Shutout (The Renegades Series Book 5) (20 page)

Dominic

“Dominic!” Maria Zanetti cheered excitedly at the doorway of their family home. She was a short, round little lady with curly dark hair and deep brown eyes. “My baby is home! Come in. Everyone, Dominic is home! Angelo, Angelo! He’s here!” Dom’s mother dragged him into the living room, not noticing Kaden standing in the doorway too.

“Ma, I brought along my teammate, Kaden. He’s our other goalie. Kaden, c’mon in.”

“Oh me-oh-my! I’m so sorry, yes, Kaden please come in, make yourself right at home. Everyone, this is Kaden.” She shouted into the house.

“Maria, you don’t have to yell, I’m right here. Dom, my boy, it’s good to have you home.” Angelo Zanetti, Dom’s father, gave his son a hug then put out his hand to Kaden. “Nice to meet you, Kaden.” Angelo was a tall, thick man with a head full of jet black hair, dark eyes and glasses.

“You too, Mr. Zanetti.”

“Uncle Dom!” Mikayla, Dom’s niece, came running to the door and clamped on to Dom’s legs.

“Hey there, my little sunshine!” He picked her up and hugged her tight. “How’s lacrosse going?”

“Oh, so good, Uncle Dom! So good! I’ve had six goals this season!” Her face was bright and excited.

“Woah, six goals? You are a little star, just like your uncle,” Dom said with a big smile. Mikayla was adorable with her big brown eyes and dark hair pulled back in to a ponytail. She wore her lacrosse uniform, and of course, she was number twenty. Everyone said that out of all the kiddos, she looked the most like Dom.

“Hey, bro.” His little brother Dante nodded from the living room entrance. He was tall for his age, barely a teenager, and he looked like he could pass for sixteen. He was lean too, with shaggy black hair. He was the next Zanetti hockey sensation and already had the hair for it. He’d been scouted since he played Pee Wee.

“Dante, man you’re getting tall.” Dom pulled his brother into a hug.

“The girls are in the kitchen, but the boys are all in the living room.” Maria grabbed both Dom and Kaden’s hands and pulled them into the living room. “I better get back in there and help them with dinner.” Maria hurried away.

“Uncle Dom!” All four of his nephews ran up to greet him.

“Hey guys!” He greeted each of the boys, Tristan, Gino, Nicky and Rocco. They looked like they could be brothers, all lean and lanky, and they had the Zanetti dark hair and dark eyes. All close in age, one was six, two were seven, and one was eight. “You all still playing hockey?”

“You know it!”

“Of course!”

“They wouldn’t have it any other way,” Gino and Tristan’s dad spoke up.

“Hey, Vincent.” Dom shook his brother-in-law’s hand. Looking to his other brother-in-law, he nodded. “Hey, Robert. This,”—he looked to Kaden who was currently being bombarded with questions from the boys—“is Kaden O’Conner.”

“I’m betting the boys already knew that,” Robert said with a laugh.

Robert and Vincent definitely stood out in family photos; neither of them had dark hair like the rest of the Zanetti clan. They claimed they were Italian, but you’d never know it to look at them. Some of the families around here came from northern Italy where blonds were more common. Thank God the kids all took after their mothers.

“Dominic.” Michael, Dom’s grandfather, emerged from the armchair in the corner. He was eighty-five years old and still had a mean block in net, and still loved to play hockey in the basement with his great-grandkids. He had thin gray hair and wore glasses, and although he came over from Italy with his parents when he was just a child, he still had an Italian accent.

“Grandad! I didn’t even see you sitting over there.” Dom pulled the old man into a hug. His grandad was someone Dom missed most while he was away in the States. Playing here at home was special for him because Grandad and Dad would be in the stands watching.

“Well, I wanted to give the young-uns time to see you first. They’ve been so excited all day I thought they were going to jump right out of their skins.” He laughed a hearty laugh.

“Sit down, you two,” Angelo said, motioning towards the couch.

