Ugh.

  “Man up, asshole,” I muttered to myself. I finally got out of the car and watched my breath steam in the air as I straightened my leather jacket. I found myself checking my hair in Luca’s side mirror. It was starting to brush past my shoulders but I thought the long, black wavy locks looked pretty good on me. I didn’t like the nervous look I saw in my own eyes though.

  The door to the diner jingled when I pushed it open. The town was small enough that heads turned when I walked in because everyone was probably expecting someone they knew. But I didn’t see Daisy anywhere. I just hoped she didn’t pour coffee on my head or something. Or worse, cry. Daisy crying ruined me.

  There was a waitress behind the counter where a couple old guys were poking at their late night corned beef hash and I cleared my throat as I approached. “Hey. I’m looking for Daisy? Does she work here? I’m a friend.”

  The waitress was older. She looked like the kind of woman who has seen it all and isn’t surprised by a damn thing. She very conspicuously sized me up and raised her eyebrows.

  “Good for her,” she muttered, before turning around and shouting back into the kitchen. “Daisy! Someone’s askin’ for ya!”

  Daisy came out and I felt like a bunch of muscles I hadn’t even noticed that were all tensed up relaxed slightly, but not completely, because I had no idea how this was going to go. She didn’t smile when she saw me but she didn’t look pissed either, just kind of dazed. She was tying her green apron around her waist, wearing a soft pink sweater and jeans. Her chestnut hair was all fluffy and there were still snowflakes on her head. Her lips were glossy and red.

  I wanted to kiss her. This wasn’t the time for that. But damn, she looked beautiful.

  She looked down, batting her eyes. “Hey.”

  Well, that was a start. “Hey, can we talk or…”

  “I just started work,” she said.

  But the only customers in the place were the two old guys at the counter and the other waitress gave her a wink. “I think we can spare you, sweetie. Get a booth. I’ll bring you coffee.”

  It was awkward as hell. I wished we could just slip back into the ease we used to have with each other when we were young. There was a reason it had been so easy to convince her everything was fine before turning her over to Haldo.

  We sat down in a booth and the other waitress brought us our coffee and even insisted on setting down some pie. Daisy thanked her and she gave me a nod and said, “If that face wanted to talk to me, I wouldn’t be serving Hal and Mike their corned beef hash all night. That’s for sure. If I need you, I’ll let you know.”

  I watched Daisy take a sip of coffee. Her big, blue eyes were so guileless. They’d always ruined me, those eyes. I’d filled them with sadness too many times.

  “So?” She said, sitting up straight, holding her mug like a kind of shield.

  I nodded and summed up my courage. “Alright. First, I’m so sorry that I reacted the way I did. But I don’t know that it...matters. That it matters I’m sorry, I mean.” I rubbed my eyes. “I was just… It’s hard to think of myself as a father. It freaks me out and I haven’t seen you in so long and I’ve felt like complete shit leaving the way I did and after everything I did and-”

  “You left me a lot of money,” she said, shrugging.

  “It was not a lot,” I murmured.

  “Enough to get me on my feet,” she said softly. “Turned out I really needed it once I figured out I was pregnant. I mean it was hard. Don’t get me wrong. Would have been harder if you hadn’t left me the money. But I always wished you’d stayed.”

  “I don’t know why,” I said, biting down on the word. They were bitter in my mouth and I took a long drink of weak diner coffee.

  Daisy didn’t say anything to that and I couldn’t read her expression as she stared down into her coffee. I thought she was going to tell me to leave, she was quiet for so long. Under the harsh, fluorescent lights of the diner, I could see every little subtlety of Daisy’s face. I could see how she looked just a little older even though she was barely old enough to drink (not that we hadn’t swiped liquor a million times as teenagers). I could see the small and very pale freckles along the bridge of her nose and the faint coloring in her cheeks just because she’d come in from the cold...

  She was going to tell me to go now.

  This wasn’t fixable.

  You’re my mate, I thought. I think we’d both always been a little scared of each other. It was either because we knew we were made for each other or because of the kind of place we’d grown up in. We didn’t want to become that.

  “That’s the problem,” Daisy said. Now I saw a tear slide down her pale cheek and drip right off her chin to the pink formica table. “You never knew why. You never knew why I loved you. You never knew how much I wanted you to stay because you couldn’t picture anyone wanting you around. But I did. I always did. Didn’t you want me around?”

