She shook her head. “No, but I thought I’d try.” Looking away, she softy said, “I just hate traveling all the time. We never had a place to call home. Mom never had the money to keep us in one place, and I just want a home.”
She was pulling at his heartstrings, and soon he couldn’t take it anymore. Nodding his head, he said, “Let me see what I can do.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears as she asked, “You won’t send me back to the crazy cat lady though, right?”
Phillip shook his head. “No, but I’ll figure something out.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Thanks.”
Entering the bathroom, he shut the door and slid down it until his butt hit the ground. Once there, he crossed his arms over his legs, and leaned his head against them. He had no clue what he was going to do. He had no family, except Alice, but she couldn’t help him. She had made it perfectly clear when they left that Claire wasn’t welcomed back, so that left no one. He couldn’t quit. He loved hockey and the Assassins, so what else could he do? He knew he had to do something though. Claire wasn’t happy, and he swore he would do anything to make her happy—to make the last sixteen years vanish from her mind. He wanted to help her see that she could be more than a two-bit whore. She was smart, she was beautiful, and he had no doubts that she could be something amazing. He just needed help to get her there. He couldn’t do it all on his own.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he found the number he needed and hit call.
After only two rings, Elli Adler answered.
“Hey, Phillip, what’s up?”
“I need your help, Elli.”
She paused, and he could hear kids in the background. She probably wasn’t the greatest person to help him since she was busy with owning a team and raising a family, but Elli wasn’t only his boss, she was his friend. He trusted that she would know what to do.
“Absolutely, what can I do to help?”
PHILLIP SQUIRTED a mouthful of water, and then spit. Doing it again, he spit farther on the ice as he watched his teammate, Jordie Thomas, move around the net with the puck. Doing it for a third time, he spit even farther before turning to make sure Claire was still behind him.
She was.
When she sent him her signature glare, he rolled his eyes before turning to look back at the ice. She was not happy with him, more like furious. He thought when he asked Elli to help him that everything would be okay, that he would be giving Claire what she wanted. But he was dead wrong. Since Elli was busy with the kids and the team, like he knew she was, she suggested that Jakob Titov’s wife, Harper, take her on. Harper was a lot like Claire, and Phillip knew that she could handle the hellion he loved. Harper was all for it, and guaranteed him that Claire would be in great hands.
One would think that Phillip suggested that Claire have all her limbs amputated. She cussed, she screamed, and she threw things, saying that Phillip was just throwing her off on someone else. That was so far from what he was doing that it wasn’t even funny. He was trying to get her the stability she wanted while he was gone. Harper said that she could have her own room, and he worked hard to duplicate it to the room Claire had in their house. He thought it was the perfect idea, but Claire didn’t think so. She was under the impression that he was going to leave her alone at his house.
Cold day in fucking hell.