“I wanted to go say hello to the girls.” Dom pointed toward the kitchen.

His dad waved him off. “There’ll be plenty of time for that, plus they’re busy with dinner. The two of you tell us all about the Renegades.”

Dom and Kaden settled on the couch, and the young boys swarmed around them, sitting at their feet. “Uncle Dom, I just know you guys are going to win tomorrow night.”

“We certainly plan to,” Kaden answered.

“So, which one of you will be playing in goal?” Dom’s dad asked.

“I hope Dom will, seeing how it’s his homecoming and all,” Kaden said.

“Right, they do take that into consideration,” Angelo said. “In my day they always played the hometown boy.”

“Sure, they try to, but if one of the goalies is on a roll, they tend to go with him,” Dom answered. His dad used to play goalie in the professional hockey league, and so did his grandad.

“You hate to mess with a winning streak,” Michael added.

“Wait a minute,” Kaden interrupted, looking like he was putting the puzzle pieces together. “Michael Angelo Zanetti. Angelo Zanetti. Dominic Zanetti. I’m sitting in the same room as the Zanetti Legacy. Holy shit… I mean
shoot
. Sorry.” He looked with red cheeks at the young boys.

Vincent spoke up. “It’s nothing they haven’t heard before; they play ice hockey, remember?”

“True,” Kaden said with a laugh.

“You’re heading back to Pittsburgh after the game?” Robert asked.

“Yeah, they don’t give us a lot of time, but we’re lucky we had the day today,” Dom said.

As much as he enjoyed seeing his family, he was preoccupied with his personal life. He couldn’t get the conversation he had earlier with Hailee off his mind. There were things she had said that made no sense to him, and he was hoping his sisters might be able to shed some light on it. After all, they had spent the day with her right before she left him.

“Time to wash up, men, dinner is ready!” Maria called excitedly.

“C’mon Kaden, I’ll show you where the washroom is.” Dominic led Kaden out of the living room. He could hear the boys wrestling and their dads yelling at them to cut it out and get washed up.

They joined the rest of the family in the dining room.

“Hey, baby bro.” Anna gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek. “Missed you.”

Rosalina grabbed him next, taking her turn to hug him. His sisters looked like they could be twins, but they were actually three years apart. Both with dark hair and eyes, there was no question of their Italian heritage.

“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to come in and say hello yet,” Dom said. “This is Kaden O’Conner.”

“Hi Kaden.” Anna waved. “No worries, Dom. I had to help get dinner together.”

“Looks great, by the way, Anna, Rosalina, Mom,” Dominic said as his dad and brothers-in-law dug into the ravioli.

“Thanks honey,” his mom said. “But you better eat before it gets cold.”

Dom was well aware that the men in his family were always served before his mom and sisters were; that was just how things were, even though it never seemed right to him. He was reminded again how his parents still clung to some of those old traditions, but that stuff wouldn’t fly in Dom’s world.

“Dom, can you cook like this?” Kaden asked. “’Cause apparently we should be eating better than we are.” He stuffed his face full of ravioli and sauce.

Angelo spoke up with a mouth full of meatball. “Cooking is more of a woman’s job. Dom needs to concentrate on his game.” His dad was very traditional, but Dom had picked up plenty of cooking tips from his mom over the years.

“I can cook, and you’re right. When we get back we’ll start eating better.” Dom missed the home cooked meals, and didn’t mind offering to cook, even with the sideways glance he got from his dad.

Dinner was full of questions about the professional hockey league from the boys, and his dad and grandad making sure they were eating right, getting enough rest, and being the best goalies they could be. The Italian feast was delicious; he hadn’t eaten like this in a long time.

Once the meal was over, his mom started to clear the plates. Dom got up to help, and she sat him back down. “Dominic has always been such a gentleman, always wants to help out, but clearing the table is women’s work. You boys sit and talk. We’ll bring out dessert.”