  I couldn’t quite speak. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. After all this time, after all the shit I’d done…

  “I told you,” she said, “that I would have done what you did to get by. Maybe that makes me a bad person too but Miguel, you were a kid. You gotta let it go.” She reached out and took my hand in hers. “If you need to hear me say it, here it is… I forgive you, Miguel.”

  I don’t cry much these days about anything but I came damn close.

  I didn’t know what to say so I just squeezed her hand and changed the subject slightly. “Dylan says I might be an okay dad? Dylan’s a buddy of mine-”

  “On The Cougars,” Daisy said, smiling. “I know. I go to games.”

  “Right,” I muttered. I sat up a little straighter and said the one thing I’d wanted to make absolutely clear from the moment I’d walked in. “I want to meet my son. I hope you don’t think I didn’t. I want to meet our son. I want to be in his life. I might screw up a lot-”

  “Oh, well I’ve screwed up a lot,” Daisy said, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was still holding my hand. “But you’re a loving man. We’ve both just had some ups and downs dealing with our shit is all. We’ll learn. We can help each other. We were always better in each other’s lives. I tried to tell you. You never listened.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you,” I whispered.

  “I know,” she said. “That’s why I want us to try. Give it a chance, Migs. That’s all I want.”

  Migs.

  That’s what she used to call me when we were kids. Everybody called me that really, but I only liked it coming from her. From her, it was affection.

  At some point as kids, we’d decided there was a treasure buried in the woods and drawn out a map and then memorized the trail we’d arbitrarily decided was a path to the treasure. We’d shifted and gone bounding over hill and dale to dig up gold that wasn’t there. It didn’t matter. The point was the pretending. We’d already been too old for something that childish. We never told anyone else about it.

  “It’s our secret, Migs,” Daisy had whispered in my ear. She’d hooked her pinky around mine. We used to pinky swear over everything when we were kids. Honestly, I think it might have just been an excuse for innocent gestures of affection.

  “I can try,” I said. “There’s nothing I want more. I swear to you, Daisy. I’m not taking off and I’m gonna do my best. Pinky swear.”

  I smirked and Daisy hooked her pinky around mine. She smiled and her eyes glittered. She looked relieved, which made me feel relieved. Dylan had been right after all. Maybe this was fixable.

  Daisy turned our pinky swear into her just holding my hand and she kissed my knuckles;
just one quick peck of her soft lips. But it still made my heart jump in my chest.

  Chapter Six: Daisy

  I was cautiously optimistic. But even I had to admit that Miguel had changed. His initial reaction to knowing he had a son had been less than ideal, but he hadn’t been the one to bolt from that conversation either. I was shocked when he’d walked into the diner. I’d have expected to have to track him down again just to take his temperature on everything. But he’d managed to open his mouth and actually talk. It gave me hope that if nothing else, maybe Andy could have a real relationship with his father.

  Eventually, I had to actually work. Miguel and I exchanged numbers and I promised to bring Andy to the next game The Cougars were playing a couple nights later. Miguel seemed reluctant to leave but eventually left me with a kiss on the cheek, seeming almost flustered about it before he tossed me a little wave and walked back out into the snow.

  That evening after work, I went to pick Andy up from the low budget daycare where he spent his days when Alyssa couldn’t take care of him. It was pricey as hell even given that it was run out of an old lady’s house in town. I’d been nervous about it at first but Alyssa had given her seal of approval so I’d trusted that.

  I shivered in the beat up old Mazda I drove around and tapped the heater, sighing. I zipped up my parka and for the tenth time in five minutes, I remembered Miguel looking up at me with a steady gaze and saying “pinky swear.” It kept making me smile.

  The daycare playground outside of Emma’s was all snowed over but I thought I saw evidence of a snowball fight and sure enough Andy couldn’t stop talking about it as he ran to me across the rainbow colored carpet where he was playing Legos with the other kids.

  “Mom!” Andy chirped. “I made snowballs! But they melted!”

  I raised my eyebrows and laughed, picking him up in my arms, and he clarified his story as I nodded at the couple caretakers who gave me a wave before I signed the both of us out. I’d taught him to make snowballs before, but he had been particularly proud of the snowballs he’d constructed this time. He’d wanted to keep them but they had melted once he’d brought one back inside where the heat was cranked up.