Kaden gave him a weird look at the comment from his mom. Dom just shrugged. He couldn’t justify the old school way his family acted, but it was their way to act, even if he didn’t buy into “woman’s work”.

“Rosalina.” Dom caught her as she was gathering some of the dishes off the table. “After dessert, you think you and I could drink our coffee out on the porch so we can talk?”

“Um, yeah, sure. Everything okay?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

“I just need some sisterly advice.” He asked Rosalina because she was the younger of the two. She wasn’t close to his age, but might have more insight on what happened with Hailee. Hopefully.

Dessert consisted of strawberry custard pie, homemade Tiramisu, and chocolate amaretti cake, then after dinner coffee. Kaden looked with wide eyes and a trace of horror at the table full of sweets.

“Kaden, that look!” Dom laughed. “You don’t have to eat them all; I actually encourage you not to. I suggest the Tiramisu. Sorry Mom, too much rich food isn’t good during the season.” He patted his belly.

After inhaling a small piece of Tiramisu, Kaden was dragged by the boys into the basement to hit the puck around.

Dom grabbed a cup of coffee. “Rosalina?”

“Sure. Ma, Dom and I are taking our coffee out to the porch.” Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed her cup and followed him outside.

“So what’s up, little bro? Girl trouble?”

Dom shook his head. “Rosa, I need to know what I did to drive Hailee away.”

“You’re still on that girl?” She took a sip of coffee, but the look in her eye told him she knew more than she was saying.

Steam poured off his mug in the cool night air. “I ran into her in Pittsburgh. She was mad at me for trying to take care of her, or some shit like that. She keeps talking about—”

“Wait, she’s in Pittsburgh?” Rosalina’s eyes grew wide.

“She is. I was pretty surprised, too.” His stomach twisted; he didn’t feel good about this conversation. “I have to ask, what did you girls talk about when you spent the day together that last day?” The day that she was supposed to accept his proposal.

His sister looked into her coffee mug, then took a drink, avoiding his eyes.

“Rosa, please. Something changed that day. Hailee shut me out completely, and I have no idea what I did. She keeps saying over and over that she can’t be the type of girl I need her to be. What is she talking about?”

“Dom, why are you even worried about this? Are you trying to get her back?”

“Rosa, I’m simply trying to understand what happened. She refuses to talk to me about it.” His body started to get hot, even in the chilly Canadian air. He was tired of the runaround. Of all people, he thought his sister Rosa would open up to him.

“Don’t be mad.”

That got his attention. He looked at her with a frown. “About what? Rosa, explain what I am not supposed to get mad about.”

His sister winced. “It might have been something we said.”

“We?”

“Anna and I. We were having a really nice day with her, getting her all prepped and pretty for your big dinner. You have to understand that we really liked Hailee. We were looking forward to her being our new sister. But we needed her to understand how things are in our family.”

“I’m confused. How things are in our family? What does that even mean?”

“We were telling her that Zanetti women take care of their men and families. We don’t have careers; we don’t need them. We cook, we clean, we raise the kids. And when it came to you being in the professional hockey league someday, she and your children would follow you from city to city, which also makes holding down a career difficult.”

Heat rose up Dom’s chest and neck, but he took a deep breath to try to calm himself. “And what did Hailee say about that?”

“She kept saying she wanted to own an art gallery or something like that. But we told her that would be hard to do, moving from city to city. Especially if she had a family to take care of.”

“Her dream…” The pieces started to come together. The art gallery, the one she was working her ass off to fund. All on her own.

Rosa shrugged. “I don’t think she was happy with that answer. She started to get antsy and a bit nervous, if I remember right. I tried to explain it’s just what we do. We are homemakers. You’d bring home the paychecks and she’d be waiting for you. She didn’t need a career.”

Dom groaned inwardly. “You actually said that to her?”

“Well, yeah.” Rosalina looked at him with a wary expression.

He rubbed a hand down his face in frustration. “Rosa, you know me better than that. I’m not like Dad. I never wanted Hailee to give up on her dreams